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{{Infobox film
{{Infobox film
| name = Holy Motors
| name = Holy Motors
| image =
| image = Holy-motors poster.jpg
| caption =
| caption =
| director = [[Leos Carax]]
| director = [[Leos Carax]]

Revision as of 02:22, 13 June 2012

Holy Motors
File:Holy-motors poster.jpg
Directed byLeos Carax
Written byLeos Carax
Produced byMartine Marignac
StarringDenis Lavant
CinematographyCaroline Champetier
Yves Cape
Edited byNelly Quettier
Production
company
Pierre Grise Productions
Distributed byLes Films du Losange
Release dates
Running time
115 minutes
CountryTemplate:Film France
LanguageFrench
Budget€ 3.9 million

Holy Motors is a 2012 French film written and directed by Leos Carax. It stars Denis Lavant as a man who travels between multiple parallel lives. It was Carax' first feature film since 1999. The film competed for the Palme d'Or at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival.[1][2]

Cast

Production

Development

Prior to the production of Holy Motors, Leos Carax had for five years tried to fund a big English-language film. As financiers were reluctant to invest, Carax, whose last feature film was Pola X from 1999, decided to make a smaller French-language production first, with the aim to regain prominence in international cinema.[3] Taking inspiration from the omnibus Tokyo!, for which he had made a commissioned short film, Carax decided to write a cheap film pre-determined for his regular collaborator Denis Lavant. Carax was able to sway potential investors concerned with the film's budget by switching to digital photography, a film process that he otherwise strongly disapproves of.[4]

The film's initial concept started with a trend Carax had observed where stretch limousines were being increasingly used for weddings. The director was interested in the cars' bulkiness: "They're outdated, like the old futurist toys of the past. I think they mark the end of an era, the era of large, visible machines."[4] From that grew an idea for a film about the increasing digitalisation of society; a science fiction scenario where organisms and visible machines share a common superfluity. The opening scene was inspired by a tale by E. T. A. Hoffmann, about a man who discovers a secret door in his bedroom that leads to an opera house.[4]

Holy Motors was produced through Pierre Grise Productions for a budget of €3.9 million, including money from the CNC, Île-de-France region, Arte France, Canal+ and Ciné+.[5] The film is a 20% German co-production through the company Pandora, and received €350,000 from the Franco-German co-production support committee.[6]

Casting

Carax said about the leading role which had been written specifically for Lavant: "If Denis had said no, I would have offered the part to Lon Chaney or to Chaplin. Or to Peter Lorre or Michel Simon."[4] Édith Scob had previously worked with Carax on Les Amants du Pont-Neuf, but was there almost entirely cut out, so Carax felt he owed her a larger role. He also thought Holy Motors already owed to Georges Franju's Eyes Without a Face, in which Scob played, and Carax decided to give an explicit nod to the film by casting her. The character Kay M. came from a cancelled project which was supposed to star Lavant and Kate Moss, and follow the Merde character from Tokyo! in the United States. Eva Mendes was offered the role after she and Carax met at a film festival and said they wanted to make a film together. Kylie Minogue was discovered by Carax after Claire Denis suggested her for a cancelled project. The role played by Michel Piccoli was originally intended for Carax himself, but he decided it would be misleading to cast a filmmaker. When Piccoli was cast, the idea was to make him unrecognisable and credit him under a pseudonym, but the information reached the media.[7]

Filming and post-production

Principal photography was located to Paris. Filming started in September and ended in November 2011.[8] The soundtrack includes Minogue performing the original song "Who Were We?" written by Carax and Neil Hannon, as well as previously existing music by Dmitri Shostakovich, Sparks, Manset, R. L. Burnside, and the track "Sinking of Bingou-Maru" from Godzilla.[9]

Release

The film premiered on 23 May 2012 in competition at the 65th Cannes Film Festival.[10] Variety reported that the screening was met with "whooping and hollering" and "a storm of critical excitement on Twitter".[11] The film will be released in France on 4 July 2012 through Les Films du Losange.[12]

Critical response

Upon its release, Holy Motors has received many positive reviews. The website Rotten Tomatoes, who arrange and normalize reviews out of 100, currently grades the film 82 out of 100.[13] Peter Bradshaw of The Guardian rated the film five out of five and wrote: "Leos Carax's Holy Motors is weird and wonderful, rich and strange – barking mad, in fact. It is wayward, kaleidoscopic, black comic and bizarre; there is in it a batsqueak of genius, dishevelment and derangement; it is captivating and compelling. ... [T]his is what we have all come to Cannes for: for something different, experimental, a tilting at windmills, a great big pole-vault over the barrier of normality by someone who feels that the possibilities of cinema have not been exhausted by conventional realist drama."[14] Robbie Collin from The Daily Telegraph gave it five stars saying "In short, it is a film about the stuff of cinema itself, and is perhaps the strongest contender for the Palme d’Or yet."[15]

References

  1. ^ "2012 Official Selection". Cannes. Retrieved 2012-04-19.
  2. ^ "Cannes Film Festival 2012 line-up announced". timeout. Retrieved 2012-04-19.
  3. ^ Blondeau, Romain (2011-06-10). "Le grand retour de Leos Carax, sans Juliette Binoche". Les Inrockuptibles (in French). Retrieved 2011-08-21.
  4. ^ a b c d Frodon, Jean-Michel (2012). "Interview with Leos Carax" (PDF). Holy Motors press kit. Wild Bunch. Retrieved 2012-05-17.
  5. ^ Lemercier, Fabien (2011-06-10). "Arte France Cinéma backs Carax's Holly Motors". cineuropa.org. Cineuropa. Retrieved 2011-08-21.
  6. ^ Prot, Bénédicte (2011-07-14). "Franco-German committee backs three films". cineuropa.org. Cineuropa. Retrieved 2011-08-21.
  7. ^ Carax, Leos (2012). "Les Acteurs" (PDF). Holy Motors press kit. Wild Bunch. Retrieved 2012-05-17.
  8. ^ "Holy Motors". Screenbase. Screen International. Retrieved 2011-10-27.
  9. ^ "Original soundtrack / Additional music" (PDF). Holy Motors press kit. Wild Bunch. 2012. Retrieved 2012-05-17.
  10. ^ "Screenings guide" (PDF). festival-cannes.fr. Cannes Film Festival. Retrieved 2012-05-17.
  11. ^ Chang, Justin (2012-05-22). "Auds whoop, holler at 'Holy Motors' screening". Variety. Retrieved 2012-05-23.
  12. ^ "Holy Motors". AlloCiné (in French). Tiger Global. Retrieved 2012-03-15.
  13. ^ Holy Motors, on Rottentomatoes.com
  14. ^ Bradshaw, Peter (2012-05-23). "Cannes 2012: Holy Motors – review". The Guardian. Retrieved 2012-05-23.
  15. ^ Collin, Robbie (2012-05-26). "Cannes 2012: Holy Motors – review". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 2012-05-26.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Holy_Motors&oldid=497330660"