There are 3 new ‘Public Enemies‘ posters – they feature the 3 main characters portrayed by Johnny Depp, Marion Cotillard and Christian Bale. I’ve added the absolutely gorgeous poster with Marion Cotillard as Billie Frechette to the gallery! Be sure to view the poster in its full size!

01 Public Enemies – 2009 > Artwork

Despite a ‘Public Enemies‘ no-show Marion Cotillard will still be attending this year’s Cannes Film Festival! Dior and Elle Magazine are hosting a dinner in honor of Marion Cotillard during the festival. (source)

I added a ‘Public Enemies‘ background story from the San Francisco Chronicle to the press archive. The middle part is an interview with Marion. She talks about her Johnny Depp’s characters first meeting, working with Johnny and of course the American accent. Be sure to read it!

• Depp as Dillinger in ‘Public Enemies’

An exclusive behind the scenes featurette (13 minutes) PUBLIC ENEMIES: HBO FIRST LOOK will air on HBO starting Tuesday, June 18, 2009. See the complete schedule here. Please, could anyone in the US be on the lookout for any Marion footage in this feature? If there is anything new we would be so happy to have a clip for the video archive here on the site, thank you!

Oh, and Ken Watanabe and Tom Hardy joined the incredible cast for Marion’s new movie ‘Inception‘.

“My fairy tale ends in few hours,” laughed Marion Cotillard, who arrived on the arm of John Galliano clad in a blush Dior column. “I have to be in the airport as soon as the dress and diamonds come off.” – Marion Cotillard at the Costume Institute Gala

• source

from San Francisco Chronicle / by Ruthe Stein

Johnny Depp and director Michael Mann circled around John Dillinger for decades. Independently, each imagined the infamous Depression-era bank robber filling the big screen. Good-looking, sexy and charismatic, Dillinger is a role Depp was destined to play. Meanwhile, the rat-a-tat style Mann displayed in “Miami Vice” and “Heat” seems well suited to a 1930s gangster movie.

The gestation of what became “Public Enemies”- a promising summer movie pitting Dillinger against federal agent Melvin Purvis (played by Christian Bale) – began in earnest three years ago. Mann is known for working slowly, accounting for an output of just 10 movies in 30 years, and he took his time even after Depp and Bale were cast.

So how does one explain releasing “Public Enemies” at a time when people loathe banks almost as much as they did during the Depression and might cheer a bank robber, as they cheered Dillinger back then?

“The timing is an accident,” Mann said. “We couldn’t have planned it.”

All the filmmaker’s instincts told him that he had the right leading man, a feeling confirmed when he talked to Depp and found out the actor had thought about playing Dillinger for 20 years. Depp’s inspiration was a grandfather who ran home-distilled alcohol during Prohibition.

“A lot of what goes on inside Johnny Depp could be used and revealed,” Mann said. “I know there are dark currents within Johnny and also from his past life, and I know he has a lot of John Dillinger inside of him. He has a deep understanding of a troubled past and a troubled life, but is someone who is a very passionate man. He could understand those currents in unique ways.

“I’m not saying Johnny Depp was troubled,” the director clarified, but that the actor “could really empathize” with Dillinger’s troubles.

Mann is eager to defend his other star in the wake of Bale’s expletive-riddled outburst at his director of photography on the set of “Terminator Salvation.” Almost 2 million people have checked out Bale’s rant on YouTube.

There was “absolutely no” similar behavior on the “Public Enemies” set,” Mann said.

“Christian is a sweetheart to work with,” Mann insisted. “This is a guy who doesn’t even travel with assistants. I can only surmise, if something like that happened, the provocation to Christian must have been extreme and going on for a long, long time.”

Even in a shoot-’em-up there’s got to be a girl. In “Public Enemies,” she’s played by Marion Cotillard, an Academy Award winner in 2008 for her portrayal of Edith Piaf in “La Vie En Rose.”

Cotillard takes on another actual person: Billie Frechette, who was Dillinger’s girlfriend and drove a getaway car for him.

Growing up in Paris and Orléans, Cotillard had never heard of Dillinger.

“I only knew Bonnie and Clyde because of the movie,” she said.

The “Public Enemies” trailer shows Frechette meeting Dillinger much like Bonnie Parker met Clyde Barrow.

“What is it exactly you do for a living?” Frechette asks.

“I rob banks,” Dillinger replies.

“I think she was scared when he said that, but she was in love with him and, you know, almost at first sight,” said Cotillard, who did extensive research on Frechette. “The guy was very charismatic.”

She dismisses rumors that Dillinger beat up Frechette.

“I cannot picture him doing those kind of things,” she said. “He was a real gentleman.”

Listening to her praise Depp to the skies – “generous,” “amazing,” “a passionate actor” – it’s possible she may be blurring her co-star with his role.

