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Logo [IMG] Monday, March 8th, 2010 PORTLAND, OREGON'S NEWS WEEKLY. NEWS AND CULTURE FOR MARCH 3RD AND BEYOND. _____________________ [ Go ] CLASSIFIEDS Jobs Real Estate Rentals Services Health & Wellness Community Buy, Sell, Trade Musicians FINDER Find a finder NEWS Cover Story News Stories Politics Aaron Campbell Rogue of the Week Willamette Week on KATU Willamette Week on KPOJ (mp3) Dr. Know Murmurs Inbox Ask the Editor WWire Blog CULTURE Scoop Feature Stories Hot Seat Q&A Headout Cheap Skate Comics Special Sections Retail Therapist MUSIC Show Previews Album Reviews Live Reviews Club Spotlight Live Music Calendar On the Radar Cut of the Day Tour Diaries Local Cut Blog SCREEN Film Reviews Movie Times Brew Views DISH Restaurant Reviews Restaurant Guide 2009 Food Event Calendar PERFORMANCE Show Previews Live Reviews Stage Calendar Classical/Opera Calendar Dance Calendar VISUAL ARTS Gallery/Show Reviews Gallery Calendar WORDS Book Reviews Words Event Calendar OUTDOORS Outdoors Events MATCHMAKER Chance Meeting Get Love Get Lucky PROMOTIONS Free Stuff / Contests Swag Rag Newsletter WW Sponsored Events Musicfest NW Candidates Gone Wild Give!Guide WW Store GET A PAPER Subscribe Find My WW Buy a Guide Canvas Dreams Ad [IMG] Ad [IMG] Ad [IMG] Ad Sponsored Links: WW Personals Musician's Market Snowboard Jackets Legal Tips Camping Gear The Fifth Element Synopsis: A New York cabby (Bruce Willis) tries to save Earth in 2259. Showtimes | Cast | Add comment Rating: * * 1 * 2 * 3 * 4 * 5 Rating: 0 / 5 stars - 0 vote(s). Running time: 127 minutes Released: 1997 Distributor: Columbia Pictures Genre: Science fiction Sound: DTS, Dolby A, Dolby Digital, Dolby SR, Dolby Stereo, SDDS, Surround Picture format: Scope (2.35:1) Official site: http://www.spe.sony.com/Pictures/SonyMovies/movies/Fifth/intro.html Director: Luc Besson Producer: Patrice Ledoux Showtimes: Monday, March 8th No showtimes found for Monday 3/08. Cast [IMG] Bruce ... Korben Dallas Willis [IMG] Gary ... Jean-Baptiste Oldman Emmanuel Zorg [IMG] Ian Holm ... Father Vito Cornelius [IMG] Milla ... Leeloo Jovovich [IMG] Chris ... Ruby Rhod Tucker [IMG] Luke ... Billy Perry [IMG] Brion ... General Munro James [IMG] Tommy ... President Lindberg ``Tiny'' Lister [IMG] Lee Evans ... Fog [IMG] Charlie ... David Creed-Miles [IMG] Tricky ... Right Arm [IMG] John ... General Staedert Neville [IMG] John ... Professor Pacoli Bluthal [IMG] Maiwenn ... Diva Plavalaguna Le Besco [IMG] Mathieu ... Mugger Kassovitz Production notes: -Notes provided by Columbia Pictures- The Fifth Element Production Information Every five thousand years, a door opens between the dimensions. In one dimension lies the universe and all of its multitude of varied life forms. In another exists an element made not of earth, air, fire or water, but of anti-energy, anti-life. This "thing," this darkness, waits patiently at the threshold of the universe for an opportunity to extinguish all life and all light. Every five thousand years, the universe needs a hero, and in New York City of the 23rd Century, a good hero is hard to find. One of today's most provocative and acclaimed filmmakers, director Luc Besson's works have captured the imaginations of filmgoers worldwide. His visually innovative style has marked the critically-acclaimed thriller The Professional, the exotic undersea adventure The Big Blue, the new wave thriller Subway and the seminal action film La Femme Nikita, the first major French blockbuster. Now, Besson teams with Bruce Willis, one of the most dynamic and successful actors of his generation, to take the science fiction film in a new and exciting direction. Columbia Pictures presents The Fifth Element, a timeless story about love and survival, heroes and villains, good and evil, set in a strangely familiar yet intoxicatingly different 23rd Century. The film stars Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, Ian Holm and Milla Jovovich. A Gaumont Production, The Fifth Element has a screenplay by Besson & Robert Mark Kamen from a story by Besson. Patrice Ledoux is the producer. The film also features an eclectic cast including Chris Tucker (Friday, Dead Presidents, Panther), Luke Perry (Normal Life, 8 Seconds), Brion James (The Player, Blade Runner), Lee Evans and international media star Tricky. Thierry Arbogast (The Professional, Ridicule) is the director of photography. Dan Weil (La Femme Nikita, Total Eclipse) is production designer, and the costumes are by internationally-renowned designer Jean-Paul Gaultier (The City of Lost Children). Visual effects by Digital Domain were supervised by Mark Stetson (Total Recall, True Lies) and produced by Dan Lombardo. Eric Serra (The Professional, GoldenEye) composed the score. The film was co-produced by Iain Smith and edited by Sylvie Landra. Chosen as the opening film for the prestigious 50th Annual Cannes Film Festival this May 7, The Fifth Element opens in the US this May 9. The title of The Fifth Element refers to the four elements of alchemic Greek tradition -- earth, air, fire, and water. Four elements gathered together to create the fifth one: life. Besson conceived of this energy -- the energy used to talk, to engage in sports, even to think -- as an actual, living thing that never disappears, but spreads throughout the universe and beyond. Though the acclaimed writer/director conceived of the story while still a teenager, he was unaware that the concept of a fifth element -- known in Moorish traditions as "Akasha" -- is deeply rooted in ancient mythology. Besson remembers: "When my father came across Plato's writings on the subject, he came to me with the book and said, 'Do you know that your movie is a remake?' I read it, and was amazed to see the similarities between what Plato had written and what I had put into the script." In The Fifth Element, Besson posits the question: what if an opposite form of life existed in another dimension -- one not made up of life-energy, but a dark, cancerous embodiment of all that is evil? "The energy of life, and this other, evil life-form, are opposites, like fire and ice," Besson explains, "and the more of this life-energy we create, the more it irritates and provokes this other." In the 23rd century of The Fifth Element, humanity has wandered out among the stars, spreading this life-energy, and further agitating the dark being. "It feels as if we are asphyxiating it," Besson notes. "It is dying because of us. It wants to fight back, and extinguish every source of energy or light --animal, vegetable, human. But it has its own limitations: it is isolated in another dimension." The dark being's time to strike back occurs only once every 5,000 years when a doorway between the parallel dimensions briefly opens. "At the very beginning of the movie," says Besson, "we show that a way was once found to fight this entity, but the years have passed, and the way is forgotten. When our story begins, he is back, and no one knows how to defeat him." The setting in which this heroic quest drama unfolds is among the most fully-realized fantasy worlds ever committed