Léon

Starring Natalie Portman, Jean Reno, and Gary Oldman — Léon: The Professional is an amazingly casted and highly entertaining crime thriller. When it was first released on VHS in 1994 is was simply called “The Professional”. I believe they released a special edition (or director’s cut) when DVD’s arrived on the scene in the late 90’s. It was then titled Léon: The Professional.

This movie is squarely from the 90’s golden age of adventurous storytelling and filmmaking. The movie industry was entirely sparked by the success of Quentin Tarantino’s early films — and daring, independent filmmaking was en vogue. Tarantino excluded, 90’s movies were always tightly packaged into 90 minutes. I’ve always thought this run time is ideal as you’re left wanting more.

Directed by Luc Besson, Léon is an American-style crime drama with the flare of French Cinema. Gary Oldman’s dastardly character moves through the set like a ballet dancer. Natalie Portman gives an emotionally skillful performance (at 12 years old). Jean Reno (Léon) perfectly negotiates the character of a gentle, minimalist, and emotionally slow hitman.

The final musical cue in Léon is, “Shape Of My Heart” by Sting. This song is from his album, The Summoner’s Tales. This piece became even more famous as it was sampled for “Lucid Dreams” by Juice WRLD.

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How to play Shape Of My Heart | fingerstyle guitar

The guitar tab for Shape Of My Heart is beautifully written across 3 pages. I definitely recommend this for intermediate guitar players and up. Enjoy, the guitar tab is available