Irma Vep
Directed by	Olivier Assayas
Produced by	Georges Benayoun
Written by	Olivier Assayas
Starring	Maggie Cheung Jean-Pierre Léaud Nathalie Richard
Cinematography	Eric Gautier
Editing by	Luc Barnier
Distributed by	Dacia Films
Release date(s)	November 13, 1996
Running time	97 minutes
Country	France
Language	French/English
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

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 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. irmavep File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Olivier Assayas (born January 25, 1955) is a French film director and screenwriter. ... Maggie Cheung in Clean Maggie Cheung Man-yuk (張曼玉; pinyin: Zhāng Mànyù; Cantonese: dzoeng1 maan6 juk9/juk2) (born September 20, 1964) is a multi award-winning actress from Hong Kong. ... Jean-Pierre Léaud (born May 5, 1944) is a French actor. ... Nathalie Richard (born 1962 in Paris, France) is an actress. ... November 13 is the 317th day of the year (318th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 48 days remaining. ... 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... 1996 (MCMXCVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... Film is a term that encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. ... The film director, on the right, gives last minute direction to the cast and crew, whilst filming a costume drama on location in London. ... Olivier Assayas (born January 25, 1955) is a French film director and screenwriter. ... Maggie Cheung in Clean Maggie Cheung Man-yuk (張曼玉; pinyin: Zhāng Mànyù; Cantonese: dzoeng1 maan6 juk9/juk2) (born September 20, 1964) is a multi award-winning actress from Hong Kong. ... Jean-Pierre Léaud (born May 5, 1944) is a French actor. ... Louis Feuillade (February 19, 1873 - February 25, 1925) was a French film director from the silent era. ... A silent film is a film which has no accompanying soundtrack. ... Serial is a term, originating in literature, for a format by which a story is told in contiguous installments in sequential issues of a single periodical publication. ... Les Vampires is a 1915 10-part silent movie. ... The film industry consists of the technological and commercial institutions of filmmaking: i. ...

Cheung is employed to play the film-within-the-film's heroine, Irma Vep, 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. A story within a story is a literary device or conceit in which one story is told during the action of another story. ... This article is about the type of character. ... Burglary is a crime related to United States burglary is a felony and involves trespassing, or entering a building with intent to commit any crime, not necessarily a felony or theft. ... The LaTeX logo, typeset with LaTeX LATEX, written as LaTeX in plain text, is a document markup language and document preparation system for the TeX typesetting program. ... A woman in a red catsuit and black boots A catsuit is a skin-tight one-piece garment with sleeves and long legs, and sometimes with feet or gloves, sometimes with a hood (the combination of which turns it into a zentai suit). ... This does not cite its references or sources. ... Orientation is a function of the mind involving awareness of three dimensions: (1) time, (2) place and (3) person. ... The LaTeX logo, typeset with LaTeX LATEX, written as LaTeX in plain text, is a document markup language and document preparation system for the TeX typesetting program. ... A woman in a red catsuit and black boots A catsuit is a skin-tight one-piece garment with sleeves and long legs, and sometimes with feet or gloves, sometimes with a hood (the combination of which turns it into a zentai suit). ... Costume designer is a cinema term which refers to a person whose responsibilty is to design costumes for a movie or stage production. ... Nathalie Richard (born 1962 in Paris, France) is an actress. ... Wiktionary has related dictionary definitions, such as: crush Crush may mean: A short-lived and unrequited love, infatuation, or limerence, especially prevalent among young people but not unheard of for people of any age, as in I have a crush on so-and-so. ...

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. A silent film is a film which has no accompanying soundtrack. ... Actors in period costume sharing a joke whilst waiting between takes during location filming. ... Musidora as Irma Vep in a screen shot of the 1915 film serial Les Vampires Musidora (February 23, 1889 - December 11, 1957) was the professional stage-name of a popular French silent film actress of the early 20th century. ... François Truffaut. ... La Nuit américaine is a 1973 French film directed by François Truffaut. ...

Trivia

• Assayas married Cheung in 1998. They divorced in 2001. They again collaborated in 2004 on the film Clean.
• Irma Vep is an anagram for vampire.

1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... 2001 (MMI) was a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Movie poster of Clean Clean is a 2004 film directed by French director Olivier Assayas, starring Nick Nolte and Maggie Cheung. ... An anagram (Greek ana- = back or again, and graphein = to write) is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce other words, using all the original letters exactly once. ... Vampires (sometimes vampyres) are not mythological or folkloric creatures are the re-animated corpses of human beings who subsist on human or animal blood. ...

See also

• Louis Feuillade, director of the original serial film Les vampires (1915-1916)
• The Mystery of Irma Vep, a 1984 play for two characters by Charles Ludlam
• Lettrism, inspiration for some sequences of the film

Louis Feuillade (February 19, 1873 - February 25, 1925) was a French film director from the silent era. ... Les Vampires is a 1915 10-part silent movie. ... The Mystery of Irma Vep is a play in three acts by Charles Ludlam. ... Charles Ludlam ( April 12, 1943 - May 28, 1987) was an American actor and playwright. ... Letterism is a French avant-garde movement, established in Paris in the mid-1940s by Romanian immigrant Isidore Isou. ...

External links

• Irma Vep at the Internet Movie Database