The Soundtrack - and Possibly a Book!

For this post I am going to tackle to subject of the soundtrack.  There are, to my knowledge, possibly 5 different versions of the score/soundtrack floating around out there:

1.  The Fifth Element, May 1997, 26 tracks.  This was the widespread commercially available score sold after the film's release.
2.  The Fifth Element:  The Complete Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2 discs, 2000, Columbia Records?).  Disc 1: 41 tracks; Disc 2, 26 tracks.
3.  The Fifth Element Isolated Score from the Japanese DVD release (Nippon Victor, R2 NTSC).  52 tracks.
4.  The Fifth Element:  The Complete Score (cues seamed together from the Isolated Score and subsequently packaged with other mysterious cues such as trailer music).  This version seems only available as a download.  "disc 1":  46 tracks; "disc 2":  25 tracks.
5.  The Fifth Element:  The Complete Original Score, 10th Anniversary, 50 tracks.

Some notes to keep in mind:  I call it the Isolated Score because there is no other name for it - many DVDs come with their soundtracks available to listen to directly from the DVD or Blu-Ray nowadays.  To my knowledge there is no official name for this because it is intended as a DVD-listening experience only.

The Complete Score is referred to as such because that is how it came into my hands, funnily enough, through eBay around the year 2000.  I will address this further below.

I can only attest to the validity of the commercial score and the 10th Anniversary version, though I do now own 4 of these versions and I have been doing some cross-referencing of the Isolated Score and the Complete Score (#4).  The Complete Score is a bootleg, compiled using the Isolated Score as well as music from the original film teaser trailer (running at 1:35), which is from Moby's album Everything is Wrong.  The track on that album is "First Cool Hive."

There are also a couple of tracks on the Complete Score for which I do not have a source nor a composer.  I am almost certain that Eric Serra did not compose the tracks "Absolute Evil" and "Egypt" (not to be confused with the other soundtracks' "Egypt 1914" tracks immediately at the beginning) but I can't say that with any certainty given the legitimate soundtracks' extremely diverse musical nature.

As to the 2-disc set released in 2000, The Fifth Element:  The Complete Original Movie Soundtrack, I can only report what I was told in the Wikipedia discussion panel on the film.  I do not know a source for this version and I have not been successful in tracking it down, whether in an independent search or by catalog.  It's possible that this was a very limited release, but again, I can't say for certain.

Also floating on the web is a picture of the Complete Score from the Original Motion Picture Soundtrack of The Fifth Element.  On this picture is Leeloo's reconstruction in the Nucleolab  imposed over a sandy background with buildings and the planetary alignment symbols.  To my knowledge this is not official either - possibly just a fan made piece of art to accompany the download of the Isolated Score plus its "second disc."

Some facts about these soundtracks:

1.  The European version of the commercial version includes an "interactive track" which linked back to the 1997 version of the film's website.  It is still available via The Fifth Element with Bonus Interactive Feature on Amazon, though the page does not list the feature.  Here's a picture of my copy with sticker still somewhat intact:

2.  The Fifth Element:  The Complete Original Score, 10th Anniversary includes the track "Diva Aria Coda" by Inva-Mula Tchako, who sang "Lucia di Lammermoor" and "The Diva Dance" as the character the Diva Plavalaguna.  This may have been the music from which they selected the notes to arrange into parts of "The Diva Dance."  It also includes the track "Police Chase," aka, "Alech Taadi", sans the sound effects of the Isolated Score.
3.  All of these soundtracks (that I own, anyway) feature "Little Light of Love" by R.X.R.A (Eric Serra, commonly being mistaken for Peter Gabriel here), but in varying lengths.  One of them runs at 7 minutes long!  The Isolated Score, however, does not have this track.
4.  It's not Milla Jovovich singing on "Little Light of Love," it's an Israeli artist called Nourith Sibony.
5.  The infamous "taxicab chase scene" music is the track "Alech Taadi" by artist Cheb Khaled, and is from his album N'Ssi N'Ssi, which you can find here:  N'Ssi N'Ssi on Amazon
6.  There is no soundtrack where you can get Ruby's other rap overlaid with vocals, that I am aware of. "And to my left, Baby Ray, star of stage and screen!  But he's not going to get much out of this concert because he's stone deaf!"
7.  There is an official 3-track CD of Diva Dance remixes available, recently made available as a Japanese import.  These tracks are done by The Shooshoo's, and are titled:  "Radio Cosmos Mix," "Bubble Duck Mix", and "Astrobus Mix."  You can generally find it on eBay, but be prepared to pay a good price for it.
8.  "The Diva Dance" segment of the film was mixed using Inva-Mula's voice, it was just digitally rearranged in order to achieve the arrangement heard in the final track, possibly from "Diva Aria Coda".  So yes, what you hear is truly a human voice throughout the song, but the individual notes were digitally rearranged.
9.  That's not Bruce Willis' voice heard during the track "Ruby's Rap."  It's Leon:  The Professional's star Jean Reno!  He's credited on the CD.

Are you confused yet?

And to effectively end this post, I am considering writing an "unofficial" guidebook to The Fifth Element, instead of pursuing a website.  I haven't made my mind up yet.  I guess it all depends on how lazy I feel like being in the future!

