Denis Villeneuve

Denis Villeneuve

As if you all didn't all ready know by unsubtle love for Blade Runner 2049, one of my favourite directors is Denis Villeneuve, Denis (born 3 October 1967 in Gentilly, QC) is one of Canada’s best-known and most acclaimed filmmakers. His visually inventive, atmospheric and sombre films frequently focus on themes of trauma, identity and memory. His Canadian films, including the searing psychological dramas Maelström (2000), Polytechnique (2009), Incendies (2010) and Enemy (2013), have won 22 Genie Awards, five Canadian Screen Awards and 26 Prix Iris. He is the only Québécois filmmaker to receive an Oscar nomination for Best Director, and his Hollywood films — Prisoners (2013), Sicario (2015) and Arrival (2016) — have enjoyed critical and commercial success.

Blade Runner has received multiple nominations at the Oscar's this year, hopefully Roger Deakins gets his well overdue Oscar for his cinematography, without a doubt some of his best work to date. I'm going to do a run down on Denis' early life and work leading into his Hollywood career, exploring what it takes become the most sought after film-maker in today's industry.

Early Years

Denis Villeneuve was born to parents Jean Villeneuve, a notary, and Nicole Demers, a homemaker, in the small town of Gentilly, Québec, near Trois-Rivières. Villeneuve is the eldest of four siblings, and his mother and grandmothers were strong feminist influences. Although he and his younger brother Martin both became filmmakers, Villeneuve’s parents weren’t particularly interested in cinema.
Villeneuve played hockey in his youth, but spent most of his time on the bench developing his imagination. The nearby cinema in Trois-Rivières was Villeneuve’s first film school where he discovered Star Wars and influences like Ingmar Bergman and Stanley Kubrick. He explored his skills making short films during high school, earning the nickname “Spielberg” from his friends.
After studying science at CEGEP, Villeneuve studied Communications with a concentration in film at the Université du Québec à Montréal. With his original and innovative reporting, he won Radio-Canada’s Europe-Asia Competition in 1991, which allowed him to direct a film for the National Film Board. But first, he travelled to the Arctic with legendary filmmaker Pierre Perrault to work on sets for the film Cornouailles.

Early Work

Denis did a number of docudrama short films, including a short film based on multiculturalism called REW-FFWD back in 1994. The docudrama tells the story of a photographer who lands in unfamiliar territory when his car breaks down in a Trench Town ghetto. As the unseen driver puts aside his fears and stereotypical attitudes, Villeneuve uses interviews and photographs to create an essay on time and memory. The film won the prize of the New York Film Academy at the Locarno International Film Festival. Villeneuve then made several music videos for various artists: Ensorcelée, for Daniel Belanger, won a Félix Award; Querer, for Cirque du Soleil, won three awards at the Yorkton Film Festival and a Much Music Video Award; and Tout simplement jaloux, for Beau Dommage, also won a Much Music Video Award (see also MuchMusic). Despite his success, Villeneuve has said that he disliked making the videos as he felt music was meant for the imagination.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHUseyw7Hlk


Villeneuve then contributed the segment “Le Technétium” to producer Roger Frappier’s anthology film Cosmos (1996), which featured the work of fellow up-and-coming directors such as Manon Briand and André Turpin. Cosmos won the Prix International des Cinémas d’Art et d’Essai at the Cannes Film Festival and brought Villeneuve his first brush with the Oscar race when it became Canada’s official submission for Best Foreign Language Film

Early Feature Films

In 1998, Villeneuve directed his first feature film, Un 32 août sur terre (August 32nd on Earth), which stars Pascale Bussières as a woman on an odyssey to conceive a child after a car accident radically alters her life. It premiered in the Un certain regard competition at the Cannes Film Festival and toured more than 30 other festivals, winning Best Film at the Namur International Film Festival. It was also Canada’s official submission for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars.
Villeneuve’s breakthrough came with Maelström (2000), which centres on a young woman (Marie-Josée Croze) as she grapples with grief and guilt after killing a fishmonger in a hit and run. In a surreal and original stroke, Villeneuve had a dead fish narrate the drama. Maelström screened in more than 40 countries and received over 20 awards, including at festivals in Avignon, Berlin, Mons, Toronto, Montréal and Paris. Maelström won eight Jutra Awards (now Prix Iris) and five Genie Awards, including Best Film and honours for Villeneuve’s direction and screenplay at both ceremonies. Once again, Villeneuve’s film represented Canada in the Oscar race for Best Foreign Language Film.

