Marion Cotillard Sings Piaf
Can I give a little shout out to
Marion Cotillard for her incredibly classy, impromptu backstage performance after her best actress win?
First off, I have to say that while I was rooting for
Julie Christie (
Away from Her), I wasn't the least bit sorry to see Cotillard win for
La Vie en Rose: Her performance as French singer Edith Piaf was flat-out amazing, and I hope her win will encourage some people who might not otherwise have bothered with the film to rent it. I have a feeling her win was the result of academy voters catching up with the movie late in the day and being blown away by it.
Piaf's life was the stuff of old Hollywood melodrama -- childhood abandonment, life-threatening illness, bad men, drugs, alcohol, despair... -- and Cotillard gets it all on screen without descending into cliche.
And then, to cap it all off, as she was doing her backstage interviews she sang the chorus of "Padam... Padam" -- classic Piaf about a song so haunting that that it very nearly drives the singer insane.
Cotillard can sing, and it was a great moment:
