The Fifth Element Clip Analysis
I. Background-The Fifth Element was released May 7, 1997. It was a French production with principle
photography filmed at Pinewood Studios in London. With an astounding $90 million budget, it went on
to gross over $263 million worldwide. The Fifth Element was chosen to open the Cannes Film Festival in
1997. 76% of the receipts for The Fifth Element were from markets outside of the United States. It was
the 9th highest-grossing film of the year worldwide. The movie is directed by Luc Besson, produced by
Patrice Ledoux, screen play written by Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen, music by Eric Serra,
cinematography Thierry Arbogast, edited by Sylvie Landra, and stars Bruce Willis, Milla Jovovich, Gary
Oldman, Ian Holm, and Chris Tucker.
II. The story takes place in the 23rd century, and is about five elements used to prevent evil from
destroying earth. Four of these elements are small stone rectangular statues that represent the different
elements of life: earth, wind, water, fire; with the fifth being the actor Milla Jovovich who plays Leeloo
(the pure being).In the clip we are presenting, the stones have thus far been removed from the sacred
temple on earth for safe keeping by the Mondoshawans. The temple acts as platform upon which the
weapon of evil is activated, which is traditionally activated by the Mondoshawans (the extraterrestrial
race that safe guards the weapon to save life) by placing each of the elements around the fifth element
to activate the weapon which has the power to fight evil and save life on earth. The protagonist, played
by Bruce Willis (Corbin Dallas) must retrieve these stones from the trusted friend of the Mondoshawans
before the antagonist, played by Gary Oldman (Jean-Baptiste Emanuel Zorg) evil’s right hand man, can
get them and place evil in the middle of the temple and destroy earth.
III. Director-The director of the movie that we chose for our group is, Luc Besson. He is a French film
director, writer and producer and created the EuropaCorp film company. He has been involved in over
50 films within a 26 year span. He started writing stories out of bordom. He has been married four times
and has a total of five children that are all daughters. He’s currently married to film producer, Virginie
Silla. Luc Besson refuses to do interviews or audio commentaries for his DVD releases. This is because he
believes that they ruin the impact of the film. Over his career he has directed 15 movies plus one short
story film, been the writer for 43 movies, and produced 65 total movies. This has all happened over 32
years of his life.
IV. Cinematography- Thierry Arbogast is undoubtedly one of the most well known French directors of
photography in the world. He is a prolific and multi-award-winning french cinematographer. He was
born in France in 1957 and his career has gone nearly thirty years. He acquired the reputation to not
only be able to film in any place, under all the conditions of heat, or weather, but also to have a great
sense of light and has won several awards: Best Cinematography for "Nikita", "the Fifth Element", and
many many more.
V. Music- Eric Serra was chosen to compose the score for this film, in fact Serra was the composer for all
but one of Luc Besson’s films. He composed such films as Golden Eye: a James Bond film, Nikita,
Bandidas and The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc. For this clip, Serra collaborated with the opera
singer Inva Mula and came up with the famous “Diva Dance”. The “dance” is actually the fight; the music
stays in sync with the fighting that ensues shortly after the song begins, until both end in a crescendo. In
this scene “Diva Pavalaguna” who is played by Maiwenn, is lip synching, she practiced 30 times a day for
3 months to get the song right. Maiwenn, Luc Besson’s wife at the time, took the role after the original
actress failed to show up. The name “Pravalaguna” was created and given to the character by Milla
Jovovich who is fluent in Serbian, English and French, and it means “Blue Lagoon”, a film Milla had
starred in (Return to The Blue Lagoon). This film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Sound Effects
Editing, and nominated for a Cesar Award for Best Music
VI. Production Design- The Fifth Element was shot in super 35 mm film, format. The film was a French
production, filmed at Pinewood in England, the studios have played host to many productions over the
years from huge blockbuster films to television shows, some scenes were also shot on location in
Mauritania the concert scenes were filmed at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, except for the
special effect shots that show the planet Flotsam Paradise through the ship’s windows. Matte is a sheet
of cardboard placed on the back of a picture, either as a mount or to form a border around the picture.
Mattes are used in photography and in special effects filmmaking to combine two or more image
elements into a single, final image. Mattes are used to combine a foreground image such as actors on
set. In this case, the matte is the background painting. In film and stage, mattes can be physically huge
section of painted wall. Other shots may require mattes that change, to mask the shapes of moving
objects, such as human being or spaceships. Traveling mattes enable greater freedom of composition
and movement, but they are also more difficult to accomplish. Bluescreen techniques, originally
invented by Petro Vlahos are probably the best know techniques for creating traveling mattes, multiple
motion control passes have also been used in the past.
VII. Editing-The editing done by Sylvie Landra expressed a prime example of parallel editing. There is
plenty of action occurring in our scene but in two different places. The alien opera singer begins in a
soft, a Capella tone and during this time Leeloo is in a separate room quietly waiting. When the shot
goes back to the singer crosscutting is used to show the singer and Bruce Willis. This is meant to
establish the setting and who is in the audience and who is not. As the alien singer’s music begins to
swell and get more intense, so does the fighting between the Leeloo and the intruding soldiers. The
editing was precisely done as a match cut to emphasis the fighting and beat of the music. Once the
fighting starts, the film cuts back and forth between rooms as the music climaxes and the fighting
intensifies. The ending of this scene actually ends in a very creative way where they both bow at the end
of the song. This shows very good parallel editing to where both actions were completed and ended at
the same time.
Produced by Rachel Kay and Timothy Clement
Director Trevor Hill
Cinematographer Holly Babbel
Screenplay (This outline) Timothy Clement
Editor Brittany Allred
Music Rachel Kay
Opening credits Dustin Oppenhein
Production Design Blaise Kalubi
Each name should get 11.11% credit per part to equal 100%