to film, and certainly one of the most unique. "We looked at all of human history," says Besson, "in order to come up with what we think is a very possible scenario for humanity in the year 2259, which is when the story takes place -- to be very precise, the story begins on March 18, 2259, at 2 a.m. What will the evolution be? How will people live, and think? And how will that be reflected in the world? It seemed very important to me to create for this story a world that people can accept as a real possibility for the future." The result is a menagerie of weirdly exotic aliens: hulking, armored creatures with incongruously small heads called the Mondoshawan who, despite their imposing presence, work on the side of good; and huge, doglike Mangalores -- an army of mercenaries in the service of Zorg (Gary Oldman), the agent of all that is evil. The filmmakers also created imagery of a brave, new Earth that has never been seen before, along with an array of fantastically-imagined vistas on other planets and our own. Bringing this world to life on screen is in large part the responsibility of production designer Dan Weil, whose first film with Besson was the undersea adventure The Big Blue in 1988. Weil supervised a team of top-rank designers and illustrators -- including such legendary artists as Moebius and Jean-Claude Mezieres -- through a lengthy development process, and worked in close collaboration with the departments of hair, makeup and costume designer Jean-Paul Gaultier. The next step was realizing the designs into sets, models, matte paintings and digital canvasses, requiring meticulous unification and coordination. The elaborate sets and mock-ups took up 9 stages at London's legendary Pinewood Studios, with director Besson running from world to world as he crossed from stage to stage. Heading the London creature shop -- a task that included building full-body creature suits, animatronic puppets, and giant armored alien spacesuits, as well as numerous miscellaneous prosthetics and organic props -- was Nick Dudman, whose credits include Interview With The Vampire, Alien 3, and, for Tim Burton's Batman, the creation of Jack Nicholson's startling "Joker" makeup. "I chose Nick because the work he showed us was the best of what we'd seen," says Besson. "But what really convinced me was the intense enthusiasm that he had for this project." Besson's desire to show audiences a real city of the future in convincing, photo-realistic detail led him to decide against a purely digital solution for the visual effects of The Fifth Element. Canvassing effects firms for a shop that could seamlessly combine scale models with digital enhancements soon narrowed the field, and Digital Domain won the contract. Mark Stetson, an effects veteran with work on more than 100 films, including True Lies and Interview With The Vampire, to his credit, joined Digital Domain just as the effects studio agreed to undertake the task. Stetson's long experience as owner of one of Hollywood's top model shops particularly qualified him for the role of Visual Effects Supervisor. Complementing the look of the film's futuristic cityscapes and space sequences are the forward-looking costume designs of designer Jean-Paul Gaultier, the "enfant terrible" of haute couture, whose designs for film include The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, The City of Lost Children, and the stage sequences of the Madonna documentary Truth or Dare. While the element of fable runs strongly throughout Besson's work -- with La Femme Nikita as a reversal of the Pygmalion myth, or The Professional, a gritty, modern take on Beauty and The Beast -- The Fifth Element is Besson's return to the realm of science fiction, an area he first explored in his first feature, The Last Combat. "When I make a movie, I want to transport people away from their everyday lives," he says. 'I say, 'let's go somewhere that you've never been before, someplace that you would only dream of going. Let's see the subway in a way you've never seen it before. Let's go to the bottom of the sea. Let's go out into space.' It's that idea of the dream, and escape, that draws me to these types of films." The film's story has its own history, originating before the 37-year-old filmmaker began his career. "I started working on this story when I was 16," Besson reveals, "writing solely for the pleasure of it -- just to escape the everyday, and to dream about this world. There was no way that I could imagine someday filming it, and it grew to two or three hundred pages of story. Then, years later, I began to think that maybe I could make this story into a movie." Only after the international critical and commercial success of Besson's features The Big Blue, his first English-language production, and La Femme Nikita was it possible for Besson to consider undertaking a film of the immense scope of The Fifth Element. "After 'Nikita,' I began to work seriously, adapting it to screenplay form," says Besson. "The first draft was 400 pages and would have cost $145 million to shoot, but on my first draft I never think of realistic needs -- I just put down on paper everything that I'd love to see. I just like to go for it, and I consider the serious questions later." After taking his story through second and third drafts, Besson, working with screenwriter Robert Mark Kamen, decided to divide the epic story into two grand acts. "We had to do that in order to make this film possible to shoot," he explains. "So if there is any call for it, a sequel is already written, though that didn't happen by plan." The preproduction team for The Fifth Element first came together in 1993. Heading the design team under production designer Dan Weil were Moebius, a.k.a. Jean Giraud, the French illustrator who first came to prominence in the pages of "Metal Hurlant" magazine (and reprinted to wide acclaim in the U.S. edition, "Heavy Metal") and Jean-Claude Mezieres, celebrated in France as the illustrator of a series of bestselling graphic novels featuring the character "Valerian, Agent Spatio-Temporel." "I looked at the work of hundreds of designers," says Besson, "and narrowed that down to a great team of seven artists, in addition to Mezieres and Moebius. We worked for a year, designing all of this world -- we made wonderful progress in that year, and everything was very good. But finally, some people involved became a little scared of the size of the project, and so it couldn't happen at the time." Undaunted, Besson turned his disappointment to a productive end. "That is when I wrote The Professional," he says. "Very fast -- I had the script written in thirty days, and because I produced it myself, two months later The Professional was in preproduction." The Professional reached an even wider audience than La Femme Nikita, further adding to Besson's worldwide reputation. That global success was sufficient to put The Fifth Element back on the fast track at Columbia Pictures. Besson's first choice for the role of Korben Dallas, the New York cabbie who becomes an unlikely hero, was Bruce Willis. "I met Bruce for the first