Luc Besson

Luc Paul Maurice Besson (; born 18 March 1959) is a French film director, screenwriter and producer. He directed or produced the films '' Subway'' (1985), ''The Big Blue'' (1988), and '' La Femme Nikita'' (1990). Besson is associated with the '' Cinéma du look'' film movement. He has been nominated for a César Award for Best Director and Best Picture for his films '' Léon: The Professional'' (1994) and the English-language '' The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc'' (1999). He won Best Director and Best French Director for his sci-fi action film ''The Fifth Element'' (1997). He wrote and directed the 2014 sci-fi action film ''Lucy'' and the 2017 space opera film ''Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets''.

Near the beginning of his career, in 1980 he founded his own production company, Les Films du Loup, later renamed as Les Films du Dauphin. These were superseded in 2000 when he co-founded EuropaCorp with his longtime collaborator . As writer, director, or producer, Besson has been involved in the creation of more than 50 films.

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 divorced, and both of them remarried.

"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.""Luc Besson: The most Hollywood of French filmmakers"
''International Herald Tribune'', 20 May 2007

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''.Luc Besson interviewed by Richard Jobson
''The Guardian''; accessed 20 July 2018. "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

Besson reportedly worked on the first drafts of ''Le Grand Bleu'' while still in his teens. Out of boredom, he started writing stories, including the background to what he later developed as ''The Fifth Element'' (1997), one of his most popular movies. The film is inspired by the French comic books which Besson read as a teenager. Besson directed and co-wrote the screenplay of this science fiction thriller with American screenwriter Robert Mark Kamen."Luc Besson," ''International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, Volume 2: Directors'', 4th ed. St. James Press, 2000.

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 other films of his. Since the late 20th century, Besson has written and produced numerous action movies, including the ''Taxi'' series (1998–2007), the '' Transporter'' series (2002–2008; another collaboration with Robert Mark Kamen), and the Jet Li films ''Kiss of the Dragon'' and ''Unleashed.'' His English-language films '' Taken'', ''Taken 2'', and ''Taken 3'', all co-written with Kamen and 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 2012 Olympic bid.

Besson won the Lumières Award for Best Director and the César Award for Best Director, for his film ''The Fifth Element'' (1997). He was nominated for Best Director and Best Picture César Awards for his films '' Léon: The Professional'' (1994) and '' The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc'' (1999). French actor Jean Reno has appeared in several films by Besson, including ''Le dernier combat'' (1983), '' Subway'' (1985), ''The Big Blue'' (1988), '' La Femme Nikita'' (1990), and '' Léon: The Professional'' (1994).

Cinéma du look

Critics such as Raphaël Bassan and Guy Austin 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'' (1985), ''The Big Blue'' (1988) and '' La Femme Nikita'' (1990) 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 ("''nouvelle vague''") 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 critically as favouring style over substance, and spectacle over narrative.

Besson, along with most of the filmmakers so categorised, was uncomfortable with the label. He contrasted their work with 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. "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'' (2011) (original title ''Dans la Lumiere''). He also worked on ''Lockout'' (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.

Critical evaluation

Besson has been described as "the most Hollywood of French filmmakers." Scott Tobias 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. Besson and Parillaud had a daughter, Juliette, born in 1987. Parillaud starred in Besson's '' La Femme Nikita'' (1990). The couple divorced in 1991.

Besson's second wife was actress and director Maïwenn Le Besco, whom he started dating when he was 31 and she was 15.Leon: The Professional
sbs.com.au They married in late 1992 when Le Besco, 16, 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'' (1994), where the plot involved the emotional relationship between an adult man and a 12-year-old girl. Their marriage ended in 1997, after Besson became involved with actress Milla Jovovich during the filming of ''The Fifth Element'' (1997).

He married the 21-year-old Jovovich on 14 December 1997, when he was . They divorced in 1999.

On 28 August 2004, at the age of , Besson married film producer Virginie Silla. The couple have three children: Thalia, Sateen, and Mao Besson.

Rape allegations

In 2018, actress Sand Van Roy, who had worked with him on films, accused Besson of rape, as did several other actresses who wished to remain anonymous. The director's lawyer Thierry Marembert stated that Besson "categorically denies these fantasist accusations" and that the accuser was "someone he knows, towards whom he has never behaved inappropriately". Five women have made similar statements against Besson, including a former assistant, two students of Cité du Cinéma studio, and a former employee of Besson's EuropaCorp.
In February 2019, French prosecutors dropped the case against Luc Besson, citing lack of evidence. In December 2021, a judge dismissed the case against Besson following a second investigation. In April 2022, Sand Van Roy submitted a complaint against the magistrate in charge of the case.

Selected filmography

Legacy and honours

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

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