Actress Marion Cotillard Questions 9/11 Attacks
According to some French actress who won an Oscar, the 9/11 attacks were just the United States wanting to destroy a couple of big buildings that were simply too expensive:
Referring to the two passenger jets being flown into the Twin Towers, [Marion]Â Cotillard said:
“We see other towers of the same kind being hit by planes. Are they burned? They [sic] was a tower, I believe it was in Spain, which burnt for 24 hours. It never collapsed. None of these towers collapsed. And there [in New York], in a few minutes, the whole thing collapsed.”
She added that the towers, planned in the early Sixties, were an outdated “money-sucker” that would have cost more to modernise than to rebuild altogether, which is why they were destroyed.
She said: “It was a money-sucker because they were finished, it seems to me, by 1973, and to re-cable all that, to bring up-to-date all the technology and everything, it was a lot more expensive, that work, than destroying them.”
She also doesn’t believe a man walked on the moon, although I include that more as a sad attempt at comic relief:
She said: “Did a man really walk on the Moon? I saw plenty of documentaries on it, and I really wondered. And in any case I don’t believe all they tell me, that’s for sure.”
Okay, Marion. I get that we shouldn’t swallow every line of bull that comes down the pike and that you’re a quirky revolutionary thinker who thinks on a level above the rest of us peons (heretofore to be known as “Citizens Of The Real World”), so here’s a cookie.
I suppose the almost 3000 people killed that day were just “collateral damage”. The attacks on the Pentagon and the downed plane in Pennsylvania, reportedly on its way to another attack site, were both red herrings designed to take the focus off the demolition of the Twin Towers. The widespread panic, air pollution, injuries, and aftershocks in New York were just because the planes didn’t hit the buildings at the optimum angle for a clean implosion. The firefighters and first responders who were injured and killed attempting to rescue those trapped in the buildings should have stayed out of a demo site. All the people, including children, on the four airplanes involved were expendable and needed to be on the planes to give the impression that these were just routine flights.  I suppose one could say that the towers collapsed in “minutes”, because Tower 2 stood for 56 minutes before falling and Tower 1 stood for 102 minutes. Nearby buildings that were damaged in the attacks, such as the other WTC buildings and St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church? Well, maybe they needed to be torn down too, and it was just gravy that they happened to be damaged.
I’m not gullible. I know that there are many things about the attacks that horrible day which have yet to be explained, and there are many things we will never know. I understand that we shouldn’t believe everything we hear, and not all is as it seems when it comes to politics and those involved in making it digestible. Many, many mistakes were made both during and after the attacks, mistakes with long-term ramifications. But for some actress to tell us that the planes full of innocent passengers flew into the towers because the buildings were outdated and needed to be torn down is at best stupid, and at worst…stupid. She, of course, knows how the buildings properly should have burnt and fallen because she recieved her engineering degree at acting school…the same school that graduated Sean Penn with a degree in economics and Angelina Jolie with a diploma in world affairs.
Her insinuation that the towers were a “money-sucker” and it would be cheaper to fly planes into them in a form of demolition-via-aircraft are ironically laughable in the knowledge that the economy of Lower Manhattan was devastated after the planes flew into the buildings. This doesn’t even include the effect the attacks had on the economy of New York as a whole, not to mention New Jersey and Washington. She also hasn’t taken into account that the attacks and the ensuing aftermath have already cost New York almost $95 billion dollars, the Pentagon around $500 million dollars, and the incalculable cost it has taken on the lives and psyches both of those who lost loved ones and those who survived.
All that to tear down two buildings in a cost-effective manner.
The actress later insisted that it was all a misunderstanding, and that her remarks should in no way affect her acting career, in particular the new movie she’s making with Johnny Depp:
Her Paris-based lawyer Vincent Tolesano said: “Marion never intended to contest nor question the attacks of September 11, 2001, and regrets the way old remarks have been taken out of context.”
The apology coincided with Cotillard preparing to fly to Chicago next week to start filming Public Enemies with Johnny Depp - a movie that was set to become the first big money spinner for the previously unknown actresses .
In fact Cotillard, a green activist for Greenpeace, had used an interview with the French channel Paris Première to make her views abundantly clear.
Speaking on the cinema discussion programme Paris Dernière in February 2007, Cotillard had said: “I think we’re lied to about a number of things”, even claiming the Americans
had destroyed the Twin Towers themselves because the were an outdated “money sucker”.
Expanding her conspiracy theory, Cotillard said it would been “a lot more expensive” to rebuild the towers “which is why they were destroyed”, with the loss of thousands of American lives.
