Luc Besson is a French film director, writer, and producer. He is known for directing and
producing thrillers and action films that are visually rich. Besson had been nominated
for Best Director and Best Picture César Awards for his films Léon: The Professional
and The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc. He won Best Director and Best French Director
for his film The Fifth Element. His Taken 2 is France's biggest export success.
In 1980 he founded his own production company, called Les Films du Loup, and later Les Films
du Dauphin. This was superseded in 2000 by his co-founding EuropaCorp film company with
his longtime collaborator, Pierre-Ange Le Pogam. Besson has been involved with filmmaking
for more than 50 films, spanning 26 years, as writer, director, and/or producer. He has
also been called 'the John Hughes of action movies,' due to his writing screenplays for
action movies.
Early life Besson was born in Paris, to parents who both
worked as Club Med scuba-diving instructors. Influenced by this milieu, as a child Besson
planned to become 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 each re-married.
"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, Besson had a diving accident that left him 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, Besson started writing stories,
including the background to what he later developed as The Fifth Element, one of his
most popular movies. The film is inspired by the French comic books which Besson read
as a teenager. He reportedly worked on the first drafts of Le Grand Bleu while still
in his teens. Besson directed and co-wrote the screenplay of this science fiction thriller
with the screenwriter, Robert Mark Kamen. 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 directed three
short films, a commissioned documentary, and several commercials.
After this, he moved to the United States for three years, but returned to Paris, where
he formed his own production company. He first named it Les Films du Loup, but changed it
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. He later used Serra as a composer
for others of his films. Since the late 20th century, Besson 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. His English-language films Taken
and Taken 2, both starring Liam Neeson, have been major successes, with Taken 2 becoming
the largest-grossing export French film. Besson produced the promotional movie for the Paris
bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics. Besson won Best Director and Best French Director
for his film The Fifth Element. he was nominated for Best Director and Best Picture César
Awards for his films Léon: The Professional and The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc.
Cinéma du look Critics cite Besson as a pivotal figure in
the Cinéma du look movement, a specific, highly visual style produced from 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 by critic Raphaël Bassan in a 1989 essay in La Revue
du Cinema n° 449. A partisan of the experimental cinema and friend of the New Wave directors,
Bassan grouped Besson with Jean-Jacques Beineix and Leos Carax as three directors who shared
the style of "le look." These directors were later described as favoring style over substance,
and spectacle over narrative. Besson, along with most of the filmmakers
so categorized, was uncomfortable with the label, particularly in light of the achievements
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 a 1985 interview 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 directed a biopic of Aung San Suu Kyi called The Lady, which was released in the
fall of 2011. He also worked on Lockout, which was released in April 2012.
Work Many of Besson's films have achieved popular,
if not critical, success. One such release 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 series, 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.
He directed Arthur and the Invisibles, an adaptation of the first two books of the collection.
A film with live action and animation, it was released in the UK and the US and starred
Freddie Highmore, Madonna, Snoop Dogg, Mia Farrow, Robert De Niro and David Bowie.
Critical evaluation Besson has been described as "the most Hollywood
of French filmmakers." Tobias Scott wrote that his "slick, commercial" action movies
were "so interchangeable—drugs, sleaze, chuckling supervillainy, and Hong Kong-style
effects—that each new project probably starts with white-out on the title page."
American film critic Armond White has praised Besson, whom he ranks as one of the best film
producers, for refining and revolutionizing action film. He wrote that Besson dramatizes
the struggle of his characters "as a conscientious resistance to human degradation".
Personal life Besson has been married four times; first,
in 1986, to actress Anne Parillaud who would star in Besson's Nikita. The couple divorced
in 1991. Besson's second wife was actress Maïwenn
Le Besco, who was just 15 when they began dating in 1991. They were married in late
1992 when Le Besco was pregnant with their daughter Shanna, who was born on 3 January
1993. Le Besco later claimed that their relationship inspired Besson's film Léon. Their marriage
ended in 1997, when Besson became involved with American actress Milla Jovovich during
the filming of The Fifth Element. He married the 22-year-old on 14 December 1997, at the
age of 38, but they divorced in 1999. On 28 August 2004, at the age of 45, Besson
married film producer Virginie Silla. He has four daughters from his previous marriages
and relationships. Besson and Silla's son Mao was born in 2005.
Filmography See Luc Besson filmography
Legacy and honors Among Besson's 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. Film company
In 2000, Besson superseded his production company by co-founding EuropaCorp with Pierre-Ange
Le Pogam, with whom he had frequently worked since 1985. Le Pogam had then been Distribution
Director with Gaumont. EuropaCorp has had strong growth based on several English-language
films, with international distribution. It has production facilities in Paris, Normandy,
and Hollywood, and is establishing distribution partnerships in Japan and China.
Music videos Pull Marine: Isabelle Adjani
Mon Légionnaire: Serge Gainsbourg Que mon cœur lâche: Mylène Farmer
Love Profusion: Madonna L'impasse: Kery James
References
External links Luc Besson at the Internet Movie Database
Luc Besson at AllMovie Luc Besson Official Homepage at Luc-Besson.com
Luc Besson Interview, Angel-A JewReview.net video interview with Luc Besson
and Rie Rasmussen about Angel-A In-depth interview with Luc Besson