Next Floor (2008)

Despite coming off his greatest success to date, Villeneuve then took a break to make commercials and to study film and screenwriting. After reconsidering his first films, he decided to make only projects that held significant meaning for him. Returning to shorts, he directed the surreal, allegorical and technically dazzling Next Floor (2008), a darkly funny drama about a macabre banquet. Next Floor screened at over 120 film festivals worldwide and won more than 50 awards, including the Grand Prix Canal + at Cannes International Critics’ Week, as well as the Genie and Jutra for Best Short Film.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgaibBj1384

Polytechnique (2009)

Villeneuve’s desire for his next feature film to focus on significant subject matter was fulfilled when actor Karine Vanasse approached him about making a film about the 1989 Montreal massacre. Villeneuve and Vanasse obtained consent from the victims’ families and approached the project with maximum respect and sensitivity, but Polytechnique (2009) still drew considerable controversy for dramatizing the traumatic event. Shot in black and featuring a restrained performance by Maxim Gaudette as an unnamed killer, the film drew praise for refusing to sensationalize the bloodshed while honouring the victims by focusing on their experiences throughout the ordeal. Polytechnique was released in Canada in both French and English, and screened at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes. It won numerous awards including Best Canadian Feature Film at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), five Jutra Awards (including Best Director) and nine Genie Awards (including Best Film and Best Director).

Incendies (2010)

Villeneuve gained international attention in the fall of 2010 with Incendies, a shattering adaptation of Wajdi Mouawad’s Governor General’s Award-winning play of the same name. The Canada-France coproduction, shot in Montréal and Jordan, depicts twin siblings Jeanne (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) and Simon (Maxime Gaudet) trying to honour the final wish of their late mother, Nawal (Lubna Azabal) by finding their father and brother in an unnamed Middle Eastern country. Incendies traces a powerful story of migration and survival as it reconstructs Nawal’s journey as a freedom fighter and war prisoner in parallel with Jeanne and Simon’s search.
Villeneuve’s dark and foreboding yet highly accessible adaptation accentuated the elements of Greek tragedy embedded in Mouawad’s text, most notably the references to the tragedy of Oedipus. Incendies received near-unanimous acclaim upon premiering at the Venice Film Festival and went on to win the Best Canadian Feature Film Award at TIFF, along with dozens of international awards at many festivals. Incendies won eight Genie Awards and nine Jutra Awards, including Best Motion Picture and Best Director at both galas. It was also named one of the top ten films of 2011 by the New York Times and received an Oscar nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. Following the international acclaim of Incendies, Villeneuve was the subject of a career retrospective at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and was named one of Variety’s Top Ten Directors to Watch.

My First Encounter with Denis' Work

Hollywood came knocking after the success of Incendies and Villeneuve followed with two major projects in 2013: the Canada-Spain co-production Enemy, which was shot and set in Toronto; and the Hollywood thriller Prisoners. An ambitious adaptation of author José Saramago’s novel The Double, Enemy features Jake Gyllenhaal in a dual role as a meek history professor who descends into a psychological conflict after crossing paths with his doppelgänger, an arrogant and adulterous actor. The gripping yet cryptic psychological thriller drew upon Toronto’s concrete towers and labyrinthine condo compartments to create an eerie speculative atmosphere. Sullenly surreal and open to interpretation, Enemy proved divisive but received such honours as the Directors Guild of Canada Award for Best Feature film and five Canadian Screen Awards, including one for Villeneuve’s direction. These were the first films of Denis' I had encountered and I was immediately blown away. He placed himself firmly on a lot of film fans, students, critics and producers for all of the right reasons.

