Why making movies is child's play
Filmmaker Luc Besson vowed to only direct 10 movies in his life. The film industry icon has been producing and writing hit movies for more than 25 years; however he has been very selective with the films he actually directs. Joan of Arc, The Fifth Element, Leon, Nikita and The Big Blue are on list and now animated children's flick Arthur and the Minimoys makes it 10.
Luc Besson promotes his latest film Arthur and the Minimoys in Beijing this week. The Frenchman said the story and the characters (right) are based on his childhood adventures.Jiang Dong |
But while promoting the film in Beijing this week, the 48-year-old thespian said he was an artist, not politician, and an artist could change his ideas as many times as he wanted.
Arthur is Besson's first film to screen in China's cinemas. Based on his own books, the computer-generated adventure revolves around a 10-year-old boy who finds a secret world of tiny beings living in the back garden. Arthur shrinks himself and enters their world to save the little cuties from an evil sorcerer.
Besson plans to direct the sequels based in 2009 and 2010. The veteran filmmaker's works are always great stories with rich imagination.
For Chinese fans, his best-known works are the sci-fi fantasy The Fifth Element, and the action thrillers Leon and Nikita.
Besson has also worked with Jet Li in Kiss of the Dragon which he wrote for the Chinese martial arts super hero and Unleashed, which also starred Li and Morgan Freeman.
Arthur takes a completely new course. The protagonist Arthur, Besson said, was based on himself.
Besson sets the story in the late 1960s, when he was about 10. As Arthur in the movie, Besson also had to spend a lot of time with his grandparents and had a pet dog he loved dearly.
"The biggest difference between me and Arthur is that I never sit on a fly and fight!" he laughed.
For Besson, imagination is like muscle, the more frequently you use it, the more powerful it becomes.
As a child, he could observe a bee for two hours, imagining the insects' world, wondering if they would fall in love and never betray each other.
"If I can, I would like to be as small as 2 millimeters high," he said.
"It is a great honor to shoot a movie for children, and the story says sorry to them for what we are doing to the planet," the father of four daughters said.
What he wants to convey to children is to live in harmony with others and protect the environment. "Every night I turn on the TV, I see war, people fighting desperately for money and destroying the earth. What a world we are leaving to children!" said Besson.
"As an adult, I want to say sorry to them. I hope to give some love and hope for them by the movie."
And the movie is different with Hollywood-made animated motion pictures, although Besson said he respected Disney and Pixar a great deal.
His 700-member production team is not made up of animation experts and Besson guaranteed no stereotyped ideas.
Each team member's ideas were discussed and very little market research was conducted compared to the Hollywood animated productions.
"As a Chinese, you think you look different from Koreans and Thais, but in a Westerner's eyes, you look quite the same," he said.
"That's the case with my cartoons and those of Disney's. In your eyes, you may think they are the same, but in my eyes, they are totally different, just like what you think of yourself and Koreans and Thais."
Besson is as carefree as a child when talking about box office and the Oscars, unlike many other directors.
Although Arthur costs 65 million euros ($84 million), Besson said he did not come to China for box office triumph. He just wanted Chinese parents to bring their children to see the movie.
The movie is now screening in the United States and Europe, about five million people in France have flooded into cinemas to see the adventure epic. On the latest US box office chart, Arthur is the top 9.
And regarding the Academy Awards and the box office takings, the big boy with a big beard says:"Many masters, such as Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Fellini, and Orson Welles, never won any Oscar. I am happy to stand among them."
The movie opens in China today.
(China Daily 01/19/2007 page18)
