Symbolism and repetition in Léon (SPOILERS)

Three is a constant element in this film and other Besson titles. Here are some of the triplets I have found in Léon:

Stansfield sees both Léon and Mathilda three times. First, when he and Malky are questioning Mathilda's father. Second, when Mathilda tries to kill him and when he sees Léon on the landing with the medic. Lastly, when he captures Mathilda and kills Léon.

Mathilda rings Léon's doorbell in three sequences and says "please" three times.

They share three living spaces, namely: the apartment where they are introduced, the hotel room where their relationship begins, and the final apartment where she becomes Léon's partner and true love.

Mathilda carries Léon's plant three times. She carries it on their first move to the hotel and then on their last move to an apartment. She carries it on her own at the end, as Léon's representative, and plants "it in the middle of a park so it can have roots."

Léon suffers three explosions: the first is a grenade he throws into an apartment, the second is the grenade fired into his apartment, and the last is the explosion that kills him and Stansfield.

Mathilda seeks to bind Léon to her on three occasions, first with her offer to be his housemaid (which he rejects), second with her Russian Roulette that begins their partnership, and finally with her offer of sex that Léon refuses but establishes his rebirth as a complete human. He sets aside his gun, recognizes the source of his emptiness, and begins to live again for the first time.

Mathilda loads three bullets into her gun for her game of Russian Roulette.

Léon settles into death in a three-stage process. He first leaves the landing after the medic departs, looks up at the false light from the police flashlights, and then heads downstairs into the blackness. Second, he approached the true light of the alley, is stymied by the police presence, and turns back to go down steps again into blackness. Lastly, he enters the silent, black hallway with the exit showing as a bright light in the distance. He is at peace, removes his mask, and surrenders to a blissful death with Stansfield. This piece reminds me of Besson's divers finding release and euphoria in the black depths of the sea. Léon's mission was complete because he found his life.

From marthalorusso:

when Stansfield gets in Mathilda's appartment to kill everyone, he walks straight forward, then he stops, makes exactly THREE STEPS BACK, opens the bath's door and shoots Mathilda's stepmom.

and

About the triplets: Stansfield killed 3 people in the apartment's massacre: Mathilda's step-mom, her half-sister and her father.

On the other side, Leon killed 3 of Stansfield's men who took part there: Malky, 2nd Stan's man and Willy Blood.

Looks "karmic", like a balanced thing.

brent2005 mentioned the cartoons but they are shown at least four times (twice in her family's apartment and twice in an apartment shared with Léon)

As for what it all means, who knows for sure? Counts of three are extremely common. Perhaps this is Besson's playful way of commenting on the use of three or simply a way to make the stages/steps/repeats resonate in the minds of the viewers.

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Besson and Thierry Arbogast (his cinematographer) used lighting both to set the mood for a scene and as a symbol. Light often represented hope, but it could also show exposure and danger. Mathilda's shadowed face when she was pleading for entry suddenly bathed in light as Léon opened the door and Léon's futile search for the glowing exit both expressed the hope and security of light. The red lights from the sharpshooters, the police flash lights, the glaring bathroom lights when Mathilda was getting ready to shoot Stansfield, and finally her journey through the police barricades in the bright sunlight all heightened her vulnerability.

Darkness also had multiple roles. It was the security Léon hid behind, a passageway to opportunity for Mathilda, a powerful defense for Mathilda when Léon's grenade destroyed a shooter's apartment and she stood shivering in the black-clothed hitman's arms. I believe that darkness was also used as a point of discovery and resolution. On Mathilda;s first night in his apartment, Léon sits in the dark deciding what to do about his problem. When he is standing over her ready to shoot, his recoil from that act is intensified by the sudden illumination of his face as he lifts his head. For Mathilda, walking around Time Square in the dark was a time for her to deal with Léon's death and face her future. Blackness served as a point of transition for Nikita when she escaped from the restaurant through the garbage chute, Leeloo used a vent shaft in her escape from the lab, and Mathilda used a wall cavity for her exit. In the beginning, Léon opens his door, bathing Mathilda in light and granting her shelter in his world. When she leaves it behind, she descends into the darkness of the wall shaft and is reborn in the indifferent world she left behind. As she ascends out of her subterranean escape, she walks into a bright natural light with abundant noise as if breaking the surface from a dive.

Finally, darkness represented danger, nullification and death with Léon's disembodied hand coming out of the darkness behind the fatman, the dark silhouettes of the swat team members as Léon prepared to shoot then and Léon's own dark silhouette as Stansfield aimed his gun at him. Mathilda looked down rather than straight across at Léon's door when Stansfield's crew was in her family's apartment so that her face was in shadow until Léon opened his door. At the end of their time together, the camera showed the light behind Léon so that Mathilda's face was well-lit but his face was dark.

Luc Besson came from a family of divers and was fascinated by the sense of euphoria some divers felt in the blackness of the deep sea. Léon settles into death in a three-stage process. He first leaves the landing after the medic departs, looks up at the false light from the police flashlights, and then heads downstairs into the blackness. Secondly, he approached the true light of the alley, is stymied by the police presence, and turns back to go down steps again into blackness. Lastly, he enters the silent, black hallway with the exit showing as a bright light in the distance. He is at peace, removes his mask, and surrenders to a blissful death with Stansfield. Léon's mission was complete because he had recovered all that mattered about life in his final hours with Mathilda.

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Besson's life was completely changed after a diving accident when he was a teenager. He was told that he could no longer dive, went through a long period of depression, and dropped out of school. His great passion from the age of ten had been dolphins and the sea. He carried away from them a sense of unconditional love and acceptance along with a freedom from human vanities. As he got on with his life and became interested in movies, he brought his dreams about the sea, dolphins, and dolphin behavior into his new career.

The central figures in many of his films are isolated lawless individuals divorced from an insane or chaotic society. Each is given a chance at life through the unconditional love of another. It may be an old man, a grocery clerk, a cab driver, or a hitman named Léon, but each provides security and support unavailable elsewhere.

Besson created a unique emotional story in Léon, where two deeply scarred children redeemed each other through love. One is a real child, unloved, abused, and living in an emotional purgatory dominated by cartoons. She sees herself as fully-grown and already dead. After her family is killed, all she wants is for Léon to keep her with him or to die for real. She is delicately balanced on the edge of oblivion and willing to sacrifice everything for love and revenge against Stansfield for killing her brother. The other is a man who regressed into childhood when he was still a teenager. He is illiterate, his clothes don't fit, and he avoids contact with anyone but his employer. His one contact, Tony, encouraged him to trust no one and to avoid change. He survives by staying and working alone, thoroughly understanding and preparing for his work as an assassin, and guarding all access to his world.

When circumstances force the two together, Léon is terrified at the prospect of dealing with her. Even though he is attracted to her as a soulmate and child, he wants nothing to do with her. She is an emotional time bomb that could get them both killed and he needs to be alone to be safe. Mathilda, on the other hand, immediately latches on to Léon as someone who cares about her, who will never hurt her, and who knows how she feels. She loves him, and doesn't care about anything but binding him to her and getting revenge for the killing of her brother.

Léon reluctantly saves Mathilda's life by letting her into his apartment. He does not want her there and does not accept her as part of his life until much later. She knows he cares for her, loves him as much as she has ever loved anyone, and is devastated each time he shows that he wishes she were gone.

Perhaps the most powerful scene in the movie is after she has gotten them kicked out of the hotel. Léon rejects her and scoffs at everything she suggests. Her final attempt to reach him is to offer a deadly wager. She loads three bullets into her gun and spins the chamber. She tells Léon that if she survives "you will keep me with you always," and that if she dies, "you will shop alone like before." Léon tells her that she will lose because he heard the bullet in the chamber. Mathilda asks "what's it to you if I get a bullet in the head, huh? He replies "nothing." She pulls the trigger, but Léon jerks her hand away before it goes off. As she cries and Léon gasps for breath, he finally accepts her in his life.

In a very gradual process, Mathilda forces Léon to care for her and grow as a person. For the first time, he recognizes his own childishness and takes on more adult responsibilities as Mathilda's protector and teacher. Mathilda, in a loving home for the first time in her life, begins to break down her emotional prison and live as a child. She is able to laugh, play, and relax with Léon. In the end, he gave her everything she needed to regain her childhood and make a new start in life. She enabled him to relax his defenses and live a full life. He was happy and at peace when he died.

