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Years active. 1982–present. Denis Lavant (born 17 June 1961) is a French actor. He is known for his distinctive face and the physically demanding aspects of the roles he plays, which often involve slapstick, acrobatics or dance, as well as for his long-standing association with director Leos Carax.
- Who Is Denis Lavant?
- A Method to The Madness
- Holy Motors
- Today’S Silent Comedian
Long associated with French arthouse, Denis Lavant first came to notice with his bombastic leading roles in Leos Carax’s equally explosive early films. Having since been poached by filmmaking greats such as Claire Denis and Harmony Korine, his infrequent leading or main-cast roles have become major events in the film world in and of themselves. Wit...
Lavant is often referred to as a “character actor.” His physical abilities and contortion command of mannerism, posture, and inflection lend well to unusual roles: exuberant weirdos, tortured artists, sewer monsters, and staggering drunks. I think it would be a disservice to paint him as an actor of extremes and nothing else, however; Denis Lavanti...
And then, of course, there’s Holy Motors. Carax’s post-modern mega-farce stands as a signpost of the times, an examination of where cinema has been and all that it can be. The film is interspersed with flashes of the earliest moving images – hands opening and closing, a man smashing a boulder on the ground – as a testament to film’s beginnings as a...
Leos Carax is notoriously unenthusiastic about interviews, often dismissing questions or giving silly non-answers. When asked about Lavant’s leading role for Holy Motors, however, he was more direct: “If Denis had said no, I would have offered the part to Lon Chaney or to Chaplin. Or to Peter Lorre or Michel Simon. All of whom are dead.” Carax isn’...
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Who was Oscar Levant?
Aug 17, 2018 · Oscar Levant, edgy, unhinged and brilliant, was a rumpled, chain-smoking man whose stinging one-liners about showbiz — “strip away the phony tinsel of Hollywood and you’ll find the real...
Jan 5, 2022 · Culture. French Cinema: Profile of Actor Denis Lavant. First published: January 5, 2022 by France Today Editors. His uniquely physical style and haunting performances have made this legendary actor one of France’s most extraordinary and unusual screen stars.
While Lavant's vignette as the violent monster with Hollywood hottie Eva Mendes (in a cemetery and a sewer) has to be seen to be believed, he got to live a kind of actor's dream, branching from assassin to victim, from beggar-woman to businessman, from father to lover, as his actor character is ferried around in a white stretch limo, with his re...
Oct 9, 2014 · Denis Lavant is an incredibly physical actor. Though also known for his distinctive face - interesting, but not really classically handsome - Lavant has become associated with a markedly kinetic performance style.
Actor John Garfield used Levant as a model when creating the character of troubled genius Mickey Borden in the 1938 film Four Daughters. Levant was the inspiration for the neurotic, womanizing pianist Henry Orient in Nora Johnson's novel The World of Henry Orient (1964).
