Presented at the Venice Film Festival, the film “Dogman” marks the filmmaker’s return to the big screen. The opportunity to look back on the career of Luc Besson which, between global successes, financial setbacks and accusations of rape and sexual violence, is made of triumphs and scandals.
Let’s go back to January 2015, the Académie des Césars awarded Luc Besson a gold medal. This unprecedented distinction aims to thank the filmmaker for “his exceptional artistic and entrepreneurial contribution over three decades”. The Academy thus congratulates the filmmaker for his entire career and in particular for the way in which he “raises high the excellence of the French model”.
It must be said that at this time Luc Besson had just made a film which had a destiny and worldwide success. In 2014, his science fiction feature film Lucy alone accounts for more admissions worldwide than all French films released during the year. With Scarlett Johansson and Morgan Freeman in the lead roles, more than 56 million tickets have been sold internationally: a record for a French production. Screenwriter, director and producer of the film, Luc Besson thus experienced unprecedented success with Lucy. Its peak.
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But this recognition from the public and the profession has not always been there and is far from being acquired. Between global success, critical failures, financial setbacks and accusations of rape and sexual assault: a look back at forty years of a checkered career marked by numerous scandals.
A dazzling start
In 1988, Luc Besson’s third feature film was a real commercial success. The big Blue – which is still 37th at the French box office today – exceeds nine million tickets sold in France. At only 28 years old, the filmmaker made the film which attracted the most spectators to cinemas in France during the year. Although it was not critically acclaimed and was even harshly criticized at the Cannes Film Festival where it was presented out of competition, The big Blue nonetheless becomes a generational film which allows the young director to make a lasting name for himself.
Luc Besson’s greatest success at the French box office, this film testifies more broadly to the enthusiasm which surrounded the filmmaker at the start of his career. After The Last Fight (1983), a first film almost without dialogue, in black and white, and with a timid destiny, Luc Besson enjoyed a decade of success with the public and the profession. 2.9 million admissions and 13 César nominations for Subway (1985), the first French film to exceed $5 million in revenue in the United States with Nikita (1990), 7.7 million admissions in France, $263 million in worldwide revenue and César for best director for The fifth Element : the cinema of Luc Besson imposes itself without a shadow on the board.
A French Hollywood
Alongside his activities as director and screenwriter, Luc Besson also established himself as a producer. In 1999, he founded Le Pogam with Pierre-Ange – who played Monica Bellucci’s bodyguard in Subway – the production company EuropaCorp. With this company, which made its IPO in 2007, Luc Besson produced great commercial successes like the sagas Taxi And Taken or the movie Yamakasi.
Producer of large-budget films, Luc Besson also intends to make France a land of filming and studios. Imagined in 2000 and largely supported by the director, La Cité du cinéma opened its doors in September 2012. This cinematographic center located in Saint-Denis in the north-east of Paris is made up of 15,000 square meters of offices and nine film sets. filming. Through this space, Luc Besson aspires to compete with the large filming spaces in Europe, notably the Cinecitta in Rome, and the Pinewoods studios in London.
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In this unique space in France, Luc Besson is setting up a school whose aim is to train young people aged 18 to 25 for careers as screenwriters and directors, free of charge and without qualification requirements. The filmmaker, who has not undergone any cinematographic training, thus demonstrates his desire to make the world of cinema more accessible and less elitist. The school, which has since quietly closed its doors, trained seven classes of young filmmakers.
Cinematic failures and financial setbacks
As a director, Luc Besson experienced the great success of his film The fifth Element a series of failures. From 2005 to 2013, only the three animated films which constitute the saga ofArthur and the Minimoys are making their mark on the big screen. With a budget of more than 60 million euros each – which places all three among the 10 most expensive French films – even the high number of spectators fails to make them commercial successes. At the same time, several of the director’s films failed to reach one million admissions.
If the film Lucy, which was released in 2014, was an unprecedented international success for Luc Besson; the filmmaker’s last two productions completed his empire. Despite its 4 million admissions in France, the film Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017) is a real commercial failure. With a budget of 197 million euros (which makes it the most expensive European film in history) to which are added promotional costs, the film is far from reaching its profitability threshold and affects with the failure ofAnna (2019) sustainably EuropaCorp and La Cité du Cinéma. Grandeur and decadence.
First placed in safeguard procedure by the Bobigny commercial court in May 2019, EuropaCorp was bought in 2020 by the American company Vine Alternative Investments. Today, Luc Besson only owns 12.7% of the production company and is no longer at the head of the Saint-Denis studios.
A controversial return
Four years after the failure of Anna, Luc Besson returns to the screen this Wednesday with the film Dogman. The feature film was presented in competition for the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival at the end of August, a first for the director who has never been in competition in major international festivals such as the Venetian festival or of the Cannes Film Festival. A prestigious nomination which sparked – like that of Woody Allen and Roman Polanski – numerous indignations and various actions via feminist collages in Italy but also in France.
Indeed, Luc Besson is targeted like the two other directors by complaints of rape and sexual violence. In May 2018, the actress Belgian-Dutch Sand Van Roy files a complaint against Luc Besson for rape before filing a complaint a second time for acts of sexual violence which allegedly took place from March 2016 to May 2018. Since then, other women have reported similar behavior to Médiapart, which dedicates a large file to the case. Among these women who did not file a complaint: a former employee and a former intern, a model and two former students of the École de la Cité.
In June, French justice confirmed on appeal a dismissal of the accusations of actress Sand Van Roy in favor of Luc Besson. However, a judicial investigation into the same facts is still underway in Belgium.