TSPDT

Key Production Countries: France, Germany
Key Genres: Romantic Drama, Drama, Romance, Psychological Drama, Urban Drama, Fantasy
Key Collaborators: Denis Lavant (Leading Actor), Nelly Quettier (Editor), Jean-Yves Escoffier (Cinematographer), Juliette Binoche (Leading Actress), Edith Scob (Leading Character Actress), Michel Piccoli (Leading Character Actor), Carroll Brooks (Leading Character Actress), Mireille Perrier (Leading Character Actress), Hans Meyer (Leading Character Actor), Michel Vandestien (Production Designer)

"Gifted enfant terrible of the contemporary French cinema whose stylistic and thematic derivations from the original New Wave (particularly the work of Jean-Luc Godard) have made him the self-appointed heir to that tradition." - The Virgin International Encyclopedia of Film, 1992

"His name is entirely made up—for nothing as prosaic as Alexandre Dupont, the birth name of Léos Carax, could possibly contain the delirium of his sensibility. Léos Carax is, however, an anagram that includes his original name, Alex, mixed together with Oscar. This may be the only Oscar Carax ever wins, since his deeply personal style is probably too purely poetic, too elliptical for Academy Award consideration. But the merging of his real identity with the symbol of movie illusion is a clue to appreciating this singular director, arguably the most talented French filmmaker of his generation." - Robert Horton (International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 2000)

"Hailed as a prodigy in the 1980s. With his tortured personality, instant success through his first feature, Boy Meets Girl (1984), and regular use of alter ego actor Denis Lavant, Carax has been seen as the carrier of the New Wave inheritance… Carax figures controversially in debates over the cinéma du look, his cine-literacy and 'neo-baroque' mise-en-scène earning criticism for a beautiful but supposedly 'empty' cinema, but also passionate admiration." - Ginette Vincendeau (Encyclopedia of European Cinema, 1995)

"Though Carax, an avowed fan of Godard, is regarded with some justification as an heir to the French New Wave, his sumptuously romantic imagery is in fact more evocative of silent cinema… Though his stories - usually about moody, disenchanted young people consumed by solitude, brought together by chance and redeemed by love - are slight and sometimes implausible, his eye for startling, even surreal compositions and his dynamic sense of movement ensures that his work is frequently exhilarating." - Geoff Andrew (The Director's Vision, 1999)

"Lumped in with Luc Besson, Jean-Jacques Beineix and the cinéma du look because of his brazen visual style and what had earlier been dubbed 'l'atmosphere', Carax was more romantic and idealistic; granted that everything in his work is some kind of affectation… Carax has a brilliant eye and an uncertain voice. His talents are aesthetic, not literary." - Tom Charity (The Rough Guide to Film, 2007)

"His films are full of literature, music, autobiographical references and cinematographic quotations, of philosophy… although behind this uncontrolled intertextuality, behind Gilles Deleuze, Arthur Rimbaud, Herman Melville, Charlie Chaplin, Jean Vigo, David Bowie, Arvo Pärt, a dense, vast and excessive vision is discovered; Leos Carax is discovered." - Christian Checa Bañuz (Senses of Cinema, 2006)