A quiet contract killer reluctantly takes in a 12-year-old girl after a corrupt DEA agent massacres her family. A bond forms between a man who only knows how to kill and a child with nowhere else to go. It's a French action film that runs on the pull between violence and tenderness.
Léon: The Professional is a 1994 action, crime and drama film directed by Luc Besson. This breakdown covers 4 techniques (2 cinematography and 2 narrative), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, The Shawshank Redemption uses several of the same techniques.
Putting a very large character and a very small one in the same shot. The size gap shows you who has the power and how the 2 feel about each other.
How this film uses it
Cinematographer Thierry Arbogast keeps putting Léon's big body next to Mathilda's small one (in doorways, in the apartment, on the street). The size gap tells you about protection and danger at the same time. He could hurt her. What he actually does is stand between her and the world.
Where to see it
Léon and Mathilda's first shared scenes in the apartment. Every shot sets his size against how small she is.
Returning to the same physical object again and again until it means more than what it is. It moves the plot and also stands for the film's main ideas.
How this film uses it
Léon's potted plant is the only thing he owns that he looks after and protects. It travels with him, and it is the only proof that he can care for something. The plant shows you he can get attached before Mathilda ever arrives. So when he starts caring for her, it feels like a natural next step for a side of him he keeps hidden.
Where to see it
Léon carrying the plant. At the end of the film, Mathilda is the one who plants it in the ground.
Making a villain or anti-hero more extreme as the film goes on, with each act bolder and harder to predict. The fear comes from never knowing what they will do next.
How this film uses it
Gary Oldman plays Stansfield as so unhinged that every scene he is in feels dangerous. He talks about Beethoven before he kills people, takes his pills and follows no logic you can track. I feel like his scenes work like pressure building up. You can't measure how big a threat he is, because he has no limits you can read.
Where to see it
Stansfield's introduction in the hallway. You learn who he is purely from how unpredictable he acts.
Setting most of the drama in one defined place, such as a corridor, hideout or backstage area. Its layout and lighting shape the action and become a main visual character.
How this film uses it
The film keeps coming back to Léon's apartment, and Besson and Arbogast shoot it to feel cozy and unsafe at once. You know where Mathilda sleeps, where Léon practices and where the milk is kept. When the violence finally comes into this space, it is devastating because you know the place so well.
Where to see it
The final raid on Léon's apartment. The rooms you have come to know get turned into a battlefield.
Questions
Léon: The Professional: quick answers
What filmmaking techniques does Léon: The Professional use?
CineCode breaks down 4 techniques in Léon: The Professional (1994): Contrast Scale Framing, Symbolic Object, Escalating Villain Intensity and Single Space as Dramatic Stage.
Who directed Léon: The Professional?
Luc Besson directed Léon: The Professional, released in 1994. CineCode also covers Lucy (2014).
What films are similar to Léon: The Professional?
Films that share techniques with Léon: The Professional include The Shawshank Redemption (1994), The Green Mile (1999), Joker (2019), 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
