IIBBTT002255 –– NNiikkiittaa ii 55//1111//0099 1111::5544::5533 CINÉ-FILES: The French Film Guides Series Editor: Ginette Vincendeau From the pioneering days of the Lumière brothers’ Cinématographe in 1895, France has been home to perhaps the most consistently vibrant film culture in the world, producing world-class directors and stars, and a stream of remarkable movies, from popular genre films to cult avant-garde works. Many of these have found a devoted audience outside France, and the arrival of DVD is now enabling a whole new generation to have access to contemporary titles as well as the great classics of the past. The Ciné-Files French Film Guides build on this welcome new access, offering authoritative and entertaining guides to some of the most significant titles, from the silent era to the early twenty-first century. Written by experts in French cinema, the books combine extensive research with the author’s distinctive, sometimes provocative perspective on each film. The series will thus build up an essential collection on great French classics, enabling students, teachers and lovers of French cinema both to learn more about their favourite films and make new discoveries in one of the world’s richest bodies of cinematic work. Ginette Vincendeau Published Ciné-Files: Alphaville (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965) – Chris Darke Amelie (Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 2001) – Isabelle Vanderschelden Casque d’or (Jacques Becker, 1952) – Sarah Leahy Cléo de 5 à 7 (Agnès Varda, 1962) – Valerie Orpen La Grande Illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937) – Martin O’Shaughnessy La Haine (Mathieu Kassovitz, 1995) – Ginette Vincendeau La Règle du jeu (Jean Renoir, 1939) – Keith Reader La Reine Margot (Patrice Chereau, 1994) – Julianne Pidduck Le Corbeau (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1943) – Judith Mayne Les Diaboliques (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1955) – Susan Hayward Nikita (Luc Besson, 1990) – Susan Hayward Rififi (Jules Dassin, 1955) – Alastair Phillips Un chien andalou (Luis Buñuel, 1929) – Elza Adamowicz IIBBTT002255 –– NNiikkiittaa iiii 55//1111//0099 1111::5544::5544 (Luc Besson, 1990) Susan Hayward IIBBTT002255 –– NNiikkiittaa iiiiii 55//1111//0099 1111::5544::5566 Published in 2010 by I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 ibtauris.com Distributed in the United States and Canada Exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan 175 Fifth Avenue, New York NY 10010 Copyright © Susan Hayward, 2010 The right of Susan Hayward to be identifi ed as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. ISBN: 978 1 84511 447 3 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available Typeset in Minion by Ellipsis Books Limited, Glasgow Printed and bound in India by Thomson Press India Ltd IIBBTT002255 –– NNiikkiittaa iivv 55//1111//0099 1111::5544::5566 Contents Acknowledgements vii Synopsis ix Introduction 1 Luc Besson, the self-made fi lm-maker 1 Conclusion 7 1 Production contexts 9 Social contexts of the times 9 Financing and scripting the fi lm 12 Selecting the actors and training them up 15 Studio work 19 Camera, editing, sound 25 2 Nikita, a neo-baroque symphony 35 Introduction 35 Plot structure and analysis 36 The pearl within the shell: Besson the neo-baroque 57 3 Sequence analyses 61 Three stages of development: Nikita’s cell as a metaphor for growth 62 Nikita goes domestic 73 Nikita’s last known abode 78 Nikita’s fi nal mission 80 Nikita, a neo-noir melodrama – a woman’s fi lm? 86 IIBBTT002255 –– NNiikkiittaa vv 55//1111//0099 1111::5544::5566 4 Reception 95 Audience reception 96 Popular press reception 98 Film journal reviews 101 5 The Remake of Nikita – Point of No Return/The Assassin (John Badham, 1993) – or ‘How Hollywood took Nina Simone to the movies and learnt to karaoke Nikita’ 109 Contexts 109 Text 115 Conclusion 121 Conclusion 125 Appendix 1: Credits 129 Appendix 2: Filmography 131 Appendix 3: Select Bibliography 133 IIBBTT002255 –– NNiikkiittaa vvii 55//1111//0099 1111::5544::5566 Acknowledgements I would fi rst like to thank Ginette Vincendeau (Series Editor) and Philippa Brewster of I.B.Tauris for commissioning this book from me. A deep message of gratitude to my friend and colleague, Will Higbee, who has read through several of the chapters with a fi rm critical eye. My thanks, as always, to the library staff at the British Film Institute Library – their courteous and helpful ways always make the task of researching that much easier and more pleasant. I was, however, very sad to hear that – during the period of writing this book – Gillian Hartnoll had died suddenly. She was, for me, one of the special people at the BFI Library. She had been a tremendous support to me in my early days as a researcher, inspiring confi dence, and continued to be so until she retired. Thus, I would like to dedicate this book to her memory. IIBBTT002255 –– NNiikkiittaa vviiii 55//1111//0099 1111::5544::5566 IIBBTT002255 –– NNiikkiittaa vviiiiii 55//1111//0099 1111::5544::5566 Synopsis Nikita tells the story of a 19-year-old junkie, Nikita (Anne Parillaud), who is given a second chance in life. After being arrested in a police raid during which she kills a policeman, she is sentenced to life imprisonment. Before she can properly begin her sentence, however, she is given a massive dose of a knockout drug and, when she awakens, she is offered the chance, by a secret service agent named Bob (Tchéky Karyo), to repay her crime by becoming an agent of the State. She accepts the deal and is trained up over a three-year period. She accomplishes her fi rst mission with fl ying colours. Her reward is release from captivity even though she will always be on call as a killer agent for the State. The rest of the fi lm is taken up with a mixture of sketches of her private life with her newly acquired boyfriend, Marco (Jean-Hugues Anglade), and her various missions. She is given three in all. Having successfully accomplished the fi rst two (essentially assassinations sanctioned by the Secret Service), she is given a piece of counter-espionage as a reward. However, everything goes horribly wrong. A ‘Cleaner’ (Jean Reno) is sent in and he liquidates everyone except Nikita whom he obliges to continue the mission. She gains access to the fi les in an undetermined Eastern European embassy. However, her cover is blown and all hell breaks out. The Cleaner is killed. Nikita escapes and disappears off the face of the earth. For detailed credits, please see Appendix 1 at the back of this book. IIBBTT002255 –– NNiikkiittaa iixx 55//1111//0099 1111::5544::5566