time about five years ago, when we were first developing this project," Besson recalls. "We discussed the script, and had a lovely talk. Since then, we've stayed in contact, but it was much later, after all the financing for this picture was set up and the screenplay was ready, that I met with him again in New York and gave him the script. I went off to do some shopping, came back two hours later, and he said, 'Yes, let's do it' -- just like that. That was great, it felt like it was already a movie when he said that." The Fifth Element marks Besson's fourth film with longtime producer Patrice Ledoux, Gaumont Films' Chief Operating Officer since 1985. Composer Eric Serra was an up-and-coming pop and jazz guitarist when Besson asked him to score his first feature, Le Dernier Combat in 1982, and they have worked together ever since. Now a major figure on the French music scene, Serra most recently brought the revived James Bond series into the nineties, with his innovative, modern score for GoldenEye. "The composer of the music is like a co-writer," says Besson. "I am the eyes, the composer is the ears. The fact that I've known Eric for 15 years and we've made seven movies together makes him that much more valuable to me, because now we understand each other so well." Besson expresses the same sentiment for the several other core members of the production who are veterans of his past films. Director of Photography Thierry Arbogast worked with Besson on La Femme Nikita and The Professional, in addition to such other distinguished French features as Patrice Leconte's Ridicule and Andre Techine's Ma Saison Preferee. Editor Sylvie Landra is a relative newcomer to the team, having worked on one previous Besson film, The Professional. "I have been lucky to find these people," says Besson, "and, since I know their work has made me happy in the past, it would simply be illogical to work with anyone else." It is the first film for co-producer Iain Smith, whose past production credits include Mary Reilly, City of Joy and Local Hero. His past work with both British and American crews, along with his fluency in French, suited him perfectly for the task of coordinating crews on this truly international effort. ABOUT THE PRODUCTION After one week's location shooting in Mauritania, on Africa's eastern peninsula, The Fifth Element began its principal shoot on January 28, 1996, on the nine largest soundstages of the twelve maintained by London's Pinewood Studios, including the famed "007" soundstage, which remains one of the largest film soundstages in the world. Besson acts as his own camera operator, while maintaining a very "hands-on" directing technique with his actors. He first developed his unique approach at the start of his career, when limited budgets and resources required the director to work with smaller crews, and to go to extremes to get the exact shot that he needed. When shooting, particularly during close-ups, Besson is often in the middle of his scenes, shaping the performance as it happens. "Sometimes I will grab an actor by his shoulders and move him exactly where I want him in my frame," says Besson. "Or, if the take is not so good, I will talk with the actors in the middle of it -- instead of saying 'cut,' explaining and starting again. Between the words 'action' and 'cut,' you have a very particular moment, with a living energy to it, that I don't like to lose." Besson compares this method of working with the living moment to medical surgery, where "you can cut someone open, reach your hands inside and massage the heart to bring life to it, then close them up. Between the words 'action' and 'cut,' everything can happen. I push them, I talk to them and push them again. When I feel they are getting tired, or are out of breath, then I say cut." With the exception of Oldman, who'd grown familiar with Besson's direct involvement in his actors' performance on The Professional, the cast of The Fifth Element was surprised by Besson's very physical involvement in his films. "Bruce and Ian were both a little disturbed by it at first. But after a little while, they came to love it -- to know that the director is with them, and with the performance, and not yards away watching a video monitor." The numerous extras and minor players seen in The Fifth Element, on earth and elsewhere, were frequently surprised by the star treatment they received from director Besson and costumier Jean-Paul Gaultier. "For me, whoever is in my frame is the most important person in the world at that moment," says Besson. "So, generally, I spend more time with inexperienced actors, because, with Bruce or Gary, for instance, I will start my explanation and they'll immediately get it, and know exactly what to do." While shooting the film's substantial crowd scenes, Jean-Paul Gaultier would act as final "quality control" as the extras trooped onto the set, seeing that the look of each design was properly "finished." "On practically every extra, he would change some little thing," Besson recalls. "He would adjust the hat, or add a piece of braid, change the shoes-- put the final touch to each one very quickly, send him onto the set and call 'next!'" For one scene, involving hundreds of extras, Gaultier invested over two hours to prepare each member of the crowd. "He was sweating," recalls Besson, "but he was so excited, you could see that he loved doing it." The final days of shooting were dedicated largely to the film's extensive pyrotechnics, including the largest indoor explosion ever created, filmed in the mammoth "007" soundstage. "It took all of twenty minutes for the fire crews to extinguish the blaze afterwards," says Besson. "It was certainly an interesting way to wrap the shoot." THE VISUAL EFFECTS The Fifth Element called for many combinations of digital and practical effects techniques, frequently combined with elements from live action shooting. Miniature sets, digitally extended and enhanced, were populated with a combination of digital and model vehicles, as well as both virtual and actual actors. In addition, while creating the galactic panorama of The Fifth Element was in itself an immense task, Digital Domain was also called upon to supplement certain of the on-set creature effects, which were handled in London by creature effects artist Nick Dudman and his 55-man crew. "The most important thing about working in a movie with so many effects," says Besson, "is to know that the movie is, above all else, a story. We put a great deal of work into the script, to see that the story is there -- we were never interested in making a movie that is about some spectacular special effect, with the story built around it. The effects are there to do their job in relation to the story, not the other way around." Because The Fifth Element is the first feature to realize Besson's vision through the use of elaborate visual effects, the filmmaker worked in close collaboration with Mark Stetson, Digital Domain's Visual Effects supervisor for the film, through each phase of the visual effects process. "I found that it's less fun than working with actors," Besson