This dual growth of two children is what makes this a powerful and unique story. They were both headed down blind alleys in life, but true love provided an answer for both of them. There have been many films and stories about children softening the heart of a protective adult from Silas Mariner to Central do Brasil, but no other story I remember brought two such different, dysfunctional and destructive people to redemption.

Early films by Besson lacked the emotional development shown here. Nikita profited from the unconditional love of her bumbling grocer, but her escape was from him as much as from the organization paying her. Besson found a perfect formula in Léon with an angelic outcast who could carry his theme and used it again with Leeloo in The Fifth Element and with Joan in Messenger. This script was a labor of love for Besson. He did it as a favor for Jean Reno, gambled with a very young actress, and put a lot of emotional content into the story.

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Léon is an elaborate poetic fantasy about true love, isolation, and redemption. The character and power of the evil is exaggerated, the endangered child's beauty and vulnerability is pushed to an extreme, and her dangerous protector is unnaturally adept and selfless. At numerous points, echoes and restatements highlight the underlying points in the narrative. What follows is a list of elements repeated at least once for dramatic effect:


When Léon is finishing his work with the fatman, he asks the final question "do you understand?" The fatman replies "yeah," and Léon says "so say it." The fatman answers "I understand." When Mathilda puts on the dress that Léon bought for her and asks him if he likes it, he replies "yes." She then says, "so say it," and he answers "I like it."


Mathilda and the "Transformers"

-Mathilda changes channels -- Transformers - "Now it's my turn!"

-Her sister is hitting her -- Transformers - "Please don't shoot! Megatron! Megatron!"

-She turns on the TV in Léon's apartment and there is an explosive sound followed by one of the Transformers wheeling around pointing his weapon and the words "Don't you recognize me?" -- Léon wheels around and points his revolver in the same way as the TV character.

-Mathilda returns from seeing the outline of her brother's body in her old apartment -- Transformers - "I don't want to fight you but you leave me no choice."


After Léon has met Mathilda for the first time, he goes to a Gene Kelly movie and hears the following lines from a song: "love has made me see things in a different way." On his return from the movie, he offers the bleeding Mathilda his handkerchief and his honesty.


Prior to breaking the door of Mathilda's apartment, Oldman's character talks about Beethoven, rhapsodizing about his music. This echoed his role as Beethoven in Immortal Beloved that same year.


Several scenes are echoed in Léon's final words to Mathilda. Early on, Mathilda questions Léon, "you love your plant, don't you?" He replies that it "is his best friend, always happy, and see" (lifts it up) "it's just like me, no roots." Mathilda answers, "if you really love it, you should plant it in the middle of a park so it can have roots." Later, when she offers her life as a wager in Russian Roulette, she tells Léon, "if I win, you keep me with you forever." After Léon puts the plant and Mathilda into the shaft for their escape, she refuses to go because she knows that she will never see him again. He tells her that he will be able to escape and "I want to be happy, sleep in a bed, have roots. You will never be alone again, Mathilda." He made as clear a statement as he could that the plant was his representative and she acted on that belief at the end.


After Mathilda retrieves the money from her parent's apartment, she gives Léon $20,000 to kill Stansfield and his crew, but he refuses to take it. He tells her that "revenge is not good Mathilda. You have to sleep with one eye open for the rest of your life." After their one night together in bed, Mathilda asks him how he slept. He replied: "I never really sleep. I always keep one eye open." She quiped: "Oh yeah, I forgot. I never knew a person with one eye open snored so much."


The last hit Léon takes Mathilda on nearly results in her death. She had been standing in front of the door and their intended victim sprayed it with bullets. Léon asks him if he knows the ring trick and throws a grenade in the apartment. After it explodes, he shows the ring to Mathilda and says: "that is the ring trick." This is repeated when he hands Stansfield the ring from a live grenade as a present from Mathilda.


Shortly after their last hit together, Léon goes to visit Tony. He asks him if he remembers the girl he brought with him before. When he says yes, he asks Tony to give her all his money if something ever happened to him. He tells Tony: "her name is…Mathilda." When he hands Stansfield the ring from the grenade he paused in the same way before giving her name. He said: "this is from…Mathilda."

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The following is from an interview with Besson conducted by Richard Jobson and published in the Manchester Guardian on March 23, 2000:

[At Besson's request, the more usual format of half an hour of one-on-one interview then questions from the audience for the remaining 45 minutes was abandoned, and the interview consisted entirely of questions from the audience, with Richard Jobson managing proceedings.