Sicario (2015)

The success of Prisoners affirmed Villeneuve’s talent to Hollywood, which he solidified with his next production, Sicario (2015). Villeneuve’s status had become strong enough for producers to grant him carte blanche and direct the film according to his own vision. Sicario echoed Villeneuve’s earlier works with its strong female protagonist, FBI agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt), and unflinching descent into the more horrifying elements of the Mexican drug trade and the methods used to combat it. Villeneuve’s gritty and authentic vision firmly established him as an auteur on the world stage following the film’s premier in the official competition at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival. Sicario grossed over $86 million worldwide, earned three Oscar nominations and three BAFTA nominations, and made many critics’ Top 10 lists that year. In my opinion Sicario was the point in Villeneuve's career in which he became a household name amongst film enthusiasts, there wasn't a moment in 2015 where Sicario wasn't mentioned our applauded by critics, Denis was making waves and showed young, inspired film makers that originality and artistic flare wasn't dead in Hollywood.

Arrival (2016)

The critical and commercials success of Prisoners and Sicario allowed Villeneuve to make the leap to Hollywood blockbusters with his next picture, Arrival (2016). Adapted from the short story “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang — which fellow Montréaler and filmmaker Shawn Levy recommended to Villeneuve — Arrival brought Villeneuve’s austere and thoughtful aesthetic to the science fiction genre. Starring Amy Adams as an intuitive linguist tasked with bridging communication between humans and aliens, Arrival was shot in Montréal and outside Rimouski, Quebec. The crew included some of Villeneuve’s frequent Québécois collaborators, including production designer Patrice Vermette, costume designer Renée April, and sound designer Sylvain Bellemare, who won an Oscar and a BAFTA for his work on the film. This film is a brilliant example of intelligent film making, something that Villeneuve would later use in Blade Runner 2049. Unlike most sci-fi blockbusters, however, Arrival had a modest budget of $46 million and relied on ideas, themes and substance instead of spectacular special effects.

Arrival premiered at Venice, Telluride and TIFF, where it wowed critics and audiences with its thought-provoking premise, execution and themes. Other critics noted the relevance of Arrival’s parable on the power of language in the context of Donald Trump’s election as American President. Arrival received eight Academy Award nominations including Best Picture and Best Achievement in Direction ­— the first ever for a Québec director — while Villeneuve also earned nominations for best director at the BAFTAs and the Director’s Guild of America Awards. Arrival went on to gross more than $185 million worldwide.

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

We arrive at one of my favourite films of 2017 (and at the top of my all time list), it's very different from his previous projects and follows on from Ridley Scott's 1982 sci-fi cult classic Blade Runner. Starring Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford, the film takes place 30 years after the events of the original. Taking on a film with a legacy such as this to live up too is no easy undertaking, the weight was on Denis' shoulders yet he delivered an outstanding film loved by critics. Unfortunately the film under performed at the box office. Villeneuve and Gosling admitted during interviews that this was always a possibility due to the original being attractive only to a specific audience, and that the modern box office takings usually don't favour longer movies (the film clocks in at not far off 3 hours) that require the audience to think. It's funny really, the original film suffered from the same box office failure, yet also received the same high praise from film critics and sci-fi fans alike. The production value o this film is incredible, it looks and feels like an authentic cyberpunk dystopia with it's set design, costumes and beautiful original score. It's no surprise really, Villeneuve’s films are typically dark and haunting psychological dramas that emphasize an atmosphere of foreboding doom. His films frequently concentrate on themes of trauma, identity and memory. With the exception of Enemy, Prisoners and Blade Runner 2049, his protagonists are strong and complex women. He frequently collaborates with cinematographers Roger Deakins, André Turpin and Nicholas Bolduc, and production designer Patrice Vermeer. His team is always the best of the best and his films as a result are nothing short of perfection.

Denis Villeneuve is my favourite director because he pushes boundaries with precise and thoughtful execution. His team is comprised of the best talent in Hollywood and sets a standard for aspiring film-makers, a standard that we all aspire to meet. Villeneuve currently has multiple projects in the pipeline and by the signs of things, he's not slowing down anytime soon. He will go down as one of the greatest directors of our generation, I can be sure of that. Who knows? Perhaps his best work is still to come.