notes, "but it turned out to be less difficult than I expected. We started working with Digital Domain very early, storyboarding all the effects about a year before shooting began. We had lots of discussions with Mark Stetson and with Dan Weil, going over drawings, making new drawings -- everything was well-planned ahead of time." Much of the groundwork for the effects designs was done in the first pre-production stage, when Jean-Claude Mezieres, Moebius, and a team of seven graphic artists worked for 11 months visualizing Besson's 23rd Century world in expansive detail. For instance, in developing the alien species Besson calls the "Mondoshawan" -- hulking, armored beings with small heads -- the filmmaker initially met with the art team for a briefing session. During that meeting, Besson told his art crew the entire history of the "Mondoshawan" species as he imagined it. "I would describe its appearance, and how it moves," says Besson, "but also its life; its likes and dislikes, its goals and history. I'd say all I that I knew about it, because I knew this creature, even if I may not have known its face." A week later, Besson and production designer Dan Weil examined 30 or more different sketches of the "Mondoshawan," and selected a single drawing to be further developed for the creature's final look; other times, they combined portions of different drawings to realize Besson's imaginings. A similar process was repeated for hundreds of creatures and objects, from Earth and elsewhere in the 23rd Century. Over the course of 11 months, the worlds of The Fifth Element were realized and incorporated into Weil's formal design scheme for the film. One year later, after the brief hiatus during which Besson wrote, produced and directed The Professional, the preproduction artwork was turned over to Digital Domain, and, well before the start of the principal shoot, Mark Stetson's visual effects crew began work. "We organized our art department, headed by Ira Gilford and Ron Gress," says Stetson, "to further interpret the look of the production art, to flesh out the sketches and to fill the occasional gaps in the established designs. There were a lot of sketches and drawings being traded back and forth, particularly for the cityscapes, flying vehicles and similar things." Notably, Stetson headed the model shop for 1982's Blade Runner -- a film that has defined the look of the urban future for the last 15 years. "One of the most gratifying aspects of working with Luc on this picture is the fact that it's not another Blade Runner," says Stetson. "The look of this film is very different and fresh. Because of the involvement of Moebius and Mezieres, the design is rooted in the traditions of the French graphic novel, combined with a photo-realistic approach that is entirely new and different." To realize Besson's vision of the future 262 years from now, Digital Domain's model shop produced more than 30 major models. The largest of these represented the city of Manhattan in 2259 A.D. -- a single model incorporating 22 buildings -- each building about eight feet around, and averaging a height of 16 feet. The Manhattan model alone filled two of the five stages in Digital Domain's facilities in Venice, California, where four stages were dedicated to The Fifth Element during its 18 weeks of shooting miniature effects. "Mark has delivered some incredible work," says Dan Lombardo, Digital Domain's Visual Effects Producer on the film. The Fifth Element, designed to immerse the viewer in a unique vision of the future, offers a view of the urban landscape that is both expansive and intimate; during miniature shooting cameras often moved as close as a half-inch from Digital Domain's detailed models. "Few models withstand that kind of close-up scrutiny," says Lombardo. "That's a real testament to the diligence and detail that Mark applies to his work." The diversity of effects techniques used for the film is a point of pride for Stetson and crew. "Mixing it up -- showing digital cars literally bumper-to-bumper with model cars -- has been a lot of fun on this picture," says Stetson, "and the freedom that gave certainly multiplied the number of elements and enriched the shots." Work for The Fifth Element doubled Digital Domain's record for most elements in a single shot, with over 80 elements combined for each frame of one shot. The average for the picture was approximately 25 elements, in a total of 225 effects shots. With the project well into development at Digital Domain, the principal shoot began. Throughout the shoot, Digital Domain maintained a visual effects plate unit headed by Stetson and VFX director of photography Bill Neil, to assure the accuracy of the color keys and to advise Besson on what could be achieved in the final compositions of the 125 live action shots. As work progressed on two continents, coordination with Besson remained top priority for the Digital Domain effects unit. "Luc is a very demanding filmmaker," Stetson points out, "but he is very direct in stating what he wants and needs, and very clear and consistent in his expression of those needs. Whenever we've run into any sort of trouble, he's been a wonderfully imaginative problem-solver as well." Besson, though he readily admits pressing Digital Domain for their best performance, also confesses to a pet name for the D. D. crew: "Les Freres Lumiere," after the French film pioneers whose numerous film firsts include the first special effects -- and it's no small honor to be named 'honorary Frenchmen' by Luc Besson, even for the most celebrated of the new breed of digital effects shops. "It's a wonderful opportunity to work on an effects film with the expansive scope of The Fifth Element," says Stetson. "But it's particularly gratifying to work on a production that can be chosen to open the Cannes Film Festival -- it's a level of filmmaking that offers another incentive to do your very best, one that's brought by too few films nowadays." "It's a great pleasure for me to take all of this technology, and all of this work, to draw from mythology, in order to make something that is meant purely for fun," says Besson. "Because that is what this film is all about; when I made The Professional, I was feeling a little aggressive and dark. This film comes from an entirely different mood -- it's just for fun and big, big adventure." ABOUT THE CAST BRUCE WILLIS (Korben Dallas) is unique in the ranks of top box office stars. While his status as an international celebrity is solidly based on a series of carefully crafted action-adventure blockbusters, his ability to stretch his screen persona, along with his taste for artistic risk, have won him industry respect and critical acclaim. Acting became Willis's sole profession when, in 1984, he was selected to take over the lead role of Eddie in the original New York production of Sam Shepard's "Fool For Love." That success was followed by an opportunity to audition for the role of David Addison in the television series Moonlighting, opposite Cybill Shepherd, which went on to become the television sensation of the mid-80s. In 