As an example of Depp’s generosity, she talked about how supportive he was during scenes together when she was struggling to achieve a proper accent. Frechette was half French and half American Indian – so Cotillard could get away with a little bit of a French accent, but nothing as pronounced as the way she normally speaks.

“I needed many takes to have the accent right, and I was very stressed out about the whole thing because it was my first movie after ‘La Vie en Rose,’ ” she said. “Johnny was very nice and reassuring.”

Mann encouraged his cast to do research, sending Cotillard to the Menominee Reservation in Wisconsin, where Frechette had grown up, and Depp to places in the Midwest that Dillinger had passed through. The director gave Depp toiletries and shirts that Dillinger had abandoned in a close escape. In one hotel, the actor was able to touch the same doorknobs Dillinger had.

In his own research, Mann found that, although Dillinger and his gang could plan robberies in a very meticulous fashion, they couldn’t plan next month. They had no concept of the probability that if they kept robbing banks, eventually they would get caught.

“They had no plan for the future,” Mann said. “They were living for the moment.”

With Dillinger, as well as Pretty Boy Floyd and Baby Face Nelson, also portrayed in “Public Enemies,” there was a “disconnect between cause and effect. If you trusted the wrong person and got shot, it wasn’t because of an error of judgment. It just happened,” Mann said. The expressions “a bullet with your name on it” and “when your time is up” were popular in the 1930s and reflect a sense of things being out of your control.

In the same period, the FBI was forming, making use for the first time of a network of data management that made it possible to track criminals. Before then, anyone who robbed a bank in Wisconsin had to deal only with local law enforcement. This is the background for the cat-and-mouse game that ensues between Dillinger and the FBI’s Purvis.

Mann discounts the contention that “Public Enemies” glorifies Dillinger.

“He was a tough guy who killed people, absolutely, and that’s how we show him,” he said. “He wasn’t a sweetheart. But he was charming as hell, and he knew how to manipulate people.”

“Public Enemies” opens July 1 at Bay Area theaters.

Marion Cotillard’s upcoming film ‘Public Enemies‘ may contrary to rumours not get screened at the Cannes Film Festival but it will get a special world premiere at the 15th Annual Los Angeles Film Festival (June 18-28) ahead of its US release date July 1: it has just been announced that ‘Public Enemies‘ has been selected as Centerpiece Premiere. (source)

And Film.com lists Marion #8 in their “Top 10 Girls of Summer 2009″ list due to her role in the blockbuster by acclaimed director Michael Mann:

8. Marion Cotillard needed something huge to capitalize on her out-of-nowhere tour de force as sozzled songbird Edith Piaf in La Vie on Rose. Indie director Abel Ferrara’s Jesus-themed 2008 ego trip Mary was emphatically not what Marion needed. But as the gal pal of gangster John Dillinger (Johnny Depp) in Michael Mann’s opus Public Enemies, she may break out of the Gallic ghetto and into Hollywood proper. Will her feminine charm help give man’s man Mann what he needs to finally make a big-screen hit? We’re betting yes.

Well, Mary is really a 2005 production that just took a long time to be released in the States…

As previously announced, Marion Cotillard accompanied John Galliano for Dior to the Costume Institute Gala “The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York last night. She looked absolutely beautiful in my opinion. The hair and make up together with the lovely tan – probably from the Maroccan shoot for Le dernier vol – made her positively glowing. What a nice combination of elegance and natural beauty! Judge for yourself by looking at the pictures in the gallery:

37 Costume Institute Gala: The Model as Muse: Embodying Fashion

I’ve added some new movie stills to the gallery – and replaced some with better quality versions. Enjoy looking at pictures of Marion Cotillard’s characters in Taxi, Du bleu jusqu’en Amérique, Furia, La Guerre dans le Haut Pays, Taxi 2, Les jolies choses, Lisa, Big Fish, Cavalcade, La boîte noire and Dikkenek.

As announced earlier, Marion Cotillard’s movie debut (after her professional acting debut in the TV series Highlander) L’Histoire du garçon qui voulait qu’on l’embrasse (English title: The Story of a Boy Who Wanted to Be Kissed) from the year 1994 recently aired on German TV. Paolo was once again more than helpful as he recorded it and thus enabled me to provide screencaptures of this rare movie for the gallery. Marion must have been about 18 years old when this was filmed. Enjoy!

144 L’Histoire du garçon qui voulait qu’on l’embrasse
001 L’Histoire du garçon qui voulait qu’on l’embrasse – Stills

More information about the 7-minute film in support of the Lady Dior handbag: it will debut May 20 and will actually be a thriller starring Marion Cotillard. It will bring to life the famous ad campaign shot by the iconic Peter Lindbergh. So exciting!

Watch a 8-second preview below by clicking “What is she looking at?”:

Gaumont – the company producing ‘Le dernier vol‘ – lists the movie on their homepage with a picture. It’s the first picture from the movie and doesn’t the dreamy picture of Marion as aviator make you want to see the movie like right now?!