Best Actress

[Damien]

Bill Maher tonight had the perfect response to Marion Cotillard's US government 9/11 conspiracy theory:

George Bush wasn't imvplved in 9/11: BECAUSE IT WORKED!


And also, because IT INVOLVED PLANNING!

[dreaMaker]

I totally believe the Anglican Church had something to do with "Princess" Diana's death. So yeah, her comments are silly but kind of endearing.

God, I read Anglican Church as Anton Chigurh.

LOL, so did i

[Damien]

avril, have you ever heard of the concept of punctuation?

[avril94]

Much ado about nothing it was taken out of context it will be forgotten quickly her next movie is with Michael Mann, Johnny Depp and Christian Bale probably an oscar contender in 2009. Plus she can have an international career not just hollywood films, 95% of the movies hollywood release every year are crap anyway.

[Big Magilla]

Apology accepted. Let's move on.

[OscarGuy]

Cotillard Apologizes...

Oscar Winner Cotillard Apologizes


Oscar-winning actress Marion Cotillard maintains that her comments about the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center were "taken completely out context and [have] been crafted into a story that has no merit." Appearing on the syndicated TV show Access Hollywood, Cotillard was asked about her 2007 comments in which she appeared to suggest that the attacks were staged. "At no point did I intend to contest the horrific attacks of September 11, 2001, one of the most tragic days in all of history," she said. "Nonetheless, I sincerely regret if my comments offended or hurt anyone."

[Steph2]

the problem isn't with rank-and-file people working with banks (though surely there are some crooks among that number too, as there are almost anywhere), but with the heads, the bankers and other major players in finance capital. It is in their interest, to their benefit as a class, that we have the wars and unrest we have.

You better be careful. You're making way too much sense for some people on this board. Even if you don't have one, someone might threaten to revoke your Oscar.

[Johnny Guitar]

I knew that one stew my mom cooked when I was 12 tasted funny. Must've been puppy fetus mixed with day-old infant.

My own mother only served organic, free range infant.

... Seriously, though, as I hoped was clear, the problem isn't with rank-and-file people working with banks (though surely there are some crooks among that number too, as there are almost anywhere), but with the heads, the bankers and other major players in finance capital. It is in their interest, to their benefit as a class, that we have the wars and unrest we have.

[ITALIANO]

And I'm not saying Cotillard is right or brilliant. But what has conditioned some of us to react so violently towards her, and to even ascribe to her ideas & opinions she did not express?

But exactly, this is the point.

[ITALIANO]

Ha, Marco, don't you miss the good old days when leftist French actresses came in the shape of Simone Signoret, and the American film community, Reagan and his evil gang excluded, was liberal enough to embrace her, knowing all about her politics, her trip to the USSSR, her involvement in producing The Crucibles in Paris when it was banned in the States and so on. (And these same Academy members, who were among those who made Edith Piaf a huge star in America that same decade, got old and senile, so they confused this ultra light Sartre, sorry, Cotillard with the real Piaf, hence her Oscar).

And since I believe I don't have to prove to you I'm one of the good guys when it comes to the America vs. the world issue, I'll just say that Cotillard represented French intelligentsia in such a retard way which unsurprisingly evoked some responses, even here, of exactly the same level.

p.s. Call me.

Hehe... Come on, don't be so nostalgic, you are too young for that. Like most actors, our Marion may not be a great political thinker, but then that's not her job (and even in the great subversive 70s, for example, when actors - even American actors - talked politics, they often ended up by saying equally naive and unremarkable things). It's the reactions which I find objectively excessive.

As for her performance, I liked it better than you did, but let's face it, it's not the first time that "confusing an actor with the character" plays a role in giving an Oscar - even in giving Oscars you approved of, in the past. So I wouldn't be especially shocked if it happened even this time.

[Johnny Guitar]

Jesus, has everyone taken leave of their senses rushing to defend these comments in the hopes of not wanting to be mistaken for being reactionary or Francophobic?