1986, Willis returned to his first performing love, cutting the LP Bruce Willis: The Return of Bruno for Motown Records. Blues shouter "Bruno Radoni" (Willis) subsequently starred in his own HBO special. The album achieved platinum status in the course of its 29 weeks on the national charts, spawning the 1989 follow-up, If It Don't Kill You, It Just Makes You Stronger. While Moonlighting continued its successful run, Willis made a successful transition to film in 1987, starring in the Blake Edwards smash, Blind Date, opposite Kim Basinger. Another Blake Edwards film, the period mystery Sunset, followed in 1988. Later that same year, his performance as street-smart cop John McClane in the surprise blockbuster Die Hard solidified Willis's position as a top box-office draw. In 1989, Willis's nuanced performance as haunted Vietnam veteran Emmet Smith in Norman Jewison's In Country was the first in a series of change-of-pace roles that have served to add fresh momentum to his screen career. Willis next provided the voice of wise-cracking baby "Mikey" in the family comedy Look Who's Talking, and its 1990 sequel, Look Who's Talking, Too. Willis brought John McClane back to dominate the summer box office in Die Hard 2, and then starred in Brian DePalma's Bonfire of the Vanities, opposite Tom Hanks and Melanie Griffith. Willis tackled the risky role of James Urbanski, wife-abuser and murder victim, in 1991's Mortal Thoughts, opposite his wife, Demi Moore. The same year brought Willis to the screen as the daredevil cat burglar Hudson Hawk, as gangster Bo Weidenberg in Billy Bathgate, and private detective Joe Hallenbeck in The Last Boy Scout. Robert Zemeckis's 1992 Death Becomes Her starred Willis as a mild-mannered plastic surgeon opposite Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn. The following year Willis returned to action-adventure in the summer hit Striking Distance. Willis next appeared in Quentin Tarantino's phenomenally successful second feature, Pulp Fiction, winner of the Palme D'or at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival. Willis's portrayal of Butch Coolidge, a proud boxer on the skids, won more critical acclaim for the actor, while bolstering his appeal to the next generation of filmgoers. Later in 1994, Willis took on the role of Carl Roebuck, the irresponsible employer of an aging raconteur played by Paul Newman, in Robert Benton's Nobody's Fool, and also starred as Dr. Bill Capra in the erotic thriller The Color of Night. In 1995, Terry Gilliam's Twelve Monkeys toplined Willis as James Cole, a time traveler on a fateful mission; the following summer, Willis's John McClane returned to battle a mad bomber in the all-stops-out blockbuster Die Hard With A Vengeance. Willis's most recent feature, Walter Hill's Last Man Standing, cast the actor as John Smith, a man who steps in the middle of a Chicago gang war during the prohibition era, in an action drama patterned after the Akira Kurosawa classic Yojimbo. Currently, Willis is engaged in an ambitious waterfront development plan in the vicinity of his old Southern New Jersey stomping grounds. He also recently completed work on Universal's Jackal project, and is presently filming Broadway Brawlers for Buena Vista. GARY OLDMAN's (Zorg) talent and charisma are evident in each of his roles, but Oldman's greatest strength is his remarkable range. Over the first decade of his film career, the actor has become a favorite of critics and fans by tackling a wide spectrum of roles, ranging from Sid Vicious through Count Dracula to Ludwig Von Beethoven. A welder's son, Oldman was born in New Cross, a working-class district in South London, on March 21, 1958, and was working as a sales clerk at a sporting goods shop when he began training for the stage with the Greenwich Young People's Theatre. He subsequently attended the Rose Bradford College of Speech and Drama on a scholarship and, following graduation, joined a touring repertory company. Not long thereafter, the charismatic young actor became a significant presence on the British stage, first coming to national attention in a brief, fiery performance as the skinhead Coxey in Mike Leigh's 1983 BBC telefilm Mean Time. In 1985, Oldman joined London's Royal Court Theatre, an association that continued through the next four years. His first major screen role soon followed, a dead-on portrayal of doomed punk rocker Sid Vicious in Alex Cox's Sid & Nancy, in 1986. By contrast, Stephen Frears's acclaimed film Prick Up Your Ears, cast Oldman as iconoclastic playwright Joe Orton, a very different character similarly plagued by early fame, an early demonstration of Oldman's uncanny ability to transform his screen persona. Oldman was next paired with Alan Bates in the film We Think The World Of You, as Johnny, the conflicted lover of a gentle, older man, and was featured in Nicholas Roeg's dark comedy Track 29 as Martin, the long lost, and possibly murderous, son of Theresa Russell. Martin Campbell's hit psychological thriller Criminal Law cast Oldman as an American attorney embroiled in a cat-and-mouse game with a guilty client set free by his efforts, played by Kevin Bacon. Oldman's first heroic role required him to adopt a seamless U.S. accent, a skill also put to good use in two 1990 films, Chattahoochee, in the role of Emmett Foley, an inmate in a southern mental facility, and as Jackie Flannery in Phil Joanou's State Of Grace, a drama set among the Irish-American gangs of Hell's Kitchen in New York. The same year also teamed Oldman, as Rosenkrantz, with Tim Roth as Guildenstern, in Tom Stoppard's film adaptation of his own play, Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. Oliver Stone's controversial JFK featured Oldman's startling impersonation of Lee Harvey Oswald in 1991, and in the following year Oldman brought a creepy gothic sensuality to the title role in Francis Ford Coppola's production, Bram Stoker's Dracula. Oldman's study of American dialects again paid off handsomely with his portrayal of the deadlocked Drexl Spivey in Tony Scott's True Romance, written by Quentin Tarantino. His next feature, Romeo is Bleeding, blazed a trail even deeper into the realm of neo-noir, with his brooding portrayal of Jack Grimaldi, an agent working for the Witness Protection Program, whose lust for money and for co-star Lena Olin sets his path on a downward spiral. Oldman's first professional pairing with director Luc Besson came in 1994's The Professional, playing opposite Jean Reno as Norman Stansfield, an operative for the U. S. Drug Enforcement Agency, gone wildly out of control. Also in 1994, director Bernard Rose chose Oldman for the demanding lead of Immortal Beloved, a film acclaimed for its poetic exploration of the inner life of an obsessive musical genius, Ludwig Von Beethoven. More recently, Oldman has appeared as Reverend Dimmesdale in The Scarlet Letter, and as a sadistic warden of Alcatraz in Murder in the First. Oldman was also featured in Basquiat, as Albert Milo, one of the few fictional characters in the film bio of artist Jean-Michel Basquiat. That role was based in part upon