Marion Cotillard is the August cover girl for Interview Magazine. I love the cover – and the rest of the photo shoot (here) is really lovely. Marion is a gorgeous woman, and the camera loves her, I’ve never doubted that. What I do doubt, however, if just how eccentric Marion is. I’ve mentioned this before, when I attempted to cull some highlights from Marion’s Vogue cover interview – this chick is strange, and it’s not all just “lost in translation”. Much like Sarah Jessica Parker, I think Marion tries too hard to be eccentric, but unlike SJP, I think Marion comes by her strangeness more legitimately, you know? Like, it’s less of an affectation and more that Marion has always been a strange duck, and she just plays that up for effect in interviews.
The interview is conducted by Nicole Kidman, and the whole piece is worth a read (here). Here are some highlights:
KIDMAN: I remember everyone on the set said the same thing about you. I know Rob [Marshall] said it on Nine: that you’re otherworldly, that it seems like you come from another planet—and I mean that in the most beautiful way. And yet you are the most Earth-based of all of us. That’s a very strange paradox. You have this fairy quality, like you’re flitting through trees and stars, and then at the same time, you’re really grounded. It’s very hypnotic . . . You don’t have to respond to that. I’ll say that!
COTILLARD: [laughs] I think the Earth and everything around it is connected—the sky and the planets and the stars and everything else we see as a mystery. I think we connect when we accept that the mystery is also taking place here on the ground. We live on Earth and have jobs and interact in society, but we still exist because there is a moon rotating around us, and a sun we rotate around.
COTILLARD: I think searching is a beautiful thing. There is this thought that goes, If you search and search and stop searching, then ultimately you’ll find what you need. But I think maybe if you don’t search you wouldn’t have the experience of searching and then won’t find it at all. You have to search first, if you know what I mean. It’s the experience of living. We can have one experience that can change our whole lives. I saw a documentary recently about a guy who was attacked by a shark. He was very injured and almost died. After this, he went all over the world killing sharks. Then an even bigger fear entered his mind: “I have killed so many of them. If I go on killing sharks, maybe one day they will all disappear.” The fear of his being responsible for the extinction of sharks made him change, and he then became a defender of sharks.
KIDMAN: Wow.
On Inception:
COTILLARD: I love the story because it has a beautiful balance between an action movie and a movie about dreams. I have a very busy nightlife in my dreams. [laughs]
KIDMAN: It’s about being able to enter people’s dreams and control them, isn’t it?
COTILLARD: Cobb [Leonardo DiCaprio’s character] is a specialist in entering people’s dreams. He tries to steal things out of them and manipulate the dreamer’s unconscious. It’s really an interesting idea to enter someone else’s dreams. I would love to be able to do that.
KIDMAN: I couldn’t bear it if anyone was privy to my dreams. It would be like reading my diary.
COTILLARD: You know what? I would love to go into an animal’s dream—like a lion’s or a cat’s. I’m sure that’s pretty awesome.
KIDMAN: I love that feeling when you wake up after a nightmare and go, “Oh, it’s not happening,” when it’s been so vivid and so real. I love that moment when you realize it was just a dream. Then there are those, which I had a lot of when I was young, where you wish that the dream had been real.
COTILLARD: Like flying in dreams . . .
[From Interview Magazine]
Blah. Since this piece was boring as hell, I’d like to share my thoughts on Inception. I saw it over the weekend, and I did like it. However, I didn’t think it was the Second Coming, you know? The way the critics were getting hot and bothered for it, I thought it was going to be the most amazing film in years – and it just wasn’t. It was visually beautiful, it had a solid story and solid performances by all of the actors, especially Ken Watanabe, Ellen Page and Tom Hardy. My problems with it were about the over-wrought “love” story that SPOILER didn’t make much technical sense in the end, and Marion’s performance was… stilted, to me at least. You know what the love story reminded me of? That suckfest Clooney movie, Solaris. Anyway, who else is with me? It was good, but not mind-blowingly awesome.
Photos courtesy of Interview Magazine.
The interview is a little blah, but I like Marion. I think she’s gorgeous, and a little kooky, but totally agree it’s not fakey like SJP.
