French cinema’s golden couple

The stars will be centre stage at the Cannes film festival, even if parenthood keeps them from taking place of honour on the red carpet A film festival requires its talented “golden couple” almost as much as its long red carpet – and at Cannes the prospect of a pair of glamorous homegrown lovers is especially tantalising. So whether the sun shines on the Côte d’Azur or not, hopes are high for an appearance from the Oscar-winning Marion Cotillard and her partner, the acclaimed writer, director and actor Guillaume Canet. Cotillard has been invited as one of the stars of the film that will open the festival, Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris . Taking the role of the “muse” in Allen’s celebration of the city and its myths , she will feature alongside France’s first lady, Carla Bruni, and the Hollywood A-listers Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams. Cotillard, who first came to international attention four years ago as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose , sent Batman fans across the world into a spin with the announcement that she is to appear opposite Christian Bale in director Christopher Nolan’s next comic strip outing, The Dark Knight Rises . Nolan, who worked with Cotillard on Inception , claims she will be playing a Bruce Wayne employee called Miranda Tate, but there is a growing suspicion that this might not be the whole truth. “My role is a secret, as is the whole project,” Cotillard has said. What is clear, however, is that later this year the 35-year-old actress from Orléans will follow up her acclaimed screen performance as a sexually polymorphous tease in Canet’s latest hit, Little White Lies , with an English-language role in Steven Soderbergh’s new thriller Contagion , in which she will star with Kate Winslet and Matt Damon. Hot duo they may be, but there is a strong chance that Cotillard and Canet’s admirers will be disappointed when they gather along the Croisette for the Allen premiere, because the couple are involved in another pressing joint production: the arrival of their first child. Last week, in the pristine pages of Madame Figaro , Cotillard described being pregnant as “perfect happiness”. Even the occasionally maudlin Canet, 38, has admitted that he is “really ready to be a dad”. Apart from his burgeoning reputation as a director and screenwriter, he can be seen in British cinemas in Farewell , a cold war thriller based on the true story of a KGB spy who leaked information to the west. Later this spring he is to appear again, this time as the long-lost flame of Keira Knightley in a romantic set piece called Last Night . As bright young stars, Canet and Cotillard now seem to be shining at full beam. Cotillard is already talked of with awe by the established names of the film-making elite. Leonardo DiCaprio, her co-star in Inception , has dubbed her “one of the greats”, while Nicole Kidman, a fellow cast member in Rob Marshall’s Fellini update, Nine , has noted her “fairy quality”. For the film writer David Thomson, Cotillard’s eyes, “always on the point of weeping”, suggest that “nearly everything she can think of is tinged with grief or regret”. Canet, in turn, is now regarded as a great hope for the commercial future of French cinema ( Little White Lies sold 5.5 million tickets in France). The director grew up in the countryside beyond Paris and his parents, who were horse breeders, divorced when he was young. As a discontented teenager he went off to join a circus for a year before eventually studying acting in Paris. His directorial debut, Mon Idole , was a comic study of the entertainment business, while his appearance in the English-language film version of Alex Garland’s The Beach earned him an international profile. In 2003, he made the dry romantic comedy Love Me If You Dare , in which he starred with Cotillard. And then came the big hit: his sharp and stylish thriller Tell No

Posted by on May 7, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.