Luc Besson

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Luc Besson
Born	18 March 1959 (1959-03-18) (age 51) Paris, France
Occupation	producer, director, screenwriter
Years active	1981–present
Spouse	Anne Parillaud (div.) Milla Jovovich (1997–1999) Virginie Silla (2004–)

Luc Besson (French pronunciation: [lyk bɛsɔ̃]; born 18 March 1959) is a French film director, writer and producer. He is the creator of EuropaCorp film company. He has been involved with over 50 films, spanning 26 years, as writer, director, and/or producer.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Career 2.1 Cinéma du look 2.2 Works 2.3 Critical evaluation 3 Personal life 4 Filmography 5 Awards 6 Music videos

 Early life

Besson was born in Paris to parents who were both Club Med scuba diving instructors. This had a profound influence on his childhood as Besson planned on becoming a marine biologist. He spent much of his youth traveling with his parents to tourist resorts in Italy, Yugoslavia and Greece. The family returned to France when Besson was 10. His parents promptly divorced and were remarried to other people. "Here there is two families, and I am the only bad souvenir of something that doesn't work", he said in the International Herald Tribune. "And if I disappear, then everything is perfect. The rage to exist comes from here. I have to do something! Otherwise I am going to die."
At the age of 17 he had a diving accident which left him temporarily unable to dive.
"I was 17 and I wondered what I was going to do. ... So I took a piece of paper and on the left I put everything I could do, or had skills for, and all the things I couldn't do. The first line was shorter and I could see that I loved writing, I loved images, I was taking a lot of pictures. So I thought maybe movies would be good. But I thought that to really know I should go to a set. And a friend of mine knew a guy whose brother was a third assistant on a short film. It's true", he said in a 2000 interview with The Guardian.
"So, I said: 'OK, let's go on the set.' So I went on the set ... The day after I went back to see my mum and told her that I was going to make films and stop school and 'bye. And I did it! Very soon after I made a short film and it was very, very bad. I wanted to prove that I could do something, so I made a short film. That was in fact my main concern, to be able to show that I could do one."

Career

Out of boredom, he started to write stories, including the backdrop to what later became one of his most popular movies, The Fifth Element. Besson directed and co-wrote the screenplay of this science fiction thriller with the screenwriter, Robert Mark Kamen. The film is inspired by the French comic books Besson read as a teenager. He also reportedly worked on the first drafts of Le Grand Bleu while still in his teens.
At 18, Besson returned to his birthplace of Paris.There he took odd jobs in film to get a feel for the industry. He worked as an assistant to directors including Claude Faraldo and Patrick Grandperret. Besson also directed three short films, a commissioned documentary, and several commercials.
After this, he moved to the United States for three years, but returned to form his own production company which he called "Les Films du Loup". The name was later changed to "Les Films du Dauphin". In the early 1980s, Besson met Éric Serra and asked him to compose the score for his first short film, L'Avant dernier.
In recent years, he has written and produced numerous action movies, including the Taxi and The Transporter series, and the Jet Li films Kiss of the Dragon and Unleashed/Danny the Dog. Besson was also in charge of the promotional movie for the Paris bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics.
Luc had been nominated for Best Director and Best Picture César Awards for his films Léon (a.k.a. The Professional) and The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc, but won Best Director and Best French Director for his film The Fifth Element.

 Cinéma du look

Critics cite Besson as being a pivotal figure in the Cinéma du look movement, a specific style of film being made in the 1980s into the early 1990s. Subway, The Big Blue and Nikita are all considered to be of this stylistic school. The term was coined in a 1989 by essay, in La Revue du Cinema n° 449, by Raphaël Bassan, in which Besson was lumped with two other directors who shared "le look." These directors were said to favor style over substance, spectacle over narrative.
Most of the filmmakers in the category, including Besson, squirmed uncomfortably at being labeled, particularly in light of their forebears: France's New Wave. "Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut were rebelling against existing cultural values and used cinema as a means of expression simply because it was the most avant-garde medium at the time", said Besson in The New York Times. "Today, the revolution is occurring entirely within the industry and is led by people who want to change the look of movies by making them better, more convincing and pleasurable to watch.
"Because it's becoming increasingly difficult to break into this field, we have developed a psychological armor and are ready to do anything in order to work", he added in this same interview. "I think our ardor alone is going to shake the pillars of the moviemaking establishment."
Besson is working on a film called Lock Out which will come out in 2011. He is also involved with a film called Colombiana, also out for 2011.