I HATED Solaris, so any love story is better than that movie. While the Inception love story was the least interesting part of the film for me, it was still interesting, and at times incredibly creepy. Loved the movie, want to see it again.
My brother says mind blowing, but I’m with you kaiser. Really good but not that great. Comparatively speaking with the other craptastic movies out this summer it is a critic’s dream.
Marion is more interesting than most, but not truly eccentric either. And who thought Nicole Kidman would be a good interviewer? Has Interview gone that far downhill and I haven’t noticed?
I thought Inception was very, very cool, but flawed. I thought there were some holes in it but I enjoyed. I actually thought Marion was great and that Ellen Page was kind of flat. I don’t know about Marion’s weirdness but she is really beautiful, in a unique way…not in a typical Hollywood cookie cutter way. I thought she was great in Public Enemies. Still have La Vie En Rose on my netflix and haven’t watched it yet.
She is so talented and so beautiful, but I have to agree not really eccentric.
Besides, isn’t being eccentric just a rich person’s version of crazy? If she were poor I would not consider her crazy so that negates the eccentric label for me.
Like the Jackson family might be eccentric. Well, maybe bat shit crazy. Would the Osbournes be eccentric perhaps?
The hotness is strong in this one.
I LOLed when I got done reading the article and you were like “Blah, this was boring.” I like Marion. She seems fine.
I am trying to not get in like major arguments with people over Inception (I have slipped up one or five times). I went to see it with my friend who fell asleep half way through it and woke up towards the end so I clearly couldn’t discuss it with him afterward. I feel it was a terrific film and I was really in to it, I wanted to see it again right after it was over, it was that amazing. It had everything, amazing acting, action, romance, and laughter. I cried during one scene. OMG how effing amazing was Joesph Gordan Levitt. He played Arthur spectacularly. The theater I was in everyone like gasped at the ending. I thought it was an awesome movie, best I had seen in awhile. I just hate the backlash started so early, I mean at least wait until award season but I feel like thats what happens when anything gets alot of hype. Awww well. I thought Marion played Mal very well.
I loved Inception. But the love story, not so much.
I didn’t buy Leo as a doting dad desperate to return to his kids. I loved everyone else – Ellen Page, Ken Wannatabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt (who grew up hot by the way!), et all. Great team flick! But the part of the kids felt forced.
I didn’t read the article cause I’m afraid of possible Inception spoilers. Just wanted to say that Marion is an amazing actress and an amazingly beautiful woman and if you haven’t seen her film Love me if you dare, you really should!
I thought Inception was good but definitely not the mind blowing hoo-ha the critics are making it. A lot of critics said “You have to see it five times to truly get the depth!” Really? I don’t think so. Good movie, sure, and some pretty cool effects with an ending that makes you wonder a bit, but that’s all really. I don’t think I’d want to see it again.
I saw INCEPTION Sunday night and loved it. I am talking to others who have seen it and they edify my interpretation and they make sense. I am with Roger Ebert who said it was a movie cut from whole cloth and different from formula movies–I agree. It is definitely a movie to go see. BTW I went to see AVATAR in flat and 3-D and was like its marketing director until someone explained why it was not the movie of all times. I agree. AVATAR is just a movie not GOAT.
Mal’s character was necessarily stilted–she existed in many of the scenes as a projection, and in others, as a deeply perturbed individual. We are only to imagine that she was a lovely wife, mother, etc. The “real” Mal didn’t appear in the movie (only somewhat if we are to assume Cobb’s memories of their dreams together are accurate, pre-meme.(look up Dan Dennett and “Dangerous Memes”).
And yes, Marion is beautiful! and funny! go to FunnyOrDie and check out “Forehead Tittaes”.
Saw Inception on Sunday & thought it was pretty amazing. I agree with Marion, it WOULD be really interesting to go into a cat’s dream!
@Love Angelina: I totally agree about Joseph Gordon-Levitt. He was abolutely my favorite character and omylord, he can ROCK a suit! *drools* LOL!!
lol, i saw the interview cover and was like “takashi murakami where????” you want strange mixed with beautiful and crazy shit read his books. so beautiful makes me want to learn japanese just to read it in the original form.
totally unrelated, sorry!