Also, a huge thanks to the individual who helped me with the Isolated Score.  It drove me fantastically nuts for over 10 years trying to figure out the mystery of the source for The Complete Score "2 disc" bootleg, and now I know!  So I can't thank him enough for all of his help!

Leeloo's Name

For today's post I would like to tackle Leeloo's name.  Her entire name.


Long before I had ever seen her name in actual print, I could say it.  And I learned by continually watching the scene in the film where she and Korben have their nervous introductions, with Leeloo aiming a gun to Korben, offended that he'd kissed her without her permission.  Eventually I had it down, but spelling it was another task entirely.  The official film site from 1997 spelled her name as such:

Well, I could get behind that, as that's what I heard too.  A "T" sound in Lekatariba.  Then some sites started popping up, claiming it was Lekarariba.  I never did agree with that contention, however, because I could hear the "T" sound and the flow was more appropriate.


It wasn't until I'd landed a copy of the video game (which has an excellent remix of The Diva Dance, by the way, over an intro movie), that I noted the gaming manual listed her name spelling as Leeloominaï Lekatariba Lamina-Tchaï Ekbat De Sebat.  Well, that actually looked official!


Some more digging led to the discovery of an early script draft, which also spelled Leeloo's name with Lekarariba.  Soon after this discovery, if you're still following me, that is, I came upon and bought a copy of Luc Besson's film diary.  On the last page of this book was a poster of Leeloo leaping off the building after escaping the Nucleolab, and underneath that photo in bold print was her name, as such:  Leeloominaï Lekatariba Lamina-Tchaï Ekbat De Sebat, shown here:

This image is one I have scanned from my book, so it's cut off a little as the book itself is too large for my scanner.  I do, however, own the poster as well and it's huge, about 4x6' - meant to be displayed where its size can be handled.  I've heard it called the French Metro poster too.  The caption next to this poster in the book is "a post-release promotional poster."  Not to also mention, Luc Besson himself spelled her name the same way in his diary, albeit with slightly different syllable emphasis:  Leeloominai Lekatariba Lamin-atchai Ekbat Desebat.

So where did Lekarariba come from, and how did it become transposed as an official spelling?  I don't think we'll ever truly know, however it's also used this way in the film subtitles as well as the novelization of the film, which was also written based off of that earlier draft.  In this draft and novel as well, Ruby Rhod isn't Ruby yet, he's Loc Rhod.  I guess we're lucky Korben Dallas didn't remain as Zaltman Bleros, either, as the initial title of The Fifth Element was Zaltman Bleros and the Fifth Man.

Official Trivia:

leeloo min aï is translated in the Divine Language as "precious stones."

Other trivia with fun connotations (2) and some with no back-up sources at all (1):

(1) Luc Besson said in a radio interview that "The first part means the light, the second one is her family name, the third one is her dynasty and the last one means she is the 17-th."  I had heard a long time ago that part of her name, particularly the last part, was an honorific.  

(2) Oddly enough, other than leeloo min aï, no other parts of her name are translated in the published Divine Language glossary, though over at T. Leah Fehr's Divine Language site, she has researched and come up with a pretty awesome educated guess about the meaning of Leeloo's entire name!  Please see here:  What's in a Name?

With all this stated, I think it's safe to assume that "Lekatariba" is the correct spelling of Leeloo's second name, and "Lekarariba" simply being transposed wrong at some point down the line.  If anyone has any information they would like to add, please feel free leave a comment!  Comments are moderated, and I have another writing gig as an advocate for chronic migraine sufferers, as well as an income-generating job, so don't fret if your comments don't show immediately.

Apipoulaï!

...And welcome to my The Fifth Element blog!  Here I hope to archive posts and information about the film.  I am currently working on a website that is private at the moment, so I can work out the kinks and figure out what it's going to take to get an archive built.  So, for the time being, I'll be posting here partly for my own amusement, and partly to get a sense of what I'd like to include on my site.

For now I'll introduce myself.  I've been a fan of the film since it came out in May of 1997, and I collect items from the film, including obscure memorabilia, some props/replicas, model kits, books, clothing, soundtrack versions, etc.  Some of the ideas and facts I'll be contributing to my sites come from Luc Besson's published film diary, titled The Adventure and Discovery of a Film:  The Story of the Fifth Element, Jean-Claude Meziere's Mon Cinquieme Element:  Decor Pour Le Film De Luc Besson (My Fifth Element Sets from the film by Luc Besson), and the only publicly available draft of the script upon which the novelization was built, and from which some of the film's subtitles were inappropriately transliterated (hint:  Leeloo's full name, the misspelling of which really bothers me...but that's my problem and not yours!  Unless you'd really like to get it right.)


I'll also be tackling obscure trivia sometimes.  I think the most often questioned piece of trivia I have come across is just what, exactly, is it that is running down Zorg's head whenever he communicates with Mister Shadow?  I'll get to that later!

However, for the time being I'll leave you with an interesting bit written by Luc Besson on what the Fifth Element is, exactly:  

"The film, for me, was something far more intimate, centered on this fifth element, which represents life, love and art.  A sort of model, reflection or mirror, a way of exploring how to live better with others and with oneself.  In peace."