Denis Villeneuve

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Overview (2)

Born	October 3, 1967 in Trois-Rivières, Québec, Canada
Height	5' 11¾" (1.82 m)

Mini Bio (1)

Denis Villeneuve is a French Canadian film director and writer. He was born in 1967, in Trois-Rivières, Québec, Canada. He started his career as a filmmaker at the National Film Board of Canada. He is best known for his feature films Arrival (2016), Sicario (2015), Prisoners (2013), Enemy (2013), and Incendies (2010). He is married to Tanya Lapointe.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: morningbell

Family (4)

Spouse	Tanya Lapointe (? - present)
Children	Salomé Villeneuve
Parents	Nicole Demers Jean Villeneuve
Relatives	Martin Villeneuve (sibling)

Trade Mark (10)

Frequently uses a song by Radiohead in his films.

Graphic and realistic depictions of violence

Frequently collaborates with cinematographer Roger Deakins

Long establishing shots

Mature themes and content.

Strong-willed, independent female characters.

His protagonists are often searching for someone or for answers

Close-ups of objetcs, surfaces and small gestures with hands to illustrate bigger situations.

The struggles involving parenthood as a recurring theme.

Experimental sound editing.

Trivia (18)

Abandoned an interest in science in college to pursue his love of filmmaking. Then studied film at Université du Québec à Montréal.

Older brother of filmmaker and TED speaker Martin Villeneuve, director of Mars and April (2012) and Les 12 travaux d'Imelda (2022).

Doesn't use any music when he's editing which means the first edit of his films is without music.

Member of the 'Official Competition' jury at the 71st Cannes International Film Festival in 2018.

His first language is French.

All-time favorite film is Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

Father of Salomé Villeneuve.

He is a big fan of Christopher Nolan, and the admiration is mutual.

His influences include Steven Spielberg, François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Stanley Kubrick, Ingmar Bergman, Ridley Scott, Jacques Audiard, Yorgos Lanthimos, Pierre Perrault and Michel Brault.

Mulholland Drive (2001) is one of his favorite movies.

Was on the shortlist to direct The Batman (2022).

Villeneuve played hockey in his youth, but considers himself a poor player. He became interested in sci-fi comics through the works of Jean 'Moebius' Giraud, Enki Bilal, Jean-Claude Mézières, Philippe Druillet and Alejandro Jodorowsky. He then developed a passion for cinema and made short films during high school.

Denis Villeneuve is the descendant of three generations of notaries.

His other favorite films include: Seven Samurai (1954), Vertigo (1958), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Dead Ringers (1988), Amores Perros (2000), Children of Men (2006), There Will Be Blood (2007), Inception (2010), Dunkirk (2017) and Mother! (2017).

Denis Villeneuve was disappointed with his first two movies, August 32nd on Earth (1998) and Maelström (2000), so he took a nine-year sabbatical as a stay-at-home dad. He vowed to return "when I was ready to make a film I could be proud of", which was Polytechnique (2009).

At around age 13, Denis Villeneuve and concept artist Nicolas Kadima began experimenting with storyboarding movies they imagined making. "Nicolas was a very good artist, so he did the drawing, and I would tell the stories," Villeneuve says.

Born on exactly the same date as Jennifer Campbell of "Robin's Hoods" and "Baywatch" fame.

In André Turpin's Zigrail (1995), Denis Villeneuve plays his own role, and in Martin Villeneuve's Les 12 travaux d'Imelda (2022), he lends his voice as himself.

Personal Quotes (15)

In contradiction and paradox, you can find truth.

[childhood memory of duck hunting] You go out at 3AM. In a small boat. You see the mist coming off the water as you wait in the reeds. You're with these men. It's so dark and quiet, and then there's this violence, the thunder of guns. I want to make a film about that one day.

I think they built Hollywood on the West Coast because they were always dreaming of a New World. When they arrived here, the only way to keep dreaming was to make movies. Film was the fourth dimension.

I was at the premiere of Prisoners (2013) and I heard two thousand people scream at the same time. I turned to my girlfriend and said, 'I love cinema!' It's the sharing of emotions together, and it's collective, It's one of the last communions we have.

[on the concept of boundaries, explored in Enemy (2013)] We all have multiple identities inside of us. I think it's about the power of subconscious and how our actions represent that side of the self - and who is really in control? The influence of the past on our lives and the strength of the past, is something that really impressed me and terrorized me because it means that we aren't totally in control of our actions. I think you can find power over it, but it's a process.

Cinema is an art form that is designed to go across borders. And as a filmmaker, the only way I can direct a movie is when I feel close to my culture.

[in 2015] Film is pop art. It's not whether it's auteur cinema or not, that's a false distinction. Cinema is cinema.

I hate violence, and I think that violence is meaningful if you see the impact of violence on victims. I'm interested on the impact, I'm not interested in the show. I don't want to make a show of violence. I mean, I've been in contact with people who suffered from the trauma of war... When I use violence in a movie it's just to express the power, the impact of it.

I think cinema is a tool to explore our shadows.

[on Sicario (2015)] It's about the alienation of the cycles of violence, how at one point we are in those spirals of violence and ask ourselves, 'Is there a solution?' My movie raises the question; it doesn't give any answer.

[on Enemy (2013)] When you make such a movie - well, like a lot of other movies - that is designed to print images somewhere in the back of your brain, that will haunt you later. It's true that 'Enemy' is a problematic, maybe we should put a warning on it in the beginning [Laughs].

[on Enemy (2013)] The landscape of a movie is part of the equation that creates the meaning of the movie. On 'Enemy', the book, which takes place in a huge massive metropolitan area that's oppressive, inspires it and it creates fear and paranoia because you feel there are too many souls around you. It gives you a claustrophobic feeling. What is unique about Toronto is there aren't a lot of filmmakers that shoot Toronto for itself - David Cronenberg did and Atom Egoyan has - so in the mind of the audience, Toronto is quite fresh.

[on his younger brother's (Martin Villeneuve) TED Talk, the fantastical elements and a possible collaboration between the two (in an interview for The Film Stage on March 17, 2014)] My brother is very creative and he's also got some crazy projects.

[on Enemy (2013)] There's a part of me that's very attracted to fantastic or sci-fi, and after Polytechnique (2009), Incendies (2010), and knowing I was going to do Prisoners (2013), I felt that I needed to express myself in a film that's more of a fantasy, a distortion of reality. I like those movies a lot. I was a big fan as a kid.

[on the music for Blade Runner 2049 (2017)] The thing I will say is that making movies is a laboratory. It's an artistic process. You cannot plan things. Jóhann Jóhannsson is one of my favorite composers alive today. He's a very strong artist. But the movie needed something different, and I needed to go back to something closer to Vangelis. Jóhan and I decided that I will need to go in another direction - that's what I will say. I hope I have the chance to work with him again because I think he's really a fantastic composer. [2017]