I am on the iPod so if I’m less coherent than usual that’s why. ITA with you Kaiser. After just seeing inception it was good but not incredible.
Spoilers
The ending was frustrating. they spent all this time explaining and working out the rules of the first three levels, but the way that dicaprios character saved wantabe in the last level was completely unclear. It was a magical ending in that everything worked out fine but we didn’t know why. Did those guys spend decades down there in those few moments and why were they fine without lasting effects coming out of it? Was it all a dream or did Nolan deliberately leave it vague by only suggesting that the top would stop? I felt like the film spent so much time laying out the rules of the dream realm but couldn’t be bothered to stick to those rules or use them to explain how everyone got out. I’ll go read eberts review now and see what he has to say. Maybe it will make more sense to me.
SPOILER!!
I disagree CB, they did stick to the rules as explained. Limbo was pure subconscious and the problem with it was that it meant you couldn’t distinguish reality from surreality. By meeting with Sato (who had allowed himself to be almost taken over by Limbo and therefore grow old in his mind there) Cobb and Sato served as reminders to each other to fight back up through to reality and thereby making sure Sato didn’t lose his mind by the final “kick”.
The very last scene was deliberately ambiguous. There is an awful lot of ambiguity in the film and I think, in this case, it’s built-in. Like Withnail & I, it’s one of those films that improves with repeated viewings – but I’ve not had the chance to test that yet.
I can understand how Inception might not be many people’s cup of tea- I for example think that “Gone With the Wind” is the most overrated twaddle I’ve ever had to suffer – but I do think it’s because it probably suits some people’s viewing. Personally I’m the type who always over-analyses as I’m watching and much prefer films that make demands on my concentration and intellect. I enjoy nothing more than sitting down after a film and debating it.
Strangely I found the story clearer than most dramas as there was no real twist, a very simple but relevant subplot.
Incidentally, mink is absolutely right about Mal, Cotillard’s character. She’s stilted not because of Cotillard’s performance, but because she’s not a “real” character – only an edited memory.
COTILLARD: You know what? I would love to go into an animal’s dream—like a lion’s or a cat’s. I’m sure that’s pretty awesome.
It depends on the cat, my dear. Entering into the dreams of the despot that rules my parents’ house would be terrifying! 😯
Hey Kaiser, I loved the movie but there were a lot of annoying things too. The dead wife / love story angle (did anyone see shutter island?) and elen page’s concern for leo felt forced too. Like they were debating making her a love interest for Leo’s character but then didn’t.
Aw I love her, even if she is a little weird. She was fantastic in Inception, I thought. She was creepy and beautiful and sad all at the same time, it was mesmerising. I thought the film was fantastic. It had some minor minor flaws, but they couldn’t detract from the awesomeness.
Here’s a link to a really great interview with the actor who plays Yusuf (the chemist). He basically explains all the rules and whose dream is whose and how they got out at the end. It’s a great read! http://nymag.com/daily/entertainment/2010/07/inceptions_dileep_rao_answers.html
marion is gorgeous – hopefully she will learn from nicole’s frozen face to lay off the botox.
I love how Nicole Kidman manages to talk about herself in every answer. LOL.
SPOILERS
@Mairead – thank you! That makes a more sense to me now. So a few hours in that level of subconscious can make a person feel old and as if they’ve experienced decades. I was comparing that final scene to the story that Cobb told about how he spent decades with Moll down there. I didn’t get why it made a difference if he was able to catch up with Sato at the very end, especially when they didn’t show how he “saved” him. My husband explained to me that they technically wouldn’t need a “kick” to wake up down there, because that’s the bottom and they’re getting a kick from the higher levels, which of course makes logical sense but didn’t occur to me when I was watching it. I kept wondering how he saved him exactly and why it made a difference if they met up in very old age.
Plus, when Cobb explained the time he spent down there with Moll they “died” as young people on the train tracks, which is shown as pushing them back to reality and planting the idea in her head as she woke up. (Dying at that deep level may not necessarily wake them up, according to the rules, but they’re shown waking at that point.) However, Cobb also said they grew old together down there – but when they died, they were young.
