La Vie en Rose
The film which rocketed the French actress into the Hollywood lights and lifestyle was Olivier Dahan’s sensational biopic La Vie en Rose which sees Cotillard almost effortlessly slip into the sizable shoes of vocal royalty Edith Piaf. Her performance rightfully landed her a Best Lead Actress Academy Award and remains to this day perhaps the benchmark for biographical storytelling and showcasing.
The 2007 release retells the fascinating life story of Piaf who for many, embodies France as a nation and a collective spirit. Her infamous songs – namely Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien and indeed this title – can be heard in no less than 120 feature films including Inception and Saving Private Ryan in which their uses are wholly vital to the sequence in question.
Cotillard is heartbreaking here; her naked, human and dizzyingly poetic portrayal is rendered with true poignancy and reverence, plus her vocal is spine-tinglingly gorgeous. Yet despite such an intimate depiction, she has undeniable gusto and gravitas meaning her bellows and whispers pitch with dominating decibels
Your article is amazingly great! I love all these performances by Marion, I could only replace Midnight in Paris for Nine. I’m a very big fan of Marion and I hope she will get an Oscar nomination for her magnificent performance in Two Days, One Night.
@pedropinheiroo
A terrific article indeed. Marion Cotillard is simply beyond amazing as an actress. Mere words cannot do justice to her groundbreaking talent. Frankly, I really think it’s absurd to live in a world where Marion
Cotillard has only one nomination (and a much deserved win, of couse, in
fact the most deserving in the history of Academy Awards). I mean,
really how can this even be possible? Seriously, let’s face it, Marion Cotillard
is THE GREATEST ACTRESS OF ALL TIME. That’s right, this is by no means an exaggeration. I’m a movies lover by birth, I’ve watched thousands of movies and I’ve worked as both a film critic and a screenwriter but I’ve never, literally NEVER saw an actor or actress with Cotillard’s skills. And I highly doubt I’ll ever see. In the history of time, there has
never been an actor or an actress that can reach her otherwordly talent in acting, her unmatched
technical skills, her obviously limitless depth, her level of commitment
to every role she so brilliantly portrays on screen or on stage and her
constant desire to take risks. Marion Cotillard is the definition of
acting, something like the incarnation of the word itself, she tops
every person in the history of mankind, male or female (from Daniel
Day-Lewis and Philip Seymour Hoffman to Katharine Hepburn and Meryl
Streep) who ever attempted to become an actor. With every performance
she gives, she redefines the term of acting, it’s as if she pushes
acting to a whole another level. From the legendary Edith Piaf of “La
vie en rose” and the mdisturbed Mal of “Inception” to the long-suffering
wife of Day-Lewis’ Guido in “Nine” and the emotionally shattered
amuptee from “Rust and bone”, Marion Cotillard has dedicated herself to
her craft in a way no actor/actress can ever claim he/she ever did.
She’s criminally ignored from the Academy since winning her first Oscar
back in 2008 for giving the best female performance ever in “La vie en
rose”. How can she have only one Oscar nomination and win? I mean, it
makes no sense at all. It’s not only a shame that she has never been
nominated since 2008, it’s inconceivable. How on Earth she hasn’t even
been nominated for “Nine”, but Sandra Bullock ended up winning for “The
Blind Side”? After watching her being snubbed so relentlessly for her
more than worthy of an Oscar win work in the last few years, I don’t
even want to imagine of her being snubbed again in 2015, with two PHENOMENAL performances praised so highly as the ones she gave in “The Immigrant”
and Dardennes’ latest “Two Days, One Night”. Just give her a second Oscar already, there’s not an actress whose work could possibly come close to those acting masterpieces. I really don’t care at all about which will be the film that will earn her a second Oscar, I just wish from the bottom of my heart I could watch her again on stage grabbing a much, much, much DESERVED second Oscar. This is hers. It’s her Oscar in the 2015 ceremony, if not, this will be the biggest injustice in the history of the Academy Awards. EVER.
This is an amazing article! I love Marion’s performances in those movies and can’t wait to see her in ‘Two Days, One Night’!
I agree with @pedroasp3, Cotillard’s performance in Nine should have been mentioned!