Besson does have something to tell us
Told to keep silent if there’s nothing to say, director keeps making statements
At 58, Luc Besson has just about reached the balance point between freshness and knowledge.
The César-winning writer-director-producer has nearly 30 directorial features. He has made cult classics such as “La Femme Nikita,” “Léon: The Professional” and “Subway,” and smashes such as “The Big Blue,” “The Fifth Element” and the half-billion-dollar-grossing “Lucy,” and produced more than 80 projects, such as “Taken.” With “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets,” he brings to the screen material he fell in love with as a comic-reading boy. The new adventure features Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne as intergalactic cops investigating a mystery on a vast, multicultural space station.
Why the balance after 40 years?
“When you start, at 19 years old, my freshness is at 100 percent; my knowledge is at zero,” says Besson by phone. “I don’t know what love means. I don’t know anything about life. Then, as you go on, your freshness is going down fast,” he says, laughing, “your knowledge is go-
“Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” (PG-13) opens July 21.
“What do you have to say to people? Do you want to make them laugh, cry, what? Otherwise, don’t speak.”
ing up. So it’s the moment when you have the right balance. … I couldn’t make it five years ago, and I’ll probably never make it in five years.”
As a teen, Besson completed his first film: a short about mermaids.
“When I watched the film, I was so proud. I showed it to my friends. And one said, ‘Luc, there is something very important you have to understand if you want to continue to make movies: If you have nothing to say, just shut the f— up.’ I cried a lot, I went to the garden of my mom and I burned the film.” He pauses, then laughs. “I regret it now. But … it’s always, ‘What do you have to say to people? Do you want to make them laugh, cry, what? Otherwise, don’t speak.’ ”
“The Big Blue” was 1988’s biggest hit in France and won a César for Éric Serra’s music. Then the U.S. distributor changed the ending to a “happy” one and replaced the entire score.
“When I arrived to New York for the promotion, I was with Éric and (frequent collaborator and actor) Jean Reno. We were so happy. Then someone in my room says, ‘What do you think about the new ending?’ I said, ‘Excuse me?’ … They come back with a VHS and show me the end … So I took a plane back to France the same day.
“Normally there’s a premiere at the Chinese Theatre (in Hollywood), and we were so happy to go there, but I never went. That’s why, on ‘Valerian,’ I insist the premiere is at the Chinese,” he says, laughing.
While his films’ visual elements are often singled out, Besson has also coaxed some memorable performances, such as from Gary Oldman in “The Professional” (1994) and Milla Jovovich in “The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc” (1999).
Besson says he would tinker with Oldman's performance with direction such as, “try with a bit of red now. He’s doing it right away. ‘(Then) Can I see blue?’ ‘Yellow spots?’ He’s doing it. One day, after, like, 25 takes, he says, ‘Luc, I’m worried you don’t have what you need.’ I say, ‘No no, sorry, I had what I needed on take No. 5.’ I couldn’t stop because, whatever color I asked, he was doing it and I was amazed.
“Milla, in ‘Jeanne d’Arc.’ She was really dedicated. Sometimes she was like Jeanne, she was at the limit of craziness. She went deep.”
Then there was Michelle Yeoh’s transformation into imprisoned Burmese leader Aung San Suu Kyi for “The Lady” (2011). It was profound for many.
“The first day on the set, I couldn’t shoot for half an hour because everyone was crying,” Besson says. “There’s a scene where she’s making a speech before 1 million people and Michelle did the speech in Burmese. There was this guy behind her, like 60 years old, he was crying. ‘I’m sorry, but 30 years ago, I was in the middle of the audience, looking at the real one. From the back, she sounds so much like her ...’ ”
Besson’s previous colorful sci-fi romp is highly regarded, but not by him.
“I was very frustrated with ‘The Fifth Element’ (1997) because I did it just a year before the digital (effects),” he says. “Doing the special effects was a nightmare. And I had only 188 special-effects shots. ‘Valerian’ has 2,734. I always said to myself, ‘I’ll get revenge one day!’ ”