Irma Vep
Encyclopedia
Irma Vep is a 1996 film directed by the French director Olivier Assayas
, starring Hong Kong actress Maggie Cheung
(playing herself) in a story about the disasters that ensue as a middle-aged French film director (played by Jean-Pierre Léaud
) attempts to remake Louis Feuillade
's classic silent
film serial Les vampires
. Taking place as it does largely through the eyes of a foreigner (Cheung), it also a meditation upon the then-current state of the French film industry.
The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard
section at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival
.
's hero
ine, Irma Vep (an anagram
for vampire
), a burglar, who spends most of the film dressed in a tight, black, latex
rubber catsuit
, defending her director's odd choices to hostile crew members and journalists. As the film progresses, the plot mirrors the disorientation felt by the film's director. Cheung the character is in many ways seen by other characters as an exotic sex object dressed in a latex catsuit; both the director and Cheung's costume designer Zoe (Nathalie Richard
) have crushes on her.
, and Atom Egoyan
, who wanted to experiment with the situation of a foreigner in Paris. In the 1915 original serial, written and directed by Louis Feuillade, Irma Vep was played by French silent film
actress Musidora
(1889–1957). Much of the film depicts set-related incidents that echo scenes in Truffaut
's La nuit americaine (English title: Day for night), to which Irma Vep owes a large thematic debt.
However, Assayas has publicly stated that although he considers La nuit americaine a great film, it is more about the fantasy of filmmaking than the reality. Assayas credits Rainer Werner Fassbinder
's Beware of a Holy Whore
as a much greater inspiration.
Assayas married Cheung in 1998. They divorced in 2001. They again collaborated in 2004 on the film Clean
.
Olivier Assayas
Olivier Assayas is a French film director and screenwriter.He made his debut in 1986, after directing some short films and writing for the influential film magazine Cahiers du cinéma.-Career:...
, starring Hong Kong actress Maggie Cheung
Maggie Cheung
Maggie Cheung Man yuk is a Chinese actress from Hong Kong. Raised in England and Hong Kong, she has over 70 films to her credit since starting her career in 1983...
(playing herself) in a story about the disasters that ensue as a middle-aged French film director (played by Jean-Pierre Léaud
Jean-Pierre Léaud
-Early years:Born in Paris, Léaud made his major debut as an actor at the age of 14 as Antoine Doinel, a semi-autobiographical character based on the life events of French film director François Truffaut, in The 400 Blows....
) attempts to remake Louis Feuillade
Louis Feuillade
Louis Feuillade was a prolific and prominent French film director from the silent era. Between 1906 and 1924 he directed over 630 films...
's classic silent
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
film serial Les vampires
Les Vampires
Les Vampires is a 1915/1916 ten-part silent film serial. It was written and directed by Louis Feuillade and stars Musidora as "Irma Vep" a femme fatale whose name is a suspicious anagram of "vampire." The serial is set in Paris and follows the exploits of a gang of master criminals who call...
. Taking place as it does largely through the eyes of a foreigner (Cheung), it also a meditation upon the then-current state of the French film industry.
The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard
Un Certain Regard
Un Certain Regard is a section of the Cannes Film Festival's Official Selection. It is run at the Salle Debussy, parallel to the competition for the Palme d'Or.This section was introduced in 1978 by Gilles Jacob...
section at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival
1996 Cannes Film Festival
-Jury:*Francis Ford Coppola *Nathalie Baye *Greta Scacchi, actrice *Michael Ballhaus *Henry Chapier *Atom Egoyan *Eiko Ishioka *Krzysztof Piesiewicz *Antonio Tabucchi...
.
Plot
Cheung is employed to play the film-within-the-filmStory within a story
A story within a story, also rendered story-within-a-story, is a literary device in which one narrative is presented during the action of another narrative. Mise en abyme is the French term for a similar literary device...
's hero
Hero
A hero , in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion...
ine, Irma Vep (an anagram
Anagram
An anagram is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase, using all the original letters exactly once; e.g., orchestra = carthorse, A decimal point = I'm a dot in place, Tom Marvolo Riddle = I am Lord Voldemort. Someone who...
for vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
), a burglar, who spends most of the film dressed in a tight, black, latex
Latex
Latex is the stable dispersion of polymer microparticles in an aqueous medium. Latexes may be natural or synthetic.Latex as found in nature is a milky fluid found in 10% of all flowering plants . It is a complex emulsion consisting of proteins, alkaloids, starches, sugars, oils, tannins, resins,...
rubber catsuit
Catsuit
A catsuit is a close-fitting one-piece garment that covers the torso and the legs, and frequently the arms. They are usually made from stretchable material, such as lycra, chiffon, spandex , leather, latex, PVC, or velour, and frequently close using a zipper at the front or back.Catsuits, which...
, defending her director's odd choices to hostile crew members and journalists. As the film progresses, the plot mirrors the disorientation felt by the film's director. Cheung the character is in many ways seen by other characters as an exotic sex object dressed in a latex catsuit; both the director and Cheung's costume designer Zoe (Nathalie Richard
Nathalie Richard
Nathalie Richard is a French actress.Richard was born in Paris, France. She received the Prix Michel Simon film prize for most promising actress/actor for her role in the 1988 Jacques Rivette film Gang of Four.-Filmography:...
) have crushes on her.