Never intended to question the attacks? Remarks taken out of context? It’s amazing how people can backpedal when millions of dollars are at stake. Lives, however, apparently are expendable. If you don’t like it here, then go make your little movies somewhere else.
Her ignorant words and arrogant attitude are an insult to all those who perished, survived, and overcame those horrific attacks. Yet another reason why actors shouldn’t be involved in politics…they need to stick to what they know best, which is pretending to be something they are not and living in alternate realities.
Oh wait.
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Has she been drinking from Charlie Sheen’s cup? Cuckoo!
Comment by Joanie — March 3, 2008 @ 11:13 am
There are hundreds of valid questions still waiting to be answered regarding 9-11. Even the chair and co chair of the 9-11 commission have come out and said they were lied to by the US government.
I fully support Marion for asking questions and seeking the truth. Maybe if the mainstream media were a little more honest, and gave us the full story, including video links to the bizarre collapse of WTC building 7, then more people would realise that what the actress was saying was reasonable. She’s an incredible actor and I wish her well.
Comment by Grodin — March 3, 2008 @ 11:39 am
Great, put all the actors that I won’t give my money to all in the same movies!
Too bad, she was fantastic as Piaf, I was hoping she’d win. That does not make her an architectural engineer though.
Seeking the truth via investigation and making crackpot theories are two different horses.
Comment by Capcom — March 3, 2008 @ 12:28 pm
Beautifully written and pointedly critiqued. We need a new award for this kind of stupidity. Like the “A Dose Of Fresh Dumbassitry.” Or something like that, you will certainly come up with a better title. Of course, the old, “You Can’t Fix Stupid” will work too.
Comment by D — March 3, 2008 @ 1:25 pm
she’s french, so you can’t expect much else from her.
Comment by sally — March 3, 2008 @ 1:53 pm
Obviously structural engineering is NOT her forte.
I tried to find the transcript of her interview, just to see if she really said what she said, and how she said it. I found a partial one, in French. She had answered a previous question saying that she loves watching television shows about 9/11 theories. Maybe she’s taken all these conspiracy theories and jumbled them all together and come up with her own?
There is apparently a French activist/journalist named Thierry Meyssan who wrote a book called “9/11: The Big Lie.” According to Meyssan, the 9/11 attacks were perpetrated by the US government and military in order to impose a military rule in the US.
(to some degree of success, it would seem)
The book was a #1 best-seller in France for over 2 months.
Well, that proves my theory that just because you win an Oscar, it don’t make you an Einstein.
But one thing that is FACT: we probably won’t be hearing much from Ms. Cotillard, or her theories, for a very long time.
Comment by crazymom — March 3, 2008 @ 2:59 pm
I think that those are just her beliefs and that she is getting so much crap because she is in the spot light… What about all the others who actually believe similar things.. do we publicly slander them too?
There are many things that the government doesn’t tell the american people, or at least they don’t tell the full truth.
I think that there was a lot of things for our government to gain by having terrorists attack US soil. War? Retaliation agendas?
Look at other victories in history… lots of loss for what… land.. religion..power. However allowing collateral damage is never okay in my eyes.
I cant even begin to give a theory for 9/11 that gives answers for everything that happened because whatever groups took part they were able to cover their tracks with enough reasonable doubt.
If you want to know some sort of truth in anything you must look at many different forms of information and beliefs and then you will get a bigger picture upon which you base your beliefs.
What to know what’s (really) happening in America read foreign press…. told to me by every media professor I had.
Comment by Jen — March 3, 2008 @ 3:26 pm
I’d bet she thinks Buzz Lightyear is the first man to walk on the moon.
Comment by D-Bomb — March 3, 2008 @ 4:46 pm
Well I know what I’m not going to do when that movie comes out…. spend one flipping dime of my money.
Comment by Optimisticate — March 3, 2008 @ 5:13 pm
Being french does not mean necessary blond. I guess she got infected by some french muslims who spread that kinda words. Ive been proposed here in France a dvd proving that kinda bullshit. The dvd also says that all the Jews in the towers have been request to exit in order to be saved. Chaos is all they can imagine.
So let’s forgive her young brain and let’s hope she will correct her says.
Comment by motistudio — March 3, 2008 @ 9:01 pm
This is why actors should be gagged and kept in cages and only hauled out for their parts in movies and television. And of course the occasional nudie shots.
Comment by Anonymous — March 4, 2008 @ 3:49 am
Just to add, in this day and age when we have the collective knowledge of the world right at our fingertips there is no excuse for this level of stupidity in someone who isn’t mentally impaired.