Now, I know these are dreams but I want to understand the logic of that world as Nolan constructed it. I know it’s somewhat fluid and things change at whim, etc. So it would make sense that people can age and get young again, but apart from that inconsistency it was never explained.
Pretty woman, yes. Eccentric, no. I think she sounds like she is in love with the idea of being different rather than truly being different.
I loved Inception and thought it was brilliant, and the “love story” wasn’t supposed to be a “love story”, so no wonder you wouldn’t like it if you’re thinking that’s what it is. It is more about his intense grieving and guilt and regret, and how his subconscious has created Mall in terms of that. It’s like when JGL told Ellen that she was lovely in real life, but all we see is this crazy person (which Marion did wonderfully I thought), it’s because that is his projection of all his guilt and regret over what happened with them – over his inception of her.
There were some holes in I think, but not enough to really affect the quality of the movie. There are some amazing theories out there over what it all means. I definitely want to see it again to look for things I may have missed. I feel like it’s one of those unraveling movies.
Im with you. It was very good, great for this summer but its not the best thing ever like some critics are saying. It felt contrived like it was trying too hard to be confusing. The ending was ridiculous, they should have just shown it stop spinning or not. Everyone laughed and groaned in my theater not in a good way.
It was great but not enough to watch 5 times. I understood it the first time. Plus Leo? It was like his Shutter Island all over again
Cant wait to watch SALT this week!!
This “interview” is vomit inducing
Joesph Gordan Levitt is the hotness! Rockin’that suit hard.
@ CB, that’s my understanding of it. And remember, because Cobb had spent so long in Limbo before, it was populated with his and Mal’s creations.
Sato was in his mansion because he wasn’t properly trained to go into dreams like Ariadne, for example, and didn’t know the rule of “not creating from memory” – because that was the best way of losing yourself into the alternative reality. That would have hastened Sato’s aging process as he gave himself more into the mock reality in Limbo which races ahead of “real time” at a phenomenal rate. Cobb had only aged slightly by the time of the meeting as he knew he was in limbo and was more immune to its effects. Exactly how he found Sato, I’m not sure, but I presume Cobb assumed Sato would imagine what he knew and worked from there.
Also I’ve said it before, but I’d also pay attention to names – they all have a relevance and help explains everyone’s role and impetus. Cobb was The Prisoner trapped in a strange reality, Ariadne was the weaver of Ancient Greek myth, Yusuf is a dream interpreter. I don’t know the relevance of all, but the Mal character reminds me of Hel in “Metropolis”.
*SPOILERS*
Just got back from Inception. Such a great movie (though overtly Hollywood). I agree with S – I didn’t see a “love story” in as much as I saw psychosis. Inventing a completely different reality to cope with a deep and pervasive guilt. I thought it was fascinating.
As much as I love Ellen Page, I think they lost her character. She was flat and ineffectual. I think they could have revealed Cobb’s detrimental state of mind without her character. I was really upset when she abruptly violated his psyche via lullabyland – and the fact that it was never addressed that she did so! But then again, I guess they wouldn’t have the 5th member to pull Cobb back from the brink at the final subconscious level.
MrMissy didn’t like all the Hollywood special effects. He felt like scenes like the ski chase were unnecessary and detracted from the psychological impact of the movie. I thought the action sequences did a good job of conveying the panic and claustrophobia you feel at the tale end of a violent/dramatic dream. Not so much the visceral sensation, but the visual scale of destruction. (That, and I f’en love explosions in the movie theater!)
Overall, it was much better than I was anticipating. Very Jungian – very psychosexy. Couldn’t help but picture all of the costars as “projections” of the protagonist Cobb from the word go. I’d love to see it again, this time trying to compartmentalize all the characters. I probably wouldn’t pay to see it, but I’ll netflix it. (Or risk revoking my summer movie privileges and sneak in.)
ETA – I thought Marion did an excellent job emoting a deep-seated Resentment. If you perceive her as a projection as Dicaprio’s own guilty conscious, her direction makes a lot more sense.