It’s fair to say that Marion Cotillard has never quite achieved the same level of success in Hollywood as she has back in France. With recent, somewhat uninspiring endeavours, from Macbeth to Allied to Assassin’s Creed, rarely has she been dealt a nuanced role quite like those we’ve seen her undertake in La Vie En Rose and Two Days, One Night. This a trend she has carried on, gifted with a layered character in Nicole Garcia’s From the Land of the Moon – and to mark the film’s release, we spent some time in Paris with the venerable writer and director.
“Marion is incredible in this movie and I don’t think she was even aware of being so good,” Garcia said. “In this movie it’s a new territory for her that she hasn’t explored for a while now, and there’s a lot of psychological fragility in this movie, combined with a strong sense of life. Since La Vie En Rose she hasn’t gone to territories that excessive, and in previous roles she wasn’t going to these extremes.”
“I had a very high opinion of this role and she achieved the idea that I had in mind. When we watch the movie we can identify with her, she becomes part of us, she’s walking on this edge and we’re afraid she might fall at one point or another. She’s really a great actress and the extreme this movie has brought her in to, revealed just how great she is.”
Garcia was a joy to interview, and while we enjoyed the conversation immensely, the sit-in translator less so, for every time she began to speak, Garcia interrupted, such was her energy and passion, this yearning to get her point across in the best possible way, with a project she clearly has so much investment in.
“There are great leaders and directors like Jane Campion who have great dramatic characters for women that get strong performances, like The Piano for instance, or Nicole Kidman in The Portrait of a Lady. Meryl Streep too, in The Hours,” she said. “Sometimes you do get that kind of movie with big dramatic characters for women, but it’s true across the Atlantic Marion hasn’t had great roles. Since she received an Oscar she wants to live the American adventure and this is legitimate because of the worldwide recognition that you get from it, but it’s true she hasn’t had the roles she was given in Europe.”
From the Land of the Moon is based upon Milena Agus’ novel, and Garcia explained to us that when she first encountered it, she instantly knew it had to be her next movie.
“A friend recommended this novel to me and once I was flying and I bought the book at an airport. As soon as we landed I called my producer and asked for the rights. It’s a bestseller, so it wasn’t easy to get the rights but finally we got them, and my producer was an enthusiastic as I was about this book.”
We asked what had changed in this adaptation that derives from the move from Italy to France, and Garcia tells us that, since the strength of the character is such a prominent aspect of this title, both in the book and now the film, narratively very little has been altered.
“Nothing has changed from moving the story from Italy to France. It’s about a woman who is scandalous, she frightens everybody because she longs for something that everybody refuses to her. People say she’s insane, and they want to put her into a psychiatric hospital. But she’s looking for a thing lots of women are; love. But it’s love that is both carnal and sacred, it’s both things she’s longing for, it’s her pursuit in life.”
“She’s very sexual but at the same time she’s driven by the mystic of love that she’s learnt about in books, nobody taught her about it. She thinks that if she cannot find what she’s looking for she may become insane, and she’ll prove other people right. So she could become insane if she doesn’t find this, this quest is really the meaning of her life.”
From the Land of the Moon is released on June 9th
I EXTREMELY disagree with the author and Garcia’s point about Marion being given bad or mediocre roles in American cinema. In Inception alone I find her character more interesting, inspired and active than in many French movies. Just because it is European cinema, it’s mean that all its characters are interesting and dramatic. Personally, I find that Marion’s characters in such a movies as Rust and Bone, Little White Lies, Mal de Pierres or It’s Just The End of The World are far more interesting and inspired than the movies’ themselves, and even then, I like her character in Inception more than most of her European roles combined. Her characters in Allied, Public Enemies, Nine and The Immigrant was also more interesting to me than many her French roles, and Talia al Ghul the The Dark Knight Rises was not at all that bad as many try to make her look like.
And lets not forget that it was American movies, and especially Christopher Nolan movies, which brough Marion true recognition and star status. In this movies most people see her for the first time, and, inspired by her performances and the quality of the movies she is in, watching her carreer and less known movies like Garcia’s. If Marion was not famous, how many people do you think would watch Mal de Pierres? Or Two Days, One Night? Or Rust and Bone? No more than your average European art-house project. But with her global recognition, all her movies become famous. Thanks to her more than even some directors.
Les Fantomes d’Ismael, for example, was chosen to open this year’s Cannes Film Festival only because Marion is in the cast list.
I know right? I wholeheartedly agree with everything you right here. I wish I could upvote that comment more. When I read the very sentence of this article, I was like WTF? Not only it’s not fair to say that Marion Cotillard has never quite achieved the same level of success in Hollywood as she has back in France, it’s actually completely false. Roles and performances as the ones she gave in Nine, The Immigrant, Macbeth, Inception, Public Enemies, Midnight In Paris only to name a few not only have been met with universal critical acclaim but also have led her to major awards and nominations. And Macbeth ranks among her uninspiring endeavours? Whatever.
There have never, like literally never been a French actress, from Catherine Deneuve and Fanny Ardant to Emanuelle Beart and Ludivine Sagnier who has achieved a bigger success in Hollywood. Has French cinema gave her more juicy leading roles? For sure but to whose surprise? Hollywood is not that well known for giving foreign actors the chance to play the lead. But there are so many great leading and supporting roles she had in US and so much critical and commercial success that helps bring light to films like the one of Nicole Garcia.
It seems that some film reporters forgot that news from 2012, when one of the top directors in Hollywood named Christopher Nolan delayed one of the biggers American productions in history, The Dark Knight Rises, exlusively for Marion, who was pregrant at the time. This fact alone makes her the hottest French actress in modern American cinema, and without great roles and great performances this would be unachievable. I’ve counted yesterday, she worked with 22 directors who are members of Directors Guild of America, and she is among the most respectable and influential actresses in this society. And we shoud also not forget that words Michael Fassbender said about her on AOL show on Assassin’s Creed: “Everybody tries to get Marion into their films”. Obviously he meant not only French cinema, and why would Americans and British do that (want to take her into their film projects) if she wasn’t great in them before? The answer is simple: she was great in them before.
One could discuss endlessly the groundbreaking (especially for a foreign actor) achievements of her Hollywood work. The first paragraph is a complete joke.