Fifth Element In A Nutshell

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The Fifth Element is the creation of French film director Luc Besson, who has worked on such films as Nikita, The Transporter and The professional (more commonly known to UK and US audiences as Leon). Besson claims to have led a very lonely childhood. Trapped in French suburbia with no television and few friends he began to delve into his own imagination for entertainment, and found he could ‘escape reality’[1] by writing of a futuristic world inspired by the comics of legendary French comics creators Jean Giraud (Moebius) and Jean-Claude Mèziéres. Besson started writing The Fifth Element when he was sixteen years old, with no idea how to write a screenplay the film started its life as a novel entitled Zaltman Bleroz, named after the main protagonist (the Korben Dallas character). It wasn’t until almost two decades later, when Besson paired up with screenwriter Robert Mark Kamen, that the main character, and subsequently the film name was changed to suit a wider, more commercial market. [2] Besson then, very cleverly in my opinion, employed his two favourite childhood comic book artists Moebius and Mèziéres as production designers for the fifth element, asking them to create a twenty-third century New York City. Having two such production designers who have influenced the story so heavily gave The Fifth Element as close a look as possible to what Besson had imagined when he was sixteen. This along with Besson’s very centred photographic style with one point perspectives fixed right across the camera lens reflects somewhat the difference between the American comic book tradition and the French graphic artist heritage, and helps give this futuristic New York City a very European feel. [3] Moebius and Mèziéres were given almost free reign in their drawings and created the twenty-third century New York by upwardly extending the existing buildings making the city

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