Information about Luc Besson

Luc Besson
Born	March 18 1959 (1959--) (age 48) Paris, France
Spouse(s)	Anne Parillaud Milla Jovovich (1997-1999) Virginie Silla (2004-)
Awards BAFTA Awards Best Film 1997 Nil by Mouth Csar Awards Best Director 1998 The Fifth Element

Luc Besson [IPA: lyk bɛsɔ̃] (born March 18, 1959) is a French film director, writer and producer.

Biography

Little is known about Luc Besson's private life since he rarely discusses his personal life in interviews. He was born in Paris to parents who were both scuba diving instructors. This had a profound influence on his childhood as Besson planned on becoming a marine biologist. At the age of 17 he had a diving accident which left him unable to dive, However, he has since fully recovered.^[1]

During his childhood, and especially during adolescence, Besson showed amazing creativity. Out of boredom, he started to write stories, including the backdrop to what would later become one of his most popular movies, The Fifth Element.^[2] Besson directed and co-wrote the screenplay of this Sci-Fi thriller with the screenwriter, Robert Mark Kamen. The film is inspired by the American comic books Besson read as a teenager.

At 18, Besson returned to his birthplace of Paris.<ref name="IMDb bio" /> There he started to become involved in film, taking on odd jobs to get a feel for the industry. 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.<ref name="IMDb bio" /> In the early 1980s, Besson met Éric Serra and asked him to compose the score for his first short film, L'Avant dernier.^[3]

He was married to Anne Parillaud, who starred in the film he wrote and directed, La Femme Nikita.

Besson later dated model Maïwenn Le Besco. Their daughter, Shana Besson, was born in 1993.

Besson married Milla Jovovich on December 14 1997, but they divorced in 1999. On August 28 2004, Besson married Virginie Silla.

In recent years, he has written and produced numerous action movies, including the "Taxi" series, "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 which was presented to the IOC members for the bid of Paris for the 2012 Summer Olympics.

Impact on popular culture

Besson's influence on other directors, artists, and world-wide popular culture cannot be denied, and is largely attributed to his films Nikita (1990) starring Anne Parillaud and Léon (aka The Professional, 1994) starring Jean Reno, Gary Oldman, and introducing Natalie Portman to the screen. These two films strongly influenced spin-off works by many artists in comics books, other films with "cleaner" hitman characters, and several American television shows, with the most direct spin-off being the long-running (1997-2001) USA network TV series La Femme Nikita as well as influences on ABC's Alias starring Jennifer Garner as paranoid girl-spy du jour. This influence extends to the creation of FOX TV's 24 by Joel Surnow and Robert Cochran, who had previously produced Nikita for the USA network. Harvey Keitel has played "cleaners" in the "Americanized" version of Nikita with Bridget Fonda called Point of No Return (1993) and Pulp Fiction (1994). This character also made it to TV in 1994 in the form of The Cleaner in The X-Files and has been satirized in the 2006 film The Cleaner starring Cedric the Entertainer.

Lawsuits

On several occasions Besson has been sued by collaborators, such as Subway co-writer Pierre Jolivet. The law suits have revealed that Besson can be difficult to work with and that he often demands sole credit on film projects that have involved other writers. Kathryn Bigelow accused him of stealing the script she wrote for a movie about . This lawsuit ended in a settlement, the terms of which were confidential. Other trials for plagiarism were won by Besson.

In January 2003, following the publication of a highly critical article [1], Besson sued the French magazine Brazil, demanding 50,000 euros, but lost. Besson also lost a trial against Julien Seri, the first director of Yamakasi, who was fired by Besson. Seri had publicly accused Besson of dictatorial methods and unrealistic schedules.

The most serious confrontation with the law concerned the death of cameraman Alain Dutartre during the shooting of Taxi 2, due to a failed stunt. The charges against Besson and director Gérard Krawczyk were dropped in February 2006; however, stunt coordinator Rémy Julienne and executive producer Bernard Grenet of Europacorp are to go on trial for involuntary manslaughter.

Cinéma du look

Besson was a prominent face in the era of Cinéma du look in the '80s into the start of the '90s. Subway, The Big Blue and Nikita are all considered to be in this era.

Filmography as director

• The Last Battle or Le Dernier Combat (1983)
• Subway (1985)
• The Big Blue aka Le Grand bleu (1988)
• Nikita aka La Femme Nikita (1990)
• Atlantis (1991) - underwater wildlife documentary
• Léon aka The Cleaner aka The Professional (1994)
• The Fifth Element (1997)
• aka Jeanne d'Arc or Joan of Arc (1999)
• Angel-A (2005)
• Arthur and the Invisibles (2006)
• Arthur and the Vengeance of Maltazard (2009) (filming)
• Arthur et la guerre des deux mondes (2010) (filming)

Works

Besson has been the author of the Arthur trilogy which features Arthur and the Minimoys, Arthur and the Forbidden City and Arthur and the Revenge of Malthazard. Besson has also turned the first of this book series; Arthur and the Minimoys into a part live-action, part-CG animated film which was released as Arthur and the Invisibles in the UK and the USA and starred Freddie Highmore, Madonna, Snoop Dogg, Mia Farrow, Robert De Niro and David Bowie. Besson directed. The next two books in the series are in pre-production.

Videoclips

• Pull Marine : Isabelle Adjani (1983)
• Mon Légionnaire : Serge Gainsbourg (1988)
• Que mon coeur lâche : Mylène Farmer (1993)
• Love Profusion : Madonna (2003)

References

External links

• Luc Besson at the Internet Movie Database
• Luc Besson Interview, Angel-A
• JewReview.net video interview with Luc Besson and Rie Rasmussen about Angel-A
• In-depth interview with Luc Besson

Awards
Preceded by Patrice Leconte for Ridicule	César Award for Best Director for The Fifth Element 1998	Succeeded by Patrice Chéreau for Ceux qui m'aiment prendront le train

•  • [ e] Films directed by Luc Besson
The Last Battle Subway The Big Blue Nikita Atlantis Lon The Fifth Element Angel-A Arthur and the Minimoys (Invisibles)