Q: Can actors and actresses actually help with the writing? I remember reading the original notes for Leon and there was a lot of conflict with Natalie Portman's parents wanting things changed. Is it collaborative or do you just go in and change what you want?

RJ: So is it collaborative experience, or is Luc a fascist?

LB: I think that I am a collaborative fascist. With Natalie it was different, she was only 11-years-old and Leon was her first film. And it's about a young girl who takes guns and shoots everywhere, so her parents were very scared, they didn't know me very well. So I think that's why they were on my back for a few weeks.

Later, the relationship was good and they trusted me so it was fine. The funny thing was Natalie. Obviously at 11 she didn't smoke, she was against it. She was already responsible. She said: "I don't want to show kids that I am smoking."

So I said: OK, what about showing them that you quit?" She said: "OK." And I said: "But to show that you quit, you have to show that you were smoking." So we made this deal were we showed her smoking at the beginning and then she quit for Leon.

RJ: I remember interviewing you at the time of the film and you got really pissed off with me because I kept on at you about subject of the relationship between the Jean Reno character and Natalie's character and you said to me: "Well it's your interpretation that there's something sexual there, it's not in the film." Do you still stand by that?

LB: Yes.

RJ: And is that why you felt you needed to change the film with the director's cut?

LB: No, I'm not responsible for what people think. The story is about two kids, a girl and a boy. They're both 12 years old, in their minds, and they're both lost and they love each other. And the rest is just your problem.The most important line for me in Léon is the one we've just seen [obviously from the conscience scene in Messenger] where her conscience says to her "you didn't see what it was, you saw what you wanted to see".

That's always the dilemma. Either you believe her or you don't. Maybe she has seen something but nobody else has seen it? You can ask yourself questions all night like: "If God wants to stop the war why doesn't he just show up in the middle of the battlefield? " That would be perfect. He's just shown up, he's saying: "I'm here, don't fight." I think that no one would fight, everyone would be down on their knees saying "oh my God".

RJ: And the idea that small people can change things. Small people can become big people?

LB: It's always the small people who change things. It's never the politicians or the big guys. I mean, who pulled down the Berlin wall? It was all the people in the streets. The specialists didn't have a clue the day before. If you read the newspaper a few days before...nothing...no one was talking about it. And even the French revolution, we just said "That's enough", and took the king.
The famous line about the French king was that he didn't even know what was going on. He said: "Is it a revolt?" And the other guy said: "No, it's a revolution." The king was thinking it was nothing.

RJ: Something we've never had here.

Q: What do you think of directors repeating themselves, and why did you feel the need to do a director's cut?

LB: Let me remember why...I was happy with the first one, it was mine, my director's cut, no one asked me to cut it. But at the same time you still have 25 minutes that nobody has seen. I think it was the beginning of the summer; in the summer France is like a desert, the people are on the beach, but there are some poor guys who stay in the cities to work, so we decided to make a long version, an extended version, to play in a just a few theatres for the people who stayed. Why are you laughing? It's true!


RJ: It's totally ridiculous.

LB: No, it's true. So we had like five screens and people loved it and sent their friends and then the Japanese called and said: "We want the long version, please."

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Léon is a film about Léon's true (paternal) love for Mathilda and how it gave him a reason to live and redeemed her life. While Besson treats sex as an amoral pleasure in life in Nikita and Big Blue, and plainly showed Mathilda as a seductress in his original script for Léon, he removed it from his final script and there is never any question that Léon would succumb. He originally sought an older girl for the part, and removed the seductive aspect entirely in order to have the eleven-year-old Natalie Portman play the part. He made fundamental changes to the way the script developed to achieve an entirely different vision of her, namely, that of a child fantasizing about things she wasn't ready for. In the original script, for example, she tricks Léon into coming into the bathroom while she is naked, places his hand on her stomach to feel how hot it was, asks for a restaurant kiss with some tongue in it, and removes her panties and climbs into his lap to straddle him in her final seduction. His younger Mathilda was innocent of these maneuvers; her true love never goes beyond wanting Léon to take her with him and to tell her that he loves her. Natalie's Mathilda is exploring her fantasy about being an adult in love, and Léon's nonresponse and general trustworthiness gives her a lot of room to act out her fantasy, but she is not lusting after his body so much as wanting proof that he loves her back. Far from being crestfallen when he turns down her offer of sex, she appears noncommittal if not relieved about it. She treats him like a giant stuffed toy when she gets him to sleep with her.

