film buffs needed. A level question

[pevee]

OK so I am doing my A-levels this year....and we have to think of a question to answer throughout the year....

for example... "Would Director luc besson http://imdb.com/name/nm0000108/be considered an auteur?

- Do you think there are similar aspects/signatures in all of his films?
- Is he just trying to achieve mainstream success?
- Do you think it's fair for him to be criticized for making 'high concept' movies because of his nationality?


wait a minute thats actually a good question!


anyway, I'm looking for ideas here, something i can grasp and there are a lot of resources from.



I'm looking towards the smart DLT'ians (:(just doesn't have the same ring at 'fubarian')

so that means not you, Eamon.

[i'mmikeandyousuck]

HELL NO.
he makes popcorn movies. if he were a restaurant he'd be the fucking mcdonalds of the movie world. it goes in okay, not too bad, (not too good either) and comes toght out of ya right away.

his works arent wholly unique, they exist as pastiches. his movies are hodgepodges of movies that went before him. fifth element wasabout as original as a paris hilton cd. he relies on tricks or irony to push his story forward (e.g. leon, also see any of the movies he's produced) like tarantino.who btw is also a hack.

definitons for help:

The auteur theory holds that a film, or an entire body of work, by a director (or, less commonly, a producer)
reflects the personal vision and preoccupations of that director, as if she or he were the work's primary
"author" (auteur).

Auteur
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The term auteur (French for author) is used to describe film directors (or, more rarely, producers or writers)
who are considered to have a distinctive, recognizable vision, either because they repeatedly return to the
same subject matter, or habitually address a particular psychological or moral theme, or employ a recurring
style, or all of the above. In theory, an auteur's films are identifiable regardless of their genre. The term was first
applied in its cinematic sense in François Truffaut's 1954 essay "A Certain Tendency of the French Cinema"
(see Auteur theory).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auteur

is he a master visualist? yes. can he put together compelling peices of film? yes. see la femme nikita or big blue. are they greatmovies?is there a consistent look, feel, or vision to his movies? umm. nope.

in the annals of classic movies, nothing with luc bessons name will ever be considered a classic. nor for that matter will he be listed as one of the worlds great directors. and he certainly aint no auteur.

or were you looking for question ideas?

[pevee]

but don't you get the feeling when your watching leon, fifth element and la femme nikita that you know your watching a Besson film?

I know I did....


Although your right tho- besson includes many things in all or most of his movies-

Trademarks
• Often casts Jean Reno.
• Music always by Eric Serra.
• Typically, during the opening-titles, the camera moves towards something important for the movie, but looks down until the important part of credits was shown, then swings up, now looking at a place or character.
• Often features fully enclosed sets with no natural lighting.
• Frequently has a shot of someone being slapped, focusing on the slapper's hand momentarily beforehand (Fifth Element, The Messenger, The Professional, La Femme Nikita)
• Films usually feature a scene that is edited into real-time. In The Fifth Element, Vito Cornelius is given 20 seconds to speak, does so for exactly 20 seconds.

Does this not (albeit poorly) validate the title of an auteur?


Anyway thanks alot for your opinion its greatly apreciated, although I was more looking for a more diverse question- using that as an example. It can be about naything film related really, well within reason.

[pevee]

Besson's stories and formula's are most original but can be seen in all of his films. The techniques in which he uses give the films a European look, even in "Leon" which is set in New York. This I feel is mainly down to his 'regulars’ Eric Serra and Jean Reno, appear in most, if not all of his films. This combination along with the exceptional directing skills of Besson gives each and everyone of his films the originality which is needed to get him the box office success.
The action scenes within all of his films are breath taking and carefully thought through and although some people might not say 'ground breaking' I feel for a French director, it is! From this you can see that the 3 years he spent in America has obviously had some influence on him and this is where most critics penalize him and give him the worst 'nickname' ever, "The French Spielberg".
All in all, I feel that Luc Besson is an auteur. This is due to the fact, he sticks to the same formulas, whether it is character building or intense action scenes. Even from just watching a film of his, that you didn’t know was done by him, you can tell that it is a Besson film. Luc Besson is a clever and intelligent man, and the best thing to come out of France since early cinema. He is an auteur and does not deserve that nickname he has been given, the critics are just annoyed that a French film can beat the American’s at their own game.

[eamon angelface]

Auteur came about when the French film theorists coined the term in reference to the author of the movie being seperate from the author of the script. Yes Luc Besson is an Auteur because he takes his scripts and those of other writers and interprets them in his own way. The misconeption that there have to be signatures is pretty widely held but inaccurate. BTW Wikpoedia definitions are written by anyone so some are bound to be a little off.

Truffaut and Bazin and the like were after a way to describe what they saw as a more signifcant contribution to the product than the script. Luc Besson has proven himself very capable and while most of the French film community hates him with the kind of passion only the snooty French film community can he is none the less an excellent author in the sense that his final products have been fairly consistent in their quality. The content and its quality is totally subjective.

Leon doesn't have a Euro look. It has a very NYC look to it. It was shot from the eyes of a French director schooled in French New Wave more directly than most (in the same way Michael Bay went to school in Hollywood) so the influence will always be there. The operative thematic consistencies between all his pictures are that they are at least derivative of quality which can sometimes pass for genuine enginuity. You could look at his movies and guess they were his, but find me those same qualities in The Messenger. What I'm saying is he is an auteur but not for the reasons stated. He's a purist formalist with heavy influence from the French new wave movement but so are most French directors. He even has some elements of Italian surrealist horror schlock in his work. Not to the extent of someone like Sam Raimi but it's there when he needs it. He's a pretty decent amalgamation of the more useful techniques all modern film makers draw from actually but rooted heavily in his national cinema.