 Works

Many of Besson's films have achieved popular, if not critical success. One such film was Le Grand Bleu. "When the film had its premiere on opening night at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival, it was mercilessly drubbed, but no matter; it was a smash", observed the International Herald Tribune in a 2007 profile of Besson. "Embraced by young people who kept returning to see it again, the movie sold 10 million tickets and quickly became what the French call a film générationnel, a defining moment in the culture."
Besson created the Arthur collection, which comprises Arthur and the Minimoys, Arthur and the Forbidden City, Arthur and the Vengeance of Maltazard and Arthur and the War of the Two Worlds. Besson directed Arthur and the Invisibles, an adaptation of the first two books of the collection. A part live-action, part-computer-generated animated film, it was released in the UK and the USA and starred Freddie Highmore, Madonna, Snoop Dogg, Mia Farrow, Robert De Niro and David Bowie.

Critical evaluation

American film critic Armond White has praised Besson, who he claims is one of the best film producers, for refining and revolutionizing action film, also stating that Besson dramatizes the struggle of his characters "as a conscientious resistance to human degradation",unlike films of torture-porn genre.

 Personal life

Besson was married to Anne Parillaud, who starred in Nikita, a film he wrote and directed. They have one daughter. He later dated model Maïwenn Le Besco. Their daughter, Shana Besson, was born in 1993. Besson married Milla Jovovich on 14 December 1997, but they divorced in 1999. On 28 August 2004, Besson married Virginie Silla, a film producer.
He has four daughters and one son: Juliette, Shana, Talia, Satine, and Mao, respectively. Mao was born in 2005.

 Filmography

 

Films

Year	Film	Credited as
		Director	Writer	Producer
1981	L'Avant Dernier (Short Film)	+	+	+
1983	Le Dernier Combat	+	+	+
1985	Subway	+	+	+
1986	Kamikaze		+	+
1988	The Big Blue	+	+
1990	Nikita	+	+
1991	Atlantis (documentary)	+	+	+
	Cold Moon			+
1994	Léon	+	+	+
1997	Nil by Mouth			+
	The Fifth Element	+	+
1998	Taxi		+	+
1999	The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc	+	+
2000	Taxi 2		+	+
	The Dancer		+	+
2001	Kiss of the Dragon		+	+
	Wasabi		+	+
	Yamakasi		+	+
2002	Asterix & Obelix: Mission Cleopatra
	La Turbulence Des Fluides			+
	The Transporter		+	+
2003	Cheeky			+
	Fanfan la Tulipe		+	+
	Les Côtelettes			+
	Michel Vaillant		+	+
	Taxi 3		+	+
2004	District B13		+	+
	Taxi		+	+
	Crimson Rivers II: Angels of the Apocalypse		+
2005	Angel-A	+	+	+
	Bunker Paradise			+
	Color Me Kubrick			+
	Imposture			+
	Revolver			+
	The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada			+
	Transporter 2		+	+
	Unleashed		+	+
	Ze film			+
	Au suivant!			+
2006	Arthur and the Invisibles	+	+	+
	Bandidas		+	+
	Love and Other Disasters			+
	Quand j'étais chanteur			+
	Dikkenek			+
	Tell No One			+
2007	Michou d'Auber			+
	L'Invité			+
	The Secret			+
	Taxi 4		+	+
	Hitman			+
	Frontier(s)			+
2008	Taken		+	+
	Transporter 3		+	+
2009	District 13: Ultimatum		+	+
	Home			+
2010	From Paris with Love		+	+
	Les aventures extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec	+	+	+

 Awards

Among Besson's many awards are the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film Critics Prize, Fantasporto Audience Jury Award-Special Mention, Best Director, and Best Film, for Le Dernier Combat in 1983; The Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists Silver Ribbon-Best Director-Foreign Film, for La Femme Nikita, 1990; the Alexander Korda Award for Best British Film, Nil by Mouth, 1997; and the Best Director Cesar Award, for The Fifth Element, 1997.

