Luc’s Besson‘s heavenly “Angel-A” romantic comedy opened up in New York and Los Angeles last week and we assume in a short while, the film will open up in more cities. Meanwhile Besson and his fetching “Angel-A” star Rie Rasmussen have been making the press rounds (the trailer is here.)
Besson dispelled the premature rumors that he was going to retire stating that a filmmaker only has so much time to make films (perhaps a reference at his near 6 year absence from making films after “The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc“; though he was incredibly prolific in the areas of writing and producing). “[All] I was saying [was] that after thirty years and ten films you don’t have the same strength and energy,” he told MTV.
In the same interview he also blamed the American failure of his “Arthur & the Invisibles” kids adventure movie squarely on Harvey Weinstein’s asinine marketing plan. What happened exactly? “It was a disaster. Harvey Weinstein [happened]. That’s it. Everybody knows it. Everybody says it to me. It’s true that it’s a different market here but here sometimes they want a film to fit in a certain box which is just wrong. People would rather see “Triplets of Belleville” if it’s real even if it’s from France. That’s why this is the only country where the film didn’t work.”
Besson also being known for things other than his writing and hoped the dialogue intensive, “Angel-A” might change that. “Most of the people when they talk about my films, it’s always about the vision and the frame and the color and the music and the sound, and I always feel a little frustrated, because what I want to say through the films are often more important for me than the shape,” he told Coming Soon.
The “Angel-A” score was mainly composed by Anja Garbarek (daughter of the contemporary jazz composer Jan Garbarek), but it’s not out in the U.S. Instead we have the score for his breakout hit, and heavily influential action du intelligence, “La Femme Nikita.” While released in 1990, the film was shot in the 1989 and is still very much a product of that era. This is further evidenced by the icy, synth-heavy and slighly cheesey score by Eric Serra (who also did the scores for almost all of Besson’s films, including “Subway,” “Leon / The Professional, and “The Fifth Element.” Imagine what the Cure might’ve sounded like had they attempted making film scores in the late ’80s.
Download: Eric Serra – “Let’s Welcome Victor”
Download: Eric Serra – “We Will Miss You”
Download: Eric Serra – “First Night Out”
Download: Eric Serra – “Josephine and the Big Dealer”