the film's director Julian Schnabel, who had been an intimate of the late tragic genius. Oldman will be seen later this year starring with Harrison Ford in Air Force One. Currently, Oldman is working with director Stephen Hopkins, playing the role of Dr. Smith in New Line's science fiction film, Lost in Space. He will make his feature film directorial debut later with Columbia's forthcoming Nil By Mouth, produced by Luc Besson. MILLA JOVOVICH (Leeloo) was born December 17th, 1975 in Kiev, Ukraine, the daughter of Russian stage actress Gallina Loginova and Yugoslavian pediatrician Bogie Jovovich. When Jovovich was five years old, her family emigrated to Sacramento. Already a startling beauty at age 11, Jovovich began pursuing an acting career; when her photograph reached the offices of the Prima modeling agency, a somewhat different career path began. Her first cover, for the Italian fashion magazine Lei, and a six-page fashion spread shot by Herb Ritts for a French fashion magazine, catapulted the young, barely-trained model to the top ranks. During her first year, she'd done 15 fashion covers and countless other shoots, still managing the time for her studies -- including the training necessary for runway work -- and, like any L.A. teen, to "hang out at the mall." Having gained international fame, Jovovich decided to focus upon her original goal. She made her screen debut in 1988's Two Moon Junction as the younger sister of Sherilyn Fenn, and also starred in a Disney Channel fantasy feature, Night Train to Kathmandu, as the daughter of two archeologists, who befriends a magical prince. Her first toplined feature was 1991's Return to the Blue Lagoon, and, at 14, she was featured in Richard Attenborough's Chaplin, as Mildred Harris, the first wife of the pioneering film comedian and director. A brief role in Richard Linklater's high school comedy Dazed and Confused followed. Though her screen-time was brief, the role was her singing debut, as the character gave an a capella rendition of a few lines from Jovovich's own composition The Alien Song. She also starred opposite Christian Slater in Kuffs. A student of voice and piano since a very early age, Jovovich bought her first electric guitar at the age of 13 and was eagerly receptive when approached by an agent from SBK Records. At the age of 15, Jovovich set to work writing songs for her first album, but was surprised to learn that the label wanted to package her as a pop diva, working with other writers and arrangers. With the help of her friend Chris Brenner, the teen engaged in a battle with the label that eventually resulted in the release of Milla: The Divine Comedy on EMI Records in 1994 -- her own songs, recorded her own way, and hailed by such music industry giants as Rolling Stone magazine. Putting aside her acting and modeling careers, Jovovich pursued a strenuous tour schedule through the remainder of 1994 and the start of 1995. She was preparing to enter the studio to begin work on her second album when the opportunity to star in The Fifth Element arose. On the completion of principal shooting, Jovovich returned to modeling for a handful of plum assignments, and has started work on her second album for release in late 1997. IAN HOLM (Cornelius), born on Sept. 12, 1931, in Goodmayes, England, began his acting career with the Royal Shakespeare Company, and distinguished himself on the London stage for more than a decade before winning the Tony Award for his performance in the Broadway production of Harold Pinter's "The Homecoming" in 1967, a role he reprised for the screen version. His film debut, in "The Bofors Gun," won him the British Film Academy Award as best supporting actor in 1968. Audiences worldwide discovered Holm in his 1979 role as Ash, the treacherous android in Ridley Scott's Alien, and the actor earned his second BFA Award -- as well as a Cannes Film Festival Award and an Oscar nomination -- for his performance as Sam Mussabini in Chariots of Fire in 1981. He has since lent his talents to such films as David Hare's Wetherby, Terry Gilliam's Brazil, Woody Allen's Another Woman, Franco Zeffirrelli's Hamlet, David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch, Nick Hytner's The Madness of King George, Kenneth Branagh's Frankenstein and Campbell Scott's Big Night. Holm's recent theatrical engagements have included "King Lear" at the British National Theatre, and an award-winning turn in Harold Pinter's "Moonlight." Later this year, Holm will be seen in Sidney Lumet's film, Night Falls on Manhattan, Atom Egoyan's The Sweet Hereafter and Danny Boyle's A Life Less Ordinary. CHRIS TUCKER (Ruby Rhod) entered film by way of comedy; he was cast in a brief but hilarious role in House Party III after he was spotted doing his stand-up routine on television's Def Comedy Jam. He subsequently co-starred with Ice Cube in F. Gary Gray's Friday, and offered a stand-out performance as Skip in the Hughes Brothers' Dead Presidents. Money Talks, co-starring Tucker and Charlie Sheen, will be released later this year from New Line Cinema. LUKE PERRY (Billy), a native of Ohio, is best known to television audiences worldwide for his smoldering portrayal of Dylan McKay in the television series Beverly Hills 90210. His feature debut was in David Beaird's film adaptation of his play Scorchers, in 1992, followed by his first starring role, in the sleeper hit Buffy the Vampire Slayer. In 1994, Perry starred as national rodeo champion Lane Frost, in John G. Avildsen's biographical film 8 Seconds. Most recently, Perry starred opposite Ashley Judd in John McNaughton's critically acclaimed crime drama, Normal Life. BRION JAMES (General Munro) is one of Hollywood's preferred character actors, appearing in such landmark films of the last two decades as Bob Rafaelson's The Postman Always Rings Twice, Walter Hill's 48 Hrs., Andrei Konchalovsky's Tango & Cash and Altman's The Player. Throughout the same period, he has maintained an even higher profile in such genre entertainments as Blue Sunshine, Enemy Mine, Blade Runner, Cherry 2000, Brainsmasher: A Love Story, Scanner Cop and the Coen Brothers-Sam Raimi collaboration, Crimewave. Since 1976, he has accumulated credits in over 80 films; later in 1997, he will be seen in Bombshell, Deadly Ransom and The Killing Jar. A veteran of over twenty feature films, TINY LISTER, JR.'s (President Lindberg) credits include Barb Wire, A Thin Line Between Love and Hate, Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead, Friday, Don Juan de Marco, Trespass, Posse, Universal Soldier and No Holds Barred. On television, Lister has appeared in such series as Moesha, In the House, Malcolm & Eddie, Martin, ER, The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Matlock and HBO's First and Ten. Stage comic LEE EVANS (Fog), seen in the Academy Award-nominated short Brooms, first came to international attention in Peter Chelsom's film Funny Bones for his show-stopping performance as Jack, a man with an instinctual ability to make people laugh. Evans will next film Mouse Hunt for Dreamworks SKG, costarring with Nathan Lane. Evans has