Someone should choke that bitch.
Comment by Anonymous — March 4, 2008 @ 3:55 am
That is the LAST movie I will EVER watch with her in it. I will NOT spend one penny of my expendable income on this piece of trash…ever. And if all my fellow citizens followed suit, it would be a fitting end.
Comment by Ann — March 5, 2008 @ 3:05 am
Reading some of these comments made me wince…again with tower 7…Popular mechanics gave a nice write up on that if anyone bothered to read it. Picture if you will several million tons of debris plowing into the ground at terminal velocity only a few dozen yards away from an antiquated building which was not designed to withstand above normal seismic activity…its called vibration damage. All the “covert demolition” theories out there fail to take into account the serious structural damage suffered by ALL the buildings near the collapse zone when spouting their nonsense.
It is easy to jump in and speak about something without knowing the facts. I would like to know how many of these nutballs actually research anything that may back up the official version of events…because at last count there were literally thousands of documents more supporting this by many independent sources. Guess she just isnt capable of seeing the forest for the trees or just doesnt want to.
Yes, we should not blindly swallow whatever we hear…we should go out and cover ALL the bases for ourselves and not bite at the first piece of bait dangled before us. If something doesnt make sense…it probably isnt right (money suckers? Those towers generated millions in revenues in rent alone…not to mention taxes…give me a break).
And…who cares what she thinks anyway…actors and actresses are people who are paid to pretend to be someone else…and I personally believe that spending all that time in la-la land has affected their perspective of reality anyway. Taking what an actor says about world events at face value is just as stupid as taking what a politician says in the same way…why do they think they (actors) are so much better than everyone else?
Comment by Disgruntled — March 5, 2008 @ 7:50 am
Well written K. Irregardless of what this actress personal views are she is not alone in her ignorance and there are many many instances of beliefs out there that are not substantiated but remain part of the popular stream. Conspiracy theorists abound because it is impossible to know all the facts and human nature being what it is poeple do screw up wether it be big business, governments, or gasp actors. It doesn’t help any that GWB used WMDs or lack thereof to start a war in the wrong country and allowed the real terrorist time to hide and for that matter created a bigger mess in which the US of A will be sorely tested to get out off without making an even bigger mess. We as a culture give too much credence to what actors think and allow them too much influence in areas that they know nothing about. That is not to say that some actors are well informed and educated merely that popularity does not equal credibility. Our heroes have become athletes and actors. The comments from this actress were made long ago but became news AFTER she won the Oscar. Which is another point that we built people up and love to tear them down. I will probably go see movies that she is in becasue she is afterall an actress. Unlike a la Tom Cruise she has not expounded tearing door an entire profession and acted like a complete whack job in expression her views. For now she is entitled to her opinion. In a democracy we the people have to value the truth even in our own governments as more and more we see “democratic and free” societies imposed secrecy and limits to our freedoms. That is the real success of terrorist. They are succeeding in letting the people they terrorized to do their dirty work of creating fear, limiting freedoms and building walls to keep us “safe”. Even in the last 24 hours GWB stated that he would not limit the use of “water boarding” by the CIA or for that matter any means of torturing prisoners to get the “truth”. We are becoming the very monsters that we claim to be fighting. And # 5 above, Sally, don’t insult the French. Idiocy and ignorance is not limited to the French or actors for that matter.
Comment by Mitsu — March 9, 2008 @ 8:56 am
I have seen the TV-show, and you spin what she said, to the extreme. Basically, when you pretend that she claims something, she actually only wonders if it is true or not. She gives an account of what she read on the web (conspiracy theories), specially of some arguments, as if she had no time or knowledge to dismiss these arguments, and if she hoped, giving these arguments, to obtain reactions (arguments and counter-arguments) from more educated people. So, the discussion being informal, there is no indication of the status: “I believe that” “I wonder if” “what do you think about” “it is not possibly true that”, we just do not know. Specially, you do not know if she claims and embrace these conspiracy theories.
Comment by philippe — March 10, 2008 @ 8:44 am
It’s people like you that pollute the world with worthless media. Top notch.
Comment by Corline — March 11, 2008 @ 12:17 am
never heard of this girl before getting notified of this posting.
don’t care if she speculates misquotes or even makes stuff up. the important part of what she said was :
THE OFFICIAL STORY WAS A LIE!
Comment by Randy A Michael — March 14, 2008 @ 4:26 pm
Don’t be fooled by what you read, speak to her personally and discover truth.
Comment by topsy kretts — March 14, 2008 @ 6:30 pm