Cast
- Maggie CheungMaggie CheungMaggie Cheung Man yuk is a Chinese actress from Hong Kong. Raised in England and Hong Kong, she has over 70 films to her credit since starting her career in 1983...
as Herself - Jean-Pierre LéaudJean-Pierre Léaud-Early years:Born in Paris, Léaud made his major debut as an actor at the age of 14 as Antoine Doinel, a semi-autobiographical character based on the life events of French film director François Truffaut, in The 400 Blows....
as René Vidal - Nathalie RichardNathalie RichardNathalie Richard is a French actress.Richard was born in Paris, France. She received the Prix Michel Simon film prize for most promising actress/actor for her role in the 1988 Jacques Rivette film Gang of Four.-Filmography:...
as Zoé - Antoine Basler as Journalist
- Nathalie BoutefeuNathalie BoutefeuNathalie Boutefeu is a French actress, film director and screenwriter. She has appeared in 40 films since 1990. She starred in the film The Butterfly's Dream, which was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival....
as Laure - Alex Descas as Desormeaux
- Dominique Faysse as Maïté
- Arsinée KhanjianArsinée KhanjianArsinée Khanjian is an Armenian-Canadian actress and producer. In addition to her independent work and stage roles, she is regularly cast by her husband, Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan, in his films...
as L'américaine - Bernard Nissile as Markus
- Olivier Torres as Ferdinand and Moreno
- Bulle OgierBulle OgierBulle Ogier is a French actress.Ogier's first appearance on screen was in Voilà l'Ordre, a short film directed by Jacques Baratier with a number of the then-emerging young singers of the 1960s in France, including Boris Vian, Claude Nougaro, etc.She worked with Jacques Rivette Bulle Ogier (born...
as Mireille - Lou CastelLou CastelLou Castel is a Colombian actor known primarily for his work in Italian films.Born Ulv Quarzell in Bogotá, Castel moved to Europe as a young man. Interested in acting from an early age, he attended the Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, but was quickly kicked out. His first movie role was an...
as José Mirano - Jacques FieschiJacques FieschiJacques Fieschi is a French screenwriter. He has written for 22 films since 1985. He wrote and directed the film French California, which was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival.-Selected filmography:...
as Roland - Estelle Larrivaz as La standardiste
- Balthazar Clémenti as Robert, assistant
Production
The idea for the film was born out of an attempted collaboration between Assayas, Claire DenisClaire Denis
Claire Denis is a French film director and Professor of Film at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.-Early life:...
, and Atom Egoyan
Atom Egoyan
Atom Egoyan, OC is a critically acclaimed Armenian-Canadian stage director and film director. Egoyan made his career breakthrough with Exotica...
, who wanted to experiment with the situation of a foreigner in Paris. In the 1915 original serial, written and directed by Louis Feuillade, Irma Vep was played by French silent film
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
actress Musidora
Musidora
Musidora was the stage name of Jeanne Roques, a popular French silent film actress. She became famous for her vamp roles in such film serials as Les Vampires and Judex, in which she developed a persona comparable to that of Theda Bara...
(1889–1957). Much of the film depicts set-related incidents that echo scenes in Truffaut
François Truffaut
François Roland Truffaut was an influential film critic and filmmaker and one of the founders of the French New Wave. In a film career lasting over a quarter of a century, he remains an icon of the French film industry. He was also a screenwriter, producer, and actor working on over twenty-five...
's La nuit americaine (English title: Day for night), to which Irma Vep owes a large thematic debt.
However, Assayas has publicly stated that although he considers La nuit americaine a great film, it is more about the fantasy of filmmaking than the reality. Assayas credits Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Rainer Werner Maria Fassbinder was a German movie director, screenwriter and actor. He is considered one of the most important representatives of the New German Cinema.He maintained a frenetic pace in film-making...
's Beware of a Holy Whore
Beware of a Holy Whore
Beware of a Holy Whore is a 1971 West German drama film written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder which features Lou Castel, Eddie Constantine, Hanna Schygulla and Fassbinder himself. Semi-autobiographical, the film was influenced by the shooting of the director's earlier Whity in Spain....
as a much greater inspiration.
Assayas married Cheung in 1998. They divorced in 2001. They again collaborated in 2004 on the film Clean
Clean (film)
Clean is a 2004 film directed by French director Olivier Assayas, starring Nick Nolte and Maggie Cheung. It was jointly funded by Canada, France, and United Kingdom sources.-Plot:...
.
See also
- Louis FeuilladeLouis FeuilladeLouis Feuillade was a prolific and prominent French film director from the silent era. Between 1906 and 1924 he directed over 630 films...
, director of the original serial film Les vampiresLes VampiresLes Vampires is a 1915/1916 ten-part silent film serial. It was written and directed by Louis Feuillade and stars Musidora as "Irma Vep" a femme fatale whose name is a suspicious anagram of "vampire." The serial is set in Paris and follows the exploits of a gang of master criminals who call...
(1915–1916) - The Mystery of Irma VepThe Mystery of Irma VepThe Mystery of Irma Vep is a play in two acts by Charles Ludlam. A penny dreadful, Irma Vep is a satire of several theatrical and film genres, including Victorian melodrama, farce and the Alfred Hitchcock film Rebecca .-Background:...
, a 1984 play for two characters by Charles LudlamCharles LudlamCharles Braun Ludlam was an American actor, director, and playwright.-Early life:Ludlam was born in Floral Park, New York, the son of Marjorie and Joseph William Ludlam. He was raised in Greenlawn, New York, on Long Island, and attended Harborfields High School. The fact that he was gay was not a... - LettrismLettrismLettrism is a French avant-garde movement, established in Paris in the mid-1940s by Romanian immigrant Isidore Isou. In a body of work totaling hundreds of volumes, Isou and the Lettrists have applied their theories to all areas of art and culture, most notably in poetry, film, painting and...
, inspiration for some sequences of the film