headlined three British TV productions, An Evening with Lee Evans (1993), The World of Lee Evans (1995) and The Lee Evans Show (1996). In February of 1996, Evans opened a live, one-man show in London's West End, which ran for 8 sell-out weeks and received rave reviews from the press. TRICKY (Right Arm), the 28-year-old "Majesty of Trip-Hop," makes his acting debut in The Fifth Element. With his 1995 album Maxinquaye, the Bristol, UK native mixed elements of dub, techno, trance, hip-hop, and gothic, creating a synthesis that broke all musical barriers. In 1996, Tricky continued to astound fans and critics, with three releases that too the new musical thread in three separate but related directions -- the street-flavored Grassroots EP, the eclectic Nearly God album (featuring collaborations with such talents as Iceland's Bjork and Allison Moyet), and, in his second "official" solo album, Pre-Millenial Tension. All three boast Tricky's uniquely anti-romantic lyrics, and include the participation of his favored vocalist, Martina Tooley Bird, with whom he lives in London. ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS LUC BESSON (Director) was born in Paris on March 18,1959, and spent most of his childhood living in the idyllic settings of various Mediterranean hideaways where his parents worked as diving instructors. Besson's surroundings and family influences made it seem a sure path that would lead him to a similar maritime career. From the age of 10, after an encounter with a friendly dolphin, Besson determined to become a maritime biologist, specializing in the study of the species. Besson studied for this life-plan throughout his teens until, at 17, a diving accident prevented him from ever diving again. His long-held dream cut short, Besson redirected his sights, determining that he would become a filmmaker. Besson dropped out of school to seek work in the French film industry, and started making his own first experimental films in super-8. At the age of 19 he moved to Los Angeles, where he lived for three months working in the American film industry. In 1983, after three years of experience as an assistant director, Besson made his first feature, Le Dernier Combat. Selected for competition in the Avoriaz Science Fiction Film Festival, the film won two major awards from the festival jury, which included Alan J. Pakula and Jean-Jacques Annaud among its members, was nominated for a Cesar Award, and went on to win 12 awards around the world. Besson's second film, Subway, starred Christopher Lambert in a Cesar-winning performance (one of 13 Cesar nominations garnered by the film), as a thief on the run who becomes involved with a fantastic subculture of Parisians living in the city's underground. The film gained Besson an international reputation, and is today regarded world-wide as a cult classic. Besson's 1988 film The Big Blue, expressing the dreams of Besson's Mediterranean youth, cast Jean Reno as a French diver with an unquenchable love for the sea. Besson's first film to be made in English, boasting an international cast, was distributed in the US in a version that suffered various unauthorized alterations to its scenes and to Eric Serra's score, including a changed ending. The intact version of Besson's film, nominated for seven Cesars, was a huge success throughout most of the world and is one of the top five films in French history. Besson's La Femme Nikita was the director's first global sensation, a film that inspired remakes in both the U.S. and Hong Kong. The story, of a feral, drug-addicted girl forced to train as a government hit-woman, made international stars of leads Anne Parrilaud and Jean Reno, and spawned a new form of thriller, the neo-noir action film, an influence that still reverberates throughout world cinema. In 1991, Besson's Atlantis, hailed by U.S. critics as an undersea Fantasia and an aquatic dream, was filmed in 16 months all around the world. An exercise in pure film imagery, Atlantis dispensed with dialogue and narrative in order to wed Eric Serra's wall-to-wall score to undersea images, a cinematic translation of the filmmaker's own love for the world hidden beneath the ocean. In 1993, Besson began preproduction on The Fifth Element, working for over a year refining the script from his own story, and with an international team of artists, visualizing its 23rd Century setting and characters. When budget concerns put the project at a standstill, Besson turned his hand to another original screenplay, The Professional. The Professional returned to the themes examined in La Femme Nikita, starring Jean Reno and Natalie Portman in the story of a hitman who is civilized by his paternal love for a young girl orphaned by a renegade government agent, played by Gary Oldman. The picture was an immediate worldwide success and in France garnered Cesar nominations for best picture and for Besson as best director. Producer PATRICE LEDOUX, who holds a Doctorate of Literature from Paris University, worked in French television for ten years before joining Gaumont Films in 1981, where his first assignment was the production of Francesco Rosi's Carmen, with Placido Domingo and Julia Migenes-Johnson. He became Gaumont's Chief Operating Officer and President in 1985, a position that allowed him to take a strong hand in the production of many of the films he's green-lighted, including Jean-Jacques Beineix's Betty Blue, Jean-Marie Poire's Les Visiteurs, Michel Blanc's Grosse Fatigue and Bertrand Blier's Un, Deux, Trois, Soleil. Ledoux's association with Luc Besson began with the undersea adventure The Big Blue. He has since acted as producer on La Femme Nikita, Atlantis and The Professional. Screenwriter ROBERT MARK KAMEN, after receiving his Ph.D. in Literature at the University of Pennsylvania, was encouraged by a friend to adapt his student novel to screenplay form. The script led to a long collaboration with director John G. Avildsen, resulting in the durable Karate Kid series of films, and the anti-apartheid drama The Power of One. During the same period, Kamen incurred such credits as Taps, Ted Kotcheff's Split Image, Gladiator and Lethal Weapon III. Kamen subsequently worked with Alfonso Arau, adapting A Walk in the Clouds from Alessandro Blasetti's 1942 film, Four Steps in the Clouds. Kamen most recently co-wrote the screen adaptation of Andrew Neiderman's novel Devil's Advocate, to topline Keanu Reeves and Al Pacino, for director Taylor Hackford. Co-Producer IAIN SMITH graduated from London Film School in 1971, and returned to his native Scotland to work on the first in Bill Douglas's autobiographical trilogy, My Childhood. In 1975, he began his own production company, producing television commercials and low-budget features, until 1978's Deathwatch, directed by Bernard Tavernier. After this he began his long association with David Puttnam as line producer on such globe-spanning location projects as Bill Forsyth's Local Hero, and Roland Joffe's films, The Killing Fields and The Mission. Smith's subsequent credits include Brian Gilbert's The Frog Prince, Richard Marquand's Hearts of Fire, Joffe's