The teacup-eyed beauty that is Marion Cotillard is arguably one of the finest actresses working in cinema today. Currently one of only two female performers in history to win a Leading Actress Oscar in a foreign language picture, she has transitioned between genres and, even more impressively, languages.
She is stunning critics and arthouse audiences alike once again with her remarkable work in Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne’s exquisite Palme d’Or contender Two Days, One Night which is out now in select cinemas and available to watch on-demand through Curzon’s new Home Cinema function.
To celebrate the release of this fantastic film, we select Six of the Best Marion Cotillard performances.
Midnight in Paris
The ever-prolific Woody Allen stopped off in the French Capital during his European tour for a spot of vaudevillian charm and wonder with his 2011 title Midnight in Paris. The comedy sees a wide-eyed nostalgian Owen Wilson transported back to the fun and frolics of 1920s culture at the strike of the witching hour. Here he meets Cotillard’s Adriana and the pair quickly strike up an emotive bond.
The actress beautifully immerses herself in the tone and textures of the era and provides wonderful lashes of comedy to match the warmth of her identity. Originally introduced as Pablo Picasso’s mistress, Allen provides her character with a dense back-story yet never over-indulges. Instead she – and indeed the actress – is free to blossom in the environments, soaking up every last drop of ethereal wonder. Adriana has a longing to live in the past, just like Wilson’s screenwriter Gil. The difference is he is right where he wants to be whilst her heart lies in the 1890s.
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!