 Music videos

• Pull Marine: Isabelle Adjani (1983)
• Mon Légionnaire: Serge Gainsbourg (1988)
• Que mon cœur lâche: Mylène Farmer (1992)
• Love Profusion: Madonna (2003)
• L'impasse: Kery James

Love Profusion

Madonna

There are too many questions
There is not one solution
There is no resurrection
There is so much confusion
And the love profusion
You make me feel
You make me know
And the love vibration
You make me feel
You make it shine
There are too many options
There is no consolation
I have lost my illusions
What I want is an explanation
And the love profusion
You make me feel
You make me know
And the love direction
You make me feel
You make me shine
You make me feel
You make me shine
You make me feel
I got you under my skin
I got you under my skin
I got you under my skin
I got you under my skin
There is no comprehension
There is real isolation
There is so much destruction
What I want is a celebration
And I know I can feel bad
When I get in a bad mood
And the world can look so sad
Only you make me feel good
I got you under my skin
I got you under my skin
I got you under my skin
I got you under my skin
I got you under my skin
I got you under my skin
I got you under my skin
I got you under my skin
And the love profusion
You make me feel
You make me know
And the love intention
You make me feel
You make me shine
You make me feel
You make me shine
You make me feel
I got you under my skin
I got you under my skin
I got you under my skin
I got you under my skin
I got you under my skin
I got you under my skin
I got you under my skin
I got you under my skin
And I know I can feel bad
When I get in a bad mood
And the world can look so sad
Only you make me feel good

Gamine

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Audrey Hepburn has been cited as one iconic example of a gamine.

Gamine is a French word, the feminine form of gamin, originally meaning urchin, waif or playful, naughty child.
The word was used in English from about the mid-19th century (for example, by William Makepeace Thackeray in 1840 in one of his Parisian sketches), but, in the 20th century, came to be applied in its more modern sense of a slim, often boyish, wide-eyed young woman who is, or is perceived to be, mischievous, teasing or sexually appealing.

Contents 1 Lexicography 2 Gamines in silent films 3 Audrey Hepburn and gamines of the 1950s 4 1960s and beyond 5 Other gamines 5.1 La Strada, Klute, Nikita, Amélie, and Patlabor

 Lexicography

In 1997 the publisher HarperCollins drew up a list of 101 words - one a year - that defined the years 1896 to 1997 . "Gamine" was chosen for 1899, being described by Philip Howard in The Times as follows:

An elfish young woman. Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday was the archetypal, unforgettable, adorable gamine.

—

Gamine has been used particularly of such women in the performing arts or world of fashion. In that context, the closest English word - of Anglo-Norman origin - is probably “waif” (although “gamine” is often seen as conveying an additional sense of style and chic). For example, in a press release of 1964, impresario Andrew Oldham described the 17-year old singer Marianne Faithfull as "shy, wistful, waif-like" ; and writer and musician John Amis referred to German-born actress Luise Rainer (b.1910) as Paul Muni's "waif-wife" in the 1937 film, The Good Earth .
Gaminerie has sometimes been used in English with reference to the behaviour or characteristics of gamin(e)s.

 Gamines in silent films

In the early 20th century, silent films brought to public attention a number of actresses who sported a gamine look. These included the Canadian-born Mary Pickford (1892–1979), who became known as “America’s Sweetheart” and, with her husband Douglas Fairbanks, was one of the founders of the film production company United Artists; Lillian Gish (1893–1993), notably in Way Down East (1920); and Louise Brooks (1906–86), whose short bobbed hairstyle, widely copied in the 1920s, came to be regarded as both a gamine and a “Bohemian” trait (this style having first appeared among the Paris demi-monde before World War I and among London art students during the war. ) In 1936, Charlie Chaplin cast his then-girlfriend Paulette Goddard (1910–1990) as an orphaned gamine in one of his last silent films, Modern Times.

