Nikita (Luc Besson, 1990)

145 Pages·2010·1.376 MB·English

by  Hayward, Susan

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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
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(Luc Besson, 1990)
Susan Hayward
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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