Film director, born in Paris, France. He worked his way up in film, television, and promotional video before making his first feature film, Le Dernier combat (1983), filmed in monochrome, and virtually dispensing with dialogue. He followed this with Subway (1985), starring Isabelle Adjani and Christophe Lambert, a thriller set largely in the labyrinthine tunnels of the Paris Métro. His film Le Grand Bleu (1988), panned by critics and loved by adolescents, became a cult film of the 1980s. Later films include Nikita (1990), Atlantis (1991), Leon (1994), and The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc (1999). He scripted the 2005 film Unleashed.
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. This had a heavy influence on his childhood and throughout his childhood Besson planned on becoming a marine biologist until the age of 17 when he had a diving accident which left him unable to dive any longer.
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.
At 18, unable to dive, Besson returned to his birthplace of Paris.
In the early 1980s, Besson met Eric Serra and asked him to compose the score for his first short film, L'Avant dernier.
Besson married Milla Jovovich on December 14, 1997, but they divorced in 1999.
Besson's influence on other directors, artists, and world-wide popular culture cannot be denied, largely resulting from his films of the early 90's notably Nikita (1990) starring Anne Parillaud and Léon (aka The Professional, 1994) starring Jean Reno 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" hit-man 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.
Controversy
Despite, or because of, his popularity, Luc Besson has become a somewhat controversial personality, especially in France.
Criticisms
His film company, Europacorp, has often been accused of producing brainless entertainment, movies with weak scripts that are filled with vulgarity, populism, bad jokes and even sexism and racism.
Lawsuits
On several occasions Besson was sued by collaborators, such as Subway co-writer Pierre Jolivet.
In January 2003, following the publication of a highly critical article , Besson sued the French magazine Brazil, demanding 50,000 euros. Besson also lost a trial against Julien Seri, the first director of Yamakasi, who was fired by Besson.
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