Damien, who's rushing to defend the comments? Nobody is as vehement in defending them as Magilla was in denouncing them and the person who said them. The biggest defense she even got was probably from me--because I agree that, in simply expressing her skepticism that she learned from some online docs several years ago, she's asking the right questions. (And it looks like she is a conspiracy theorist, or inspired by them. BUT. This term is used as a blanket condemnation of so many things, painting someone with that broad brush doesn't really work as an "argument" so much as an epithet. Conspiracy theory isn't always a case of apophenia--sometimes it's heatlhy skepticism taken to socially unsanctioned levels. The question to ask then is why socially unsanctioned.)

Zach, what was if not to me offensive then just stupid and objectionable, is that she acquits al-Quida of any responsibility for 9/11.

Does she? Where specifically? All she does is say that she believes we have been lied to (a certainty!) and points out the economic benefits for the American stratum who owned these buildings and their insurance policies (undeniable). That al-Qaeda (there's another convenient blanket term) operatives crashed planes into the WTC and Pentagon is true enough as best we can tell. But who funded these people? Who has hidden them, helped them, and continued to fund al-Qaeda, such as it is?

The trouble is that we do not have the clash of civilizations the media tells us we have. Any real clash is competition at the elite levels. Look at it this way. What were the motives of the hijackers? That they hate America and want to perpretate a large and deeply symbolic attack on us? OK. But these hijackers, whom the media conditions us to believe are insane brown-skinned fanatics incapable of rational thought, in reality must have known--or if not them, then their masters of course--that 9/11 would in no way "hurt" America. Three thousand lives lost, yes, but do you think the defense contractors are really losing sleep over that tragedy, that collateral damage mostly of people like you or me? Of course not--it's documented, the immediate post-9/11 buzz was a field day for them, and they said so among one another. They knew what to expect, and the taxpayers have been royally robbed in order to feed the highest stratum of the private sector. And we, the American people who provide the ranks of our own victims in the World Trade Center as well as the infantry soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, pay our tax in blood and money. This is not conspiracy theory. I don't think a bunch of evil men in black suits are sitting in a round table in a subterranean lair deciding how to circumvent the efforts of G.I. Joe.

And I'm not saying Cotillard is right or brilliant. But what has conditioned some of us to react so violently towards her, and to even ascribe to her ideas & opinions she did not express?

International bankers, real estate developers, the Republican powers, the financial elite, media congomerates, and all their enablers (including Giuliani and Bloomberg) ARE pure evil. And no one who knows me would ever doubt my hard-left bona fides (my first presidential vote back in 1976 was for Socialst Workers candidate Peter Camejo). But it was none of these evil institutions that was responsible for 9/11 (although some of them may have been pleased by the events that day because they offered a wonderful opportuniting for exploitation -- and Bush/Cheney are at the top of this list).

But they are all connected! These same US elites and the very rich, ultra-conservative powers ruling the likes of Saudi Arabia are in the same class, and do have concrete ties to one another, and to one another's money. This doesn't mean there's no friction ever, no competition--but that, say, Murdoch & Turner have more in common with each other than with me.

[Uri]

Ha, Marco, don't you miss the good old days when leftist French actresses came in the shape of Simone Signoret, and the American film community, Reagan and his evil gang excluded, was liberal enough to embrace her, knowing all about her politics, her trip to the USSSR, her involvement in producing The Crucibles in Paris when it was banned in the States and so on. (And these same Academy members, who were among those who made Edith Piaf a huge star in America that same decade, got old and senile, so they confused this ultra light Sartre, sorry, Cotillard with the real Piaf, hence her Oscar).

And since I believe I don't have to prove to you I'm one of the good guys when it comes to the America vs. the world issue, I'll just say that Cotillard represented French intelligentsia in such a retard way which unsurprisingly evoked some responses, even here, of exactly the same level.

p.s. Call me.