 Audrey Hepburn and gamines of the 1950s

In the 1950s “gamine” was applied notably to the style and appearance of the Belgian-born actress Audrey Hepburn (1929–1993): for example, in the films, Sabrina (1954) and Funny Face (1957). Hepburn also played the role of the gamine Gigi in New York (1951) in the play of that name, based on the novel (1945) by Colette, who had personally "talent-spotted" her when she was filming in Monte Carlo. On film and in photographs, Hepburn’s short hair and petite figure created a distinct and enduring “look”, well defined by Don Macpherson,  who cited her “naïveté which did not rule out sophistication”, and described her as “the first gamine to be accepted as overpoweringly chic”.
Other film actresses of the period regarded as gamines included Leslie Caron (b.1931), who played the leading role in the 1958 musical film of Gigi; Jean Seberg (1938–79), best known in Bonjour Tristesse (1957) and Jean-Luc Godard’s À bout de souffle (1960); Jean Simmons (b.1929), for example, in Angel Face (1952); and Rita Tushingham (b.1940), whose first starring role was in A Taste of Honey (1961). The French singer Juliette Greco (b.1926), who emerged from Bohemian Paris in the late 1940s to become an international star in the 1950s, also had gamine qualities.

 1960s and beyond

In many ways, the “gamine look” of the 1950s paved the way for the success of the English models Jean Shrimpton (b.1942), one of the first to promote the mini-skirt in 1965, Twiggy (b. Lesley Hornby, 1949), who became the "The Face of '66",and Kate Moss (b.1974), associated in the 1990s with the “waif” look and what, notably through an advertising campaign for Calvin Klein in 1997, became known as “heroin chic”. Moss set a trend for “wafer” thin models which was satirized in Neil Kerber’s strip cartoon, "Supermodels", in the magazine Private Eye. Reviewing the film The Devil Wears Prada (2006), David Denby described a "montage of semi-starved beauties pulling on lingerie and clothes as they dress for work ... like the lock-and-load scenes of soldiers strapping on their weapons in war movies" Natalie Portman and Audrey Tautou are also described as gamine.

Other gamines

Others who have been described as gamines include Danish-French actress Anna Karina (b.1940); American actresses Julia Roberts (b. 1967) (she was often compared to Audrey Hepburn at the start of her career), Edie Sedgwick (1943–1971), Elizabeth Hartman (1943–1987), Mia Farrow (b.1945), Sissy Spacek (b.1949), Winona Ryder (b.1971), Gwyneth Paltrow (b.1972), and Calista Flockhart (b.1964); English actresses Suzanna Hamilton (b.1960), Helena Bonham Carter (b.1966), Tara Fitzgerald (b.1967), Olivia Williams (b.1968), Rachel Weisz (b.1971) ; Portuguese actress Maria de Medeiros (b.1965); French actresses Juliette Binoche (b.1964) and Vanessa Paradis (b.1972); New York model Tina Chow (1951–92), whose "gamine look made her the darling of [photographers] Cecil Beaton and Arthur Elgort" ; Russian tennis player Anastasia Myskina (b.1981), who was French Open champion in 2004; and the singers Cat Power (Chan Marshall, b.1972) ("The French, in particular, took to her gamine looks and confused air"), Keira Knightley (b.1985), Zooey Deschanel (b.1980), and Claudia Labadie, the latter of the London vocal duo, Gamine .
Penelope Chetwode (1910–86), later Lady Betjeman, wife of the Poet Laureate, John Betjeman, was described by Betjeman's biographer A. N. Wilson as "gamine of feature, but large-breasted" . Corinne Bailey Rae alleged that she was called a gamine in her song, "Choux Pastry Heart" (2005).
In Gideon Defoe's book, The Pirates! in an Adventure with Napoleon, the author describes some women of the isle of St. Helena as quite gamine.

La Strada, Klute, Nikita, Amélie, and Patlabor

Among the notable gamine characters of film are Gelsomina, the street performer from La Strada, played by Giulietta Masina; Bree Daniel, the prostitute played by Jane Fonda (b.1937) in Klute (1971) (whose hairstyle was sometimes referred to as the "Klute shag"); Nikita (Anne Parillaud, b.1960), the titular punkish junkie in Luc Besson's 1990 film; and, most recently, Amélie (Audrey Tautou, b.1978) in the 2001 romantic comedy of that name.
The red-headed Noa Izumi of the mecha anime Patlabor is a parody of a gamine.


Anne Parillaud



Amélie Poulain