French News Ecstatic About Best Actress Oscar Win

The French national news last evening was ecstatic that a French woman, Marion Cotillard (pronounced co- tee- yard) won the Best Actress Oscar the previous night. They spent about 10 minutes talking about Ms. Cotillard, who starred in the role of Edith Piaf, the well known French singer in the movie “La Vie en Rose”. This was the first such win for a French woman in about 50 years when Simone Signoret also won the best actress Oscar. What makes this win even sweeter is that Signoret's Oscar was for an English speaking role, while Cotillard's role was in French. A couple of other Oscar's were won by French people on the night for non-acting efforts. The total of 3 Oscar's in one year is a huge boost for French film making.

I learned that Ms. Cotillard is 32 years of age, and she certainly looked stunning at the Academy Awards in her designer gown. In fact I would say that the word stunning is an understatement. If you saw the Oscars show you know what I mean.

We haven’t seen the film yet- I think it came out when we were in France last year. We will either see it in a theater if it comes out again or rent the DVD. I’ve heard from a fellow Francophile that it is an excellent film. In France the film was released with the title “La Môme”. “La Vie en Rose” is actually the name of one of Piaf’s well known songs.

La Môme is a slang word in French, and I believe the best translation might be “The Brat”, although not having seen the film, this is only an educated guess. According to my French-American dictionary it could also mean “The Kid”. I recall a song by the French singer Renaud when we lived there in the 80’s that had the word in a title. In that case it meant “little kid” if memory serves. In fact I think the song may have been about one of his children.

Perhaps a French reader of this post might be so kind as to clear this up with a comment.

This is a bit ironic in a way. If you read down several posts you’ll see one about a Time cover story recently which argued that French culture is essentially dead, and that French films in particular are only being made for the French market. It looks like the Motion Picture Academy in the U.S. disagrees.

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