The Fifth Element (1997) 6 pages

"Time, not important. Only life important." — Leeloo

Luc Besson had been carrying The Fifth Element in his head since he was sixteen years old, scribbling pieces of it in school notebooks in Normandy in the 1970s. By the time it reached the screen in 1997 it had become the most expensive non-American film ever made — a $90 million Gaumont production shot at Pinewood with a costume designer (Jean Paul Gaultier) better known for haute couture and concept artists (Jean "Mœbius" Giraud and Jean-Claude Mézières) drawn from European bandes dessinées rather than Hollywood storyboarding.

The result is a film that does not look or sound like anything else. Thierry Arbogast lights it like a comic book; Éric Serra scores it like an opera with a synthesizer. Bruce Willis plays the action hero as a tired cabbie. Milla Jovovich plays a divine weapon as a feral child learning the word please. Gary Oldman plays the villain as a Texan industrialist with a half-haircut. Chris Tucker plays a galactic radio host at a register the film simply decides to permit. Ian Holm holds the whole thing together as a priest who has spent his life waiting for a phone call.

This wiki maps the film as a Two Approaches structure — Korben's initial approach (do the job competently as a contractor) is replaced after the midpoint by a different approach (treat the mission as a personal stake worth dying inside, with Leeloo as the partner not the cargo).

Film & Story

The Fifth Element (1997) is the main hub page. Plot Structure (The Fifth Element) maps the film's ten Two Approaches rivets. Backbeats (The Fifth Element) walks the film scene by scene as numbered beats anchored to those rivets.

Analysis

Climax and structure

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