Edited By Uri on 1204634831

[ITALIANO]

Uri, what you don't seem to understand is that the reactions to Cotillard's words - in America generally (where it was even SERIOUSLY proposed to take back her Oscar - and, I guess, give it to... Julie Christie!), and even by some on this board - is much, much worse (though of course much more interesting) than anything she may have said. This is the point. In Italy we would have just smiled, and maybe some would have even tried to see her point - wrong as she may be, only the naive can really think that it was only "Al Qaeda" (two magic words that some Americans use often - often without even knowing what Al Qaeda is).

By now anyone here knows that Big Magilla and I live in different universes. But I'm glad to see that he and Damien don't represent all America - luckily, just a part, though probably a big part, of America. (And speaking of Damien, one can go thousands of times to a foreign country, love it even, yet not understand ANYTHING AT ALL about it - except the "romantic", pleasant side of it, the surface. Some Americans are very good at this - though of course others are much more profound, curious of things, and open minded; and for example I like Steph's approach to Europe).
But seriously, Big Magilla's obsessive protection of America and of its values is pathetic, I hope we all can finally agree on this. We shouldn't even take it seriously - in Italy we would just laugh. If even the naive worlds of a French actress are enough to put him and most of his compatriots in this state of hysterical rage, then we have a further proof that America is weaker than we thought.
And Big Magilla, the French may be anti-American and arrogant and everything else, but at least they do it WITH WORDS. Your way - invading countries - is certainly more effective, and probably more politically correct, but for some reason I like it less.

[Uri]

The problem with Cotillard, is that her silly, childish take on history combined with her coquettish, too cute for her own good (or at least mine) behavior during this award season and the fact she is best friends with Amélie, amount to a not very appealing cliché. She appears like someone who, being surrounded by leftist artists and intellectuals, adopts the political trends of her milieu, but in a very superficial way. Artists may have fresh, offbeat point of view, but Stockhausen, who called the events of 9/11 the biggest work of art there has ever been, she's not.

[Damien]

Jesus, has everyone taken leave of their senses rushing to defend these comments in the hopes of not wanting to be mistaken for being reactionary or Francophobic? Cotillard's statements are naive, puerile nonsense worthy only of Lyndon LaRouche.

Zach, what was if not to me offensive then just stupid and objectionable, is that she acquits al-Quida of any responsibility for 9/11. I acknowledge that many people who join al-Quida have real and legitimate anger against the United States. But murdering one person, let alone 3,000, is not even remotely acceptable and not to be taken lightly. (It's the same reason I opposed the post 9/11 attacks on Afghanistan -- once one single innocent civiliam was killed, then the United States ceded the moral high road -- which, admittedly, given that Bush was President was never very high.) To relegate what al-Quida did into the world of conspiracy theory is ludicrous and repulsive, because to minimize the taking of human life (be it with war, terrorist attacks, the death penalty) diminishes us all.

International bankers, real estate developers, the Republican powers, the financial elite, media congomerates, and all their enablers (including Giuliani and Bloomberg) ARE pure evil. And no one who knows me would ever doubt my hard-left bona fides (my first presidential vote back in 1976 was for Socialst Workers candidate Peter Camejo). But it was none of these evil institutions that was responsible for 9/11 (although some of them may have been pleased by the events that day because they offered a wonderful opportuniting for exploitation -- and Bush/Cheney are at the top of this list). And Marion Cotillard's comments make her sound like as much of a fool as Jon Voight when he referred to Giuliani as "an angel sent from God." Being committed to lefty causes means you have to call out the idiots on your own side as much as you do the reactionaries.

As for Cotillard's assertion that the moon landing never happened, methinks she may have fallen asleep one night with the TV on when France 3 was showing Capricorn One. And Telly Savales's over-acting may have been an inspiration for her own.

I think somewhere in one of these threads I may have been called Francophobic -- a charge which would evoke gales of laughter from all my friends who make fun of my beloved and me for returning to France every year for vacation. And every year it's the same thing. "Well, maybe we should go back to Italy. Or finally see Barcelona." . . . "Nah, let's go back to France." It's also to where one day we hope to relocate.

As for Mlle. Cotillard, a mediocre performance is a mediocre performance in any language.



Edited By Damien on 1204622921