City of Joy, Ridley Scott's 1492 -- Conquest of Paradise and Stephen Frears's Mary Reilly. He is currently producing Jean-Jacques Annaud's Seven Years in Tibet, starring Brad Pitt and David Thewlis. Cinematographer THIERRY ARBOGAST previously worked with Luc Besson on La Femme Nikita and The Professional, for which he garnered Cesar Award nominations. In the past few years, Arbogast has risen to the top rank of French cinematographers, having shot the films Le Hussard Sur Le Toit (The Horseman on the Roof) and Andre Techine's Ma Saison Preferee (My Favorite Season), among others. His recent credits include Patrice Leconte's Ridicule and Emir Kusturica's upcoming film, Black Cat, White Cat. Production Designer DAN WEIL began his design career working for the French theater in 1976. During the 1980s, he worked on a series of French television commercials which brought him to the attention of Luc Besson, who chose Weil as the production designer for The Big Blue and La Femme Nikita, as well as The Professional. Weil's other early film credits include Didier Grousset's Kamikaze, Maroun Badadi's Hors La Vie (Out of Life) and Bernard Nauer's Les Truffes. While heading the prolonged effort to visualize the future in The Fifth Element, Weil also recreated the past for Agnieszka Holland's 1995 release, Total Eclipse, which centered on the doomed affair between Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud in the late 18th Century. Weil's work will next be seen in Alian Corneau's Le Cousin. Costume designer JEAN-PAUL GAULTIER, born in 1952, began his fashion career as Pierre Cardin's assistant at the age of 18. He subsequently worked with designers Jacques Esterel and Jean Patou before presenting his debut collection in 1976. Soon thereafter, L'enfant terrible de mode Francais acquired a world reputation as a sweet-natured rebel, out to shake up Parisian fashion with such innovations as 1978's can bracelets, and 1981's corset outerwear. Gaultier's first contribution to film came with the series of sumptuous gowns worn by Helen Mirren in Peter Greenaway's The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, made in 1989. The following year, Gaultier's costume designs for Madonna's Blond Ambition world tour were prominently featured in the documentary Truth or Dare. In 1993, Gaultier was approached by Pedro Almodovar to create an aggressively outrageous gown for his film Kika, which was worn by Victoria Abril in her role as an unscrupulous television news correspondent. In 1994, Gaultier undertook, for the first time, the full role of costume designer for a film, Caro & Jeunot's The City of Lost Children, and in 1995, the designer's work for films were featured in the Gaultier Spotlight event at the Stockholm International Film Festival. Gaultier remains the bad boy of French fashion, with recent collections drawing on eskimo, hassidic, punk, and modern primitve themes; but he has also shown increased interest in wearable fashions, including a line of Gaultier Classique, introduced in 1992, as well as the highly successful line Jean-Paul Gaultier scents for men and women. Editor SYLVIE LANDRA began as an editor of documentary and industrial films in 1987, and soon graduated to work on pop videos and French television commercials for such high-profile clients as Givenchy and Renault. Her first collaboration with Luc Besson was on a 1992 commercial for Credit Lyonnais; ever since, Landra has worked frequently on the various projects of Besson's production company, Les Films du Dauphin, including the feature The Professional, a Cesar nominee for best editing, and a subsequent director's cut of the same film, for French release. Her other credits include the Chamrousse Film Festival winner, Des Nouvelles du Bon Dieu. Born in Paris in 1959, composer ERIC SERRA began playing guitar at the age of five, and formed his first jazz-rock band when he was 15. By 1976 he had become a much-in-demand studio guitarist, appearing on over 50 recordings, including top international artists Jacques Higelin, Pierre Meige and Youssou N'Dour. In 1977, at the age of eighteen, Serra met and befriended Luc Besson, and in 1981, Serra wrote his first score, for Besson's experimental short, L'Avant Dernier, a precursor to Le Dernier Combat, Besson's first feature and Serra's first feature-length score. Serra not only wrote the Cesar-nominated score for Besson's second feature, Subway, but also made a brief appearance as the bass player in an underground band living in the Paris Metro. Subway, and Serra's subsequent scores for Besson's films, have consistently become bestselling albums in France. Most notably, Besson's 1988 film The Big Blue won the Cesar Award for best score; the soundtrack album, released in several countries, sold over 3 million copies worldwide, taking the number one position in French album sales for over three months. After The Big Blue, Serra's services as a film composer found new demand, and his scores for other filmmakers included Pierre Grimblatt's thriller La Nuit du Flingueur and Didier Grousset's Kamikaze. His most recent project, the score for the James Bond film GoldenEye, bringing the series into the nineties with a mixture of time-honored Bond themes and Serra's modern world-beat and techno influences, was honored with a BMI film music award. Serra's first solo album, produced by Rupert Hine, is in preparation for a Fall, 1997 release. MARK STETSON (Visual Effects Supervisor), one of the industry's most respected visual effects practitioners and an Academy Award nominee for his work on 2010, debuts as visual effects supervisor on The Fifth Element. Stetson studied industrial design at the University of Bridgeport, in Connecticut, and later at the Art Center College of Design. After working in the model shop at General Electric company, Stetson entered the world of film effects with model work on Star Trek: The Motion Picture in 1978. He subsequently headed the model shop for Ridley Scott's seminal science fiction film Blade Runner, followed by similar work for The Right Stuff, Ghostbusters and Die Hard. Founding his own company, Stetson Visual Services, Inc., in 1989, Stetson supervised work on over 100 commercial projects and 68 motion pictures, including the Academy Award-winning Total Recall, Dick Tracy, Edward Scissorhands, Batman Returns, The Hudsucker Proxy, True Lies, Interview With the Vampire and Waterworld. Stetson joined Digital Domain after an extraordinary start-up of operation in which the company was honored with its first two Academy Award nominations for Best Visual Effects (for True Lies and Apollo 13); first Cannes Advertising Festival Grand Prix, Journalists', and Silver Lion Awards for commercials; first Grammy Award for Best Music Video, and first MTV Music Video Award for Best Visual Effects, for the Rolling Stones' Love is Strong. Comments Got an opinion? We bet you do. Name ________________ E-mail ____________________________________ (kept private) Comment _______________________________ _______________________________ Seen it? 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