''Yves Saint Laurent'' is a 2014 French

biographical A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or ...

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...

film directed by

Jalil Lespert Jalil Lespert (born 11 May 1976) is a French actor, screenwriter and director. Life and career Born to an ethnic French (Pied-Noir) father, actor Jean Lespert, and an Algerian mother, who is an attorney and a jurist, Lespert first studied law, ...

and co-written with

Jacques Fieschi Jacques Fieschi (born 1948) is a French screenwriter. He has written for more than 30 films since 1985. He wrote and directed the film '' French California'', which was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. ...

, Jérémie Guez, and Marie-Pierre Huster. The film is based on the life of Yves Saint Laurent from 1958. The film stars Pierre Niney,

Guillaume Gallienne Guillaume Gallienne (born 8 February 1972) is a French actor, screenwriter and film director. He has received two Molière Awards for his stagework and has won two César Awards, one for writing and the other for his performance in his autobiogra ...

Charlotte Le Bon Charlotte Le Bon (born 4 September 1986) is a Canadian actress, artist, former model and television presenter. She is known for her work in the Canal+ talk show '' Le Grand Journal'', and the films '' Yves Saint Laurent'', ''The Hundred-Foot Jo ...

Laura Smet Laura Huguette Smet (; born 15 November 1983) is a French actress. She is the daughter of rock musician Johnny Hallyday and actress Nathalie Baye. In 1986, Johnny Hallyday recorded in her honor the song "Laura", written by Jean-Jacques Goldman. E ...

, Marie de Villepin, Xavier Lafitte, and

Nikolai Kinski Nanhoï Nikolai Kinski (born July 30, 1976) is a French-American film actor, who has also done work in television and on stage. He was born in Paris, and grew up in California. Currently residing in Berlin, he has acted primarily in American and ...

. The film opened the Panorama Special section of the

64th Berlin International Film Festival The 64th annual Berlin International Film Festival was held from 6 to 16 February 2014. Wes Anderson's film ''The Grand Budapest Hotel'' opened the festival. British film director Ken Loach was presented with the Honorary Golden Bear. The Golden ...

at the renovated

Zoo Palast The Berlin International Film Festival (german: Internationale Filmfestspiele Berlin), usually called the Berlinale (), is a major international film festival held annually in Berlin, Germany. Founded in 1951 and originally run in June, the festi ...

, with director, cast, and Pierre Bergé in attendance. The film received seven nominations at the

40th César Awards The 40th César Awards ceremony, presented by the Académie des Arts et Techniques du Cinéma, honoured the best films of 2014 in France and took place on 20 February 2015 at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. The ceremony was chaired by actor- ...

, winning Best Actor for Pierre Niney.

Premise

Yves Saint Laurent and

Pierre Bergé Pierre Vital Georges Bergé (; 14 November 1930 – 8 September 2017) was a French industrialist and patron. He co-founded the fashion label Yves Saint Laurent, and was a longtime business partner (and onetime life partner) of its namesake des ...

promote the French

fashion industry Fashion is a form of self-expression and autonomy at a particular period and place and in a specific context, of clothing, footwear, lifestyle, accessories, makeup, hairstyle, and body posture. The term implies a look defined by the fashion in ...

and stay friends against all odds.

Cast

Production

In March 2013,

The Weinstein Company The Weinstein Company (usually credited or abbreviated as TWC) was an American independent film studio, founded in New York City by Bob and Harvey Weinstein in March 2005. TWC was one of the largest mini-major film studios in North America prior ...

acquired the rights to the film to distribute in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, while

Entertainment One Entertainment One Ltd., trading as eOne, is an American-owned Canadian multinational entertainment company. Based in Toronto, Ontario, the company is primarily involved in the acquisition, distribution, and production of films and television se ...

holds U.K., Australian and Benelux distribution rights, including Canadian distribution rights.

Filming

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as actor ...

began in June 2013. Part of the filming was done with Bergé, who sent "out models on the runway for a reconstitution of Saint Laurent's famous Opéra Ballets Russes collection of 1976, which was filmed at the fashions show's original venue, the Westin hotel (formerly known as the InterContinental.)" Bergé's foundation loaned the film "77 vintage outfits from its archives and allowed Lespert to film certain scenes at its headquarters on Avenue Marceau in Paris." Bergé "praised Lespert's film—based largely on a Laurence Benaïm biography of Saint Laurent and Bergé's reminiscences in his book ''Letters to Yves''—for showing the designer's demons." Bergé said "...there are details I don't like, but that is of no importance whatsoever. You have to take the movie as it is—as a whole."

Reception

''Yves Saint Laurent'' received mixed reviews. On film aggregation website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, it holds a rating of 45%, with an average score of 5.3/10, based on reviews from 65 critics. The site's consensus reads "While it boasts its share of fine performances, ''Yves Saint Laurent'' is also disappointingly bland and formulaic – especially given its subject's dazzling reputation." On another website,

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, it has a score of 51/100 (indicating "mixed or average"), based on reviews from 25 critics. Guy Lodge from

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

stated in 2014, "considerably less innovative than its human subject", "disappointingly by-the-numbers treatment" and "awkwardly structured".

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Yves Saint Laurent 2014 films 2014 biographical drama films 2014 LGBT-related films 2014 multilingual films 2010s Arabic-language films 2010s English-language films 2010s French films 2010s French-language films 2010s Japanese-language films 2010s Russian-language films Biographical films about LGBT people English-language French films Films about fashion designers Films about fashion in France Films based on biographies Films directed by Jalil Lespert Films featuring a Best Actor César Award-winning performance Films set in 1958 Films shot in Morocco Films shot in Paris French biographical drama films French LGBT-related films French multilingual films LGBT-related drama films Yves Saint Laurent (brand) Cultural depictions of French men