When Natalie set down the rules for appearing in "Léon," Besson came up with symbolic ways to emphasize her sexuality as a main component in his depiction of her vulnerability. His book about the film has a series of pictures showing Natalie dressed in different costumes. The one chosen as her final outfit was the only one that made her look sexy as opposed to just a child. She is always dressed in either a short skirt or dress, or short shorts The first shot does indeed show the child behind bars, as it were, but it also showed her straddling a post and leaning back in a way that emphasized her breasts (supposedly to hide the cigarette) as Léon came up to the landing. The scene where she lay with her arms spread on the bed and told Léon that she loved him was just as powerful as in the original script. Instead of having him place his hand on her stomach, his reaction looking alternately across her and at her as she did so, and his sigh while leaning against the wall after leaving the apartment, accomplished the same thing. Among other suggestive scenes are the following:

Mathilda smoking

Holding two fingers of Léon's hand when she is laying in bed and thanking him for his kindness

Léon's and Mathilda's constant cleaning and handling of long barreled handguns

Telling Léon that she needed to be watered like his plant if he wanted her to grow

Her choices of Madonna and Marilyn Monroe in their charades game

Mathilda putting her finger and then the hotel desk pen in its holder and pushing it back and forth, telling the clerk that Léon is actually her lover, and her coquettish goodbye

Her attempt to kiss Léon in the restaurant and her repeated assertions of love

Stansfield trapping Mathilda alongside a row of urinals in a men's washroom, pulling his gun out as he approached her, using his thumb to pull down her lower lip, and pushing her head around with his revolver

Wearing the dress that Léon bought for her and using makeup in conjunction with her offer of sex

The final script for Léon is saturated with sex and death, but draws a sharp distinction between Mathilda's vulnerabilities and her experiences, and between her desires and her needs. Besson never forgets she is a child. Léon preserves her life and her innocence despite and because of his life of violence and insularity. Mathilda ends the picture safe and at peace because a lost, illiterate, and dangerous man loved her more than the nuclear family that should have protected her. Far from endorsing pedophilia or violence, it suggests that a natural morality and unselfish love can save a child from them despite her risky behavior and his unsuitable lifestyle.

The original screenplay had Mathilda learn to shoot by killing a man on a park bench with the rifle. Later she kills a boy in a game of Russian roulette, and finally kills herself and Stansfield in an explosion. Natalie refused to be shown killing people, but with the possible exception of the ending, I think the changes made the film more powerful rather than less so. Early on, in a conversation with the school matron asking about why Mathilda wasn't at school, Mathilda replies, "She's dead." Léon's readiness to put a bullet in her head while she slept echoed his refusal to keep her with him as his housekeeper and his later reply of "Nothing" when she asked, "What's it to you if I put a bullet in my head?" She had no desire to live without his love and he had no desire to have her disrupt his life. Her complete despair of life stands out for me as her spiritual nadir equivalent to Léon's regression back into childhood. After she wakes up from her first night in Léon's apartment and is arguing that they should be a team, both examples she chose (Thelma and Louise & Bonnie & Clyde) died sudden violent deaths after short partnerships.

Léon's willingness to preserve her life drives the picture. He pulls back from either letting her die or taking her life on three occasions before he really becomes invested in her survival and saves her three more times out of a deep and uncompromising love for her. His new relationship begins with his view of her face after her near death by machine gun. When he shelters her from his grenade and shows her the ring, he sees a brave but scared little girl for the first time. Up until then, he looked at his hits as a game of death they both could share; after that he refused to take her with him and arranged for her future. I don't believe he ever started caring about or believing in a future for himself beyond protecting her life. His request to Tony anticipated his own death and his choice of weapons at the end (a bunch of grenades) made me think that he was aware of Stansfield's presence and gambling on a chance to kill him.

