Mini biography

Gaspar Noé _{(December 27, 1963, Buenos Aires, Argentina)}

Gaspar Noé (born 27 December 1963) is an Argentine-Italian filmmaker based in Paris.

He is the son of Argentine painter, writer, and intellectual Luis Felipe Noé.

In the early 1990s, Noé co-founded the production company Les Cinémas de la Zone with his partner, Lucile Had¾ihaliloviو.

He has directed seven feature films: I Stand Alone (1998), Irréversible (2002), Enter the Void (2009), Love (2015), Climax (2018), Lux Æterna (2019), and Vortex (2021).

His work has been strongly associated with a collection of films often described as new extreme films. Highlighting their challenging sexual and violent bodily imagery, Tim Palmer has described them as part of a cinéma du corps (cinema of the body), and a cinema of 'brutal intimacy' because of its attenuated use of narrative, generally assaulting and often illegible cinematography, confrontational subject material, a treatment of sexual behavior as violent rather than mutually intimate, and a pervasive sense of social nihilism or despair.

Noé often directly addresses the audience in confrontational ways, most notably in I Stand Alone, when an intertitle warns the audience that they have 30 seconds to leave the cinema before the final violent climax. In a different way, this can be seen in Irreversible, in which the 10-minute long single-take rape sequence has frequently been read as an assault on viewers, as well as a depiction of an assault on the female character.

Collaboration

Gaspar Noé and Lucile Had¾ihaliloviو have repeatedly collaborated with each other on film projects. Noé operated the camera and was the cinematographer for two short films directed by Had¾ihaliloviو: La Bouche de Jean-Pierre (1996) and Good Boys Use Condoms (1998). Similarly, Had¾ihaliloviو produced and edited Carne (1991), edited Seul contre tous (1998) and was credited as a writer on Enter the Void (2009). The creative collaboration is made clear in the comparable stylistic choices across these early films, most clearly the credit sequences and the marketing designs. In 2025, Noé will appear in Had¾ihaliloviو's fourth feature film, The Ice Tower.

Three of his films feature the character of a nameless butcher played by Philippe Nahon: Carne, I Stand Alone and, in a cameo, Irréversible.

The music for Irréversible was composed by Thomas Bangalter. The latter also sent Gaspar Noé a unreleased song he made circa 1995 for Climax. The song was named Sangria in reference to the movie.

In collaboration with Saint Laurent, he directed films Lux Æterna and Saint Laurent - Summer of ‘21.

Influences

Noé stated in the September 2012 edition of Sight & Sound magazine that seeing 2001: A Space Odyssey at the age of seven changed his life, without which experience he would never have become a director. A poster for the film features notably in a scene towards the end of Irreversible.

Many of his movies feature all kind of film posters, which reflects his collection and passion for them. He's believed to be the owner of one of the three known copies of the rarest poster for M (1931 film). Since Irréversible, he's kept working with French film poster designer Laurent Lufroy for all his feature films: Lufroy even appears in Love (as a policeman), Climax (as a dog-handler) and Lux Æterna (using a torch).

Noé also cites the 1983 Austrian serial killer film, Angst, by Gerald Kargl, as a major influence.

Director - Selected filmography

1. Climax (2018) (Music, Avant-Garde, LGBTQ+, History, Erotica)
   
2. Irreversible (2002)