Luc Besson

by Susan Hayward

Besson's films, Le Dernier Combat, Subway, Le Grande Bleu, Nikita, and LTon , were all made during the 1980s and 1990s. Hayward divides her study into four the emerging filmmaker, Besson in context, violence as performance, and constructing subjectivity in the absence of a father and mother. Besson does not view himself as an auteur , but as a metteur en scFne . The director is characterized as a storyteller whose main characters experience difficulty in adapting to society and are prevented from achieving goals because they are in a state of dis-ease with a society that has, as he says, "unbalanced the family, creating emotional deprivation in young people up to the age of 20." No information is provided on Hayward. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Genres: Nonfiction

193 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Susan Hayward is a scholar who specializes in French film studies and French cultural studies. She is the editor of the journal Studies in French Cinema.

Hayward is Chair of Cinema Studies and Director of Film Studies at the University of Exeter. Previously, she was a Senior Lecturer in French Studies at the University of Birmingham.

Reviews

[Jude Lawson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good read

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This essay collection might be for you if Luc Besson’s first seven films are still fresh in your mind. I particularly enjoyed the one explaining how even his vibey, slow-burn films were seen as wildly excessive and Americanized by the French establishment of the 80’s, a comically bad take about how a silent, B&W movie was bankrupting French film culture.

[Gita Madhu · Rating 2 out of 5]

Extremely pedantic and pretentious considering who it is about.