
Twenty years on, even those who worked on the film don't have all the answers to the film's mysteries - like, for example, what actually was the flaming space monster thing? I love US, I love them, but I think that I'm definitely European and there's a thing of mentality that we cannot change." Conversely in Britain and Europe it went down a treat."īesson: "I'm used to it, because 'Fifth Element' was not so big at the time and 'Leon' either, and 'Nikita' either. It was received with perplexity in the United States, because sci-fi wasn't meant to be funny. So there is a lot of Americans who are not ready for that because they want to see a hero with big muscles and fighting. (The Wall Street Journal called it "gibberish".)īesson: "They like their superhero with tights who show the power of United States and who defend us against ugly aliens. 1 one at the US box office, although American viewers and critics didn't warm to the film as much as audiences elsewhere. It was a smash hit internationally and opened at No. "The Fifth Element" premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in France in May 1997. SonyĬreed-Miles: "I had a Friar Tuck haircut and a rubberised conical bra, it looked like half of Madonna's conical bra on top of my head. Some of the colourful costumes designed by Gaultier for "The Fifth Element". He was a constant creative watching eye." He was jumping around changing people's jackets and putting scarfs on them and giving them hats to wear.
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Smith: " approach wasn't what we in the movie business would think of as a costume designer.


He was the archetypal director, a real control freak."Ī huge part of the film's signature look were the audacious, colourful costumes, conceived by legendary fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier.

He used a big anamorphic lens, like a letterbox. Straight away I noticed the beautiful way he frames everything. Every shot, every frame in that film has been framed by Luc Besson himself. It felt like being in Star Wars, which it kind of was."ĭudman: "It was very focused - Luc is very focused - but it was lots of laughing, because a lot of what we were doing was blatantly silly."Ĭreed-Miles: "I'd never worked with a director that operates the camera as well. Getty ImagesĪlthough Besson hoped to shoot in France, the film was shot at the famous Pinewood studios in the UK.Ĭreed-Miles: " massive, massive sets that went on for miles.
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The New York backdrop was a vast model packed with details like working traffic lights and in-joke license plates.
