It’s a movie trope that when a character dies, their head will turn suddenly to the side, their eyelids snapped close, signaling they have left the world and the movie in a most comedic fashion – even though it’s meant to be dramatic. And that’s just how Talia al Ghul went out, finishing an otherwise welcome performance in absurd enough fashion that it got huge laughs at the screening I attended and still bugs star Marion Cotillard to this day.
In the scene in question, a crash finds Talia al Ghul facing Batman, Catwoman and James Gordon, the daughter of Ra’s jammed in the driver’s seat with her chin tucked to her sternum. Facing the three, Talia utters, “There’s no way this bomb will be stopped. Prepare yourselves. My father’s work is done.” (Note that I’ve spared you of the “dramatic” pauses here.) Then, she closes her eyes, turns her head and croaks. You can almost see the disbelief in the faces of Christian Bale, Anne Hathaway and Gary Oldman. Nowadays, Cotillard feels the same. As she told French series Les rencontres du Papotin (via Variety), “I didn’t nail that scene…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.”
Cotillard has been openly critical of that scene, having previously stated, “Sometimes there are failures, and when you see this on screen, you’re thinking: ‘Why? Why did they keep that take?’ But either you blame everyone or nobody. But I thought people overreacted because it was tough to be identified just with this scene. 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.”
The Dark Knight Rises no doubt has its strong scenes but it’s things like Talia al Ghul’s corny death – along with Bane’s virtually unintelligible voice and cluttering too much into a finale and… – that ultimately hurt it. You can almost see why Christopher Nolan has left superhero movies behind…
More than a decade removed, how do you think Marion Cotillard’s performance as Talia al Ghul holds up? Give us a nod and let us know below.
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