25/02/2008

The highest Hollywood accolade went to Marion Cotillard who won the Best Actress Oscar – presented last night at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles – for her performance as Edith Piaf in Olivier Dahan’s La Vie en Rose [+see also:
trailer
film profile].

Defeating Cate Blanchett, Julie Christie, Laura Linney and Ellen Page, she thus becomes the third French actress to be awarded the famous statuette, following Simone Signoret in 1959 and Claudette Colbert in 1934. She is also the second actress in the history of the Oscars to receive the award for a role in a language other than English, following Sophia Loren in 1962.

This 80th edition of the Oscars saw France scoop two other awards as well. Didier Lavergne and Jan Archibald won Best Makeup for La Vie en Rose and Philippe Pollet-Villard’s Le Mozart des pickpockets (Karé Production) won the Oscar for Best Short Film.

There was disappointment however for Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], which didn’t triumph in any of the four categories in which it was nominated. Persepolis [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Marc-Antoine Robert
interview: Marjane Satrapi, Vincent Pa…
film profile] by Marjane Satrapi and Vincent Paronnaud also missed out on the Best Animated Film title.

Born in Paris in 1975, Cotillard made her acting debut in 1994 and has so far made 27 features. After appearing in several films, including Arnaud Desplechin’s My Sex Life...Or How I Got Into an Argument), she became known to a wider audience through the Taxi series of films.

Nominated for the 2002 Cesar for Best Female Newcomer for Pretty Things, she also appeared in Alexandre Aja’s Furia, Yann Samuell’s Love Me If You Dare, Lucile Hadzihalilovic’s Innocence, Fabienne Godet’s Burnt Out [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Rémi Bezançon’s Love Is In The Air, Richard Berry’s The Black Box and Olivier Van Hoofstadt’s Dikkenek.

After winning the Cesar for Best Supporting Actress in 2005 for Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s A Very Long Engagement, she kicked off her US film career with Tim Burton’s Big Fish (2003), followed by Ridley Scott’s A Good Year. She will continue to work stateside and is set to appear in Michael Mann’s Public Enemies alongside Johnny Depp, before starring in Rob Marshall’s musical comedy Nine (a remake of 8 1/2) alongside Javier Bardem, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Penélope Cruz.

As well as an Oscar, she has also won the Golden Globe, Cesar and Bafta for her performance in La Vie en Rose.

(Translated from French)