Cinéma du look
Cinéma du look was a French film movement of the 1980s, analysed, for the first time, by French critic Raphaël Bassan in La Revue du Cinéma issue n° 448, May 1989,[1] in which he classified Luc Besson Jean-Jacques Beineix and Leos Carax as directors of "le look."[2] These directors were said to favor style over substance, spectacle over narrative.[3] It referred to films that had a slick, gorgeous visual style[3] and a focus on young, alienated characters who were said to represent the marginalized youth of François Mitterrand's France.[4] The three main directors of the Cinéma du look were Jean-Jacques Beineix, Luc Besson and Leos Carax. Themes that run through many of their films include doomed love affairs, young people more affiliated to peer groups rather than families, a cynical view of the police, and the use of scenes in the Paris Métro to symbolise an alternative, underground society. The mixture of 'high' culture, such as the opera music of Diva and Les Amants du Pont-Neuf, and pop culture, for example the references to Batman in Subway, was another key feature.[3]
Origins
French filmmakers were inspired by New Hollywood films (most notably Francis Ford Coppola's One from the Heart and Rumble Fish), late Fassbinder films (Lola), television commercials, music videos, and fashion photography.[5]
Key directors and key films
Jean-Jacques Beineix
- Diva (1981)
- 37°2 le matin (English: Betty Blue) (1986)
Luc Besson
- Subway (1985)
- Le Grand bleu (English: The Big Blue) (1988)
- Nikita (1990)
Leos Carax
- Mauvais Sang (1986)
- Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (1991)
Notes
Footnotes
- ^ Translate in English : The French neo-baroques directors : Beineix, Besson, Carax from Diva to le Grand Bleu (pp. 11 – 23), in The Films of Luc Besson: Master of Spectacle (Under the direction of Susan Hayward and Phil Powrie) Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2007. ISBN 0-7190-7028-7
- ^ Berra, John (June 2009). "Book Reviews: The Films of Luc Besson: Master of Spectacle". Scope. No. 14. Retrieved 2011-05-29.
- ^ a b c Austin, Guy. Contemporary French Cinema: An Introduction, Manchester University Press, 1999, pp. 119–120, 126-128. ISBN 0-7190-4611-4
- ^ French Cinema — Powrie & Reader
- ^ Bordwell & Thompson 2003, p. 620.
Bibliography
- Bordwell, David; Thompson, Kristin (2002). Film History: An Introduction (2nd ed.). ISBN 0-07-038429-0.
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