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Léon strongly resembles a medieval romance, in the descriptions of the main characters, action sequences, and basic plot. Léon is a typical knight in his origins, sponsorship, fealty to Tony, training, armor, profound humility, and in his devotion to his true love. Mathilda, thinking of herself as fully-grown at twelve, giving free reign to her emotions and desires, and encompassing both angelic beauty and imperious behavior, has all the characteristics of a medieval upper-class maiden. Stansfield, and his absurd complement of guns, goons, and police officers fits the adversarial mode common in medieval legends. As with the early myths, the narrative makes no sense except as a vehicle for praising the strength, bravery, and steadfastness of Léon and the transforming power of his true love for Mathilda. Besson puts his emphasis on the choreography of violence and on the emotional development of his knight and maiden. The medieval legendary world matches Léon's environment of treachery, alien lands, fantastic villains, and virtue triumphant.

A girl was considered to be an adult at the age of twelve in early medieval times; she was deemed able to choose marriage for herself and have that contract be binding. She was also seen as the wanton sex and an instrument of the devil. Knights were focused on their obligations and many of the stories tell of men running from the lust of young women. All of the surviving literature, of course, is from literary men and male clerics. Early marriages were only common among a relatively small group of wealthy people. The average age of marriage was still in the mid-twenties for both men and women. Young girls married as children because that was the way property was exchanged and maintained. I imagine that women were seen as capricious and wanton because they sometimes, like Juliet, fought the marriages arranged for them or otherwise messed with the male control of their lives. It was the girl's job to accomplish and support the pre-ordained match. Her protestations of love at that age were less about sex than change of station. As the Lady of a fine estate, she would have the only power available to women at that time. Eileen Power, in her book Medieval Women, put it this way:

The worst abuses of the system were confined to higher ranks of society and to earlier centuries of the Middle Ages. Advantages given to women as landowners outweighed the disadvantages in an age in which marriage was a business contract in all classes of society and child marriage the rule rather than exception.

Within the context of medieval romance and Léon, the young woman is powerful, willful, and a dangerous trap. She held power and allure as a beauty and as a representative of a large estate in medieval times. The knight was also threatened by her desire to have him and whatever estate he might attain, afraid to alienate her, and anxious to avoid the wrath of her father if he disapproved. As Eileen Power puts it:

In it the lady stood in a position of superiority towards her lover as uncontested as the position of inferiority in which a wife stood towards her husband…He must not only bear himself with the utmost humility towards her, showing infinite patience in the trials to which her caprices and disdains must (by all the rules) submit him, but must strive unceasingly to make himself worthy of her by the cultivation of all the knightly virtues…Love was often platonic in the accepted sense of the term, and in fact had much in common with the true platonic conception of love, in that it made love a source of infinite spiritual possibilities.

In Léon, Mathilda threatens Léon's safety and security and he is constantly avoiding the consequences of her desires for love and revenge. Besson's unique contribution to this formula lay in Léon's own unspoken need for love, Mathilda's emotional wasteland and kinship with Léon, and in the way his true platonic love story redeemed two lost souls.

Mathilda's beauty, her provocative dress, and her frank requests for love raised the stakes within Besson's story, but she was never leered at or sexually abused anywhere in the film. More importantly, for all her affirmations of love, she never shows an interest in his body. She tells Léon that he would be her first lover and the story works as well as it does because his love is platonic and her love was the immature desire of a child. When she finally gets him to sleep with her, she arranges his body on the bed with him lying face up. She curls up by his side and wraps his arm around her in the same way she held his pig glove at the beginning of the movie. When talking about the camera lingering over Portman's body, Besson used the example of a young girl in a chocolate advertisement. The young girl's beauty is appealing, no more no less. Natalie Portman's performance evoked awe at her beauty, concern for her vulnerability, and empathy for her emotional state. The point of the film was to show how true love and trust restored her childhood and helped Léon regain his life. Any hint of a sexual relationship between them would have stolen her childhood, changed Léon's character, and ruined the movie.

Even though there are many good things in this movie, it is a man's film, and shows little respect for women as equals. Women in Léon and in the medieval romances are controlled or handled, not respected for their judgment. Besson's heroines are all volatile quantities that must be managed. Nikita is drug from one situation to another. She has to be tamed by Bob and threatened with death before she can leave the academy. When Léon first asks Tony for money, Tony looks surprised and says: "You met a woman. Léon, you've got to be careful with women…when you first came here you were already in deep sh[/i]it because of a woman." Léon twice tells Mathilda "no discussion," and both he and Korben Dallas have to cajole their women to do what is necessary in the end.

Léon's knightly dress and behavior

From the Prologue in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales as translated by Nevill Coghill:

He was of sovereign value in all eyes.
And though much distinguished, he was wise
And his bearing modest as a maid.
He never yet a boorish thing had said
In all his life to any, come what might;
He was a true, a perfect gentle-knight.
Speaking of his equipment, he possessed
Fine horses, but he was not gaily dressed.
He wore a fustian tunic stained and dark
With smudges where his armour had left mark;

Mathilda's avowal of love and Léon's response that he would make a poor lover

From the British legend King Horn, comes the story of a youth whose parents were killed in a distant land and he was left drifting in a boat. A king rescued him and raised him in his court until he became a famous knight. The king's young daughter Rymenhild has fallen in love with him and commands his presence in her chamber.

Rymenhild took him by the hand, and led him to where she was sitting; she offered him wine to drink, and then she put her arms around his neck and kissed him as often as she wished. "Horn," she said, "have pity on me and promise to be mine. I will be your wife, and no one shall oppose my wish."

Horn thought quickly how he should answer her. "Christ guard you and give you joy of your husband wherever he may be; I am too lowly for a lady such as you. I come from a family of servants, and I am your father's foundling; it would be against Nature for us to marry.

Bevis of Hampton tells the story of a boy exiled from his home by his Mother. The Mother had killed his Father in preference for a new love. After Bevis attacks the man, she orders that he be sold to a pagan ship. A pagan merchant gave him as a gift to his king who raised him as a soldier in his household. The king had a young and beautiful daughter named Josian who so loved Bevis that she offered herself to him, but he rejected her until she converted to his faith. Her intense love for him caused him to be imprisoned after he kissed her and was reported for it.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight tells of a chaste knight responding to a challenge. He is besieged by the Lady of the house.

"My young body is yours,
Do with it what you will;
My strong necessities force
Me to be your servant still."

"In good sooth," then said Gawain, "good luck is mine,
Though I am hardly the hero of whom you speak.
I am altogether unworthy, I own it freely,
To be held in such honour as you here suggest.
By God, I should be glad if you gave me leave
To essay, by speech or some other service…"

(Much later he is still avoiding the issue)

LXXI
For that peerless princess pressed him so hotly,
So invited him to the very verge, that he felt forced
Either to allow her love or blackguardly rebuff her.
His courtesy was in question, lest he be called caitiff,
But more especially for his evil plight if he should plunge into sin,
And dishonor the owner of the house treacherously.

Léon crying out before the swat team grenade hits, and his death

The following combination of quotes comes from The Song of Roland translated by Dorothy Sayers. This is a magnificent French epic poem written at the end of the eleventh century about a real battle in 778. Roland and his troops are about to be wiped out by superior forces and Roland is blowing his trumpet.

134
The County Roland with pain and anguish winds
His Olifant, and blows with all his might.
Blood from his mouth comes spurting scarlet-bright
He's burst the veins of his temples outright.

(despite the odds, a grievously wounded Roland survives the battle, but collapses)

168
Now Roland feels that he is at death's door;
Out of his ears the brain is running forth.
…
Face downward there on the green grass he falls,
And swoons away…

169
A Saracen is there, watching him keenly;
He has feigned death, and lies among his people,
…
Now in his rage and in his overweening
He falls on Roland, his arms and body seizing;
He saith one word: "Now Carlon's nephew's beaten.
I'll take his sword, to Araby I'll reive it."
But as he draws it Roland comes to, and feels him.

170
Roland has felt his good sword being stol'n;
Opens his eyes and speaks this word alone:
"Thou'rt none of ours, in so far as I know."
He takes his horn, of which he kept fast hold,
And smites the helm, which was all gemmed with gold;
He breaks the steel and the scalp and the bone,
And from his head batters his eyes out both,
And dead on ground he lays the villain low;

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Natalie Portman was just quoted http://comingsoon.net/news.php?id=5433 saying the following:

Being action buffs, we wondered if Portman would ever consider doing a sequel to her very first movie Leon, known Stateside as The Professional. "I would do any film that Luc Besson directed. If he directed it, I would do it." And then quickly added with a smile, "...but he hasn't asked me, because that's not anything that's real. You just made that movie up."

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