The scene Marion Cotillard regrets shooting: “That, I screwed up”
Of all the tremendous acting talent to have come from France since the dawn of the cinema era, there’s a strong case that Marion Cotillard is one of the very best. The Parisian first made a statement in the French film Taxi, before capturing global attention with her Oscar-winning performance as Édith Piaf in La Vie en Rose. Now, she’s just as likely to crop up in a big blockbuster as a small arthouse project. Rarified air, indeed.
One person who’s clearly a big fan of her work is Christopher Nolan. The British director has put Cotillard in two of his films: Inception, in which she played the wife of Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Dom Cobb, and The Dark Knight Rises, playing Wayne Enterprises CEO Miranda Tate. In the film’s twist ending, Tate is actually revealed to be Tahlia al Ghul, daughter of Ra’s al Ghul, the villain of the first film.
It turns out that Tahlia was the one pulling the string the entire time, overseeing her protector Bane’s (Tom Hardy) campaign of violence against Gotham City. During the movie’s dramatic, multi-part finale, she boards a truck carrying a nuclear bomb and is pursued in various vehicles by Batman and his allies. The good guys force her off the road (which somehow doesn’t detonate the bomb, but fine) and Tahlia dies as a result, but not before starting the weapon’s countdown sequence.
This sequence is a sore subject amongst Nolan and Batman fans. Many have criticised its short length, arguing that a villain of Tahlia’s stature deserved more of a chance to plead her case before popping her clogs. Cotillard’s acting also comes across as awkward. It’s hard to take her seriously when she’s slumped in a chair, mumbling out her words while not looking injured. In an overstuffed final act, the death of a key character feels greatly underserved.
Loudmouths on the internet aren’t the only people unhappy with how this moment played out. In an interview with French outlet Les rencontres du Papotin, Cotillard revealed her personal frustrations with Tahlia’s death. “I didn’t nail that scene,” she said (via Vanity Fair). “I didn’t find the right position. I didn’t find the right way… I was stressed. Sometimes it happens that you screw something up. So that, I screwed up.” In a separate conversation with AlloCiné, she said, “Sometimes there are failures, and when you see this on screen, you’re thinking: ‘Why? Why did they keep that take?’”
Even with her impressive background, The Dark Knight Rises remains one of Cotillard’s most prominent ventures. A lot of people still associate her with this disappointing death scene. “I thought people overreacted because it was tough to be identified just with this scene,” she told AlloCiné. “When I’m doing the best I can to find the authenticity in every character that I’m playing, it’s tough to be known just for this scene.”
While Cotillard’s acting isn’t the finest work of her career, there are a number of other factors at play. The aforementioned blocking really harms the scene. Tahlia is slumped in the front seat like she’s had too much to drink on a night out, which makes it very hard to feel anything other than embarrassment while watching her monologue. As a director, Nolan absolutely should have stepped in and changed this. Considering his legendary attention to detail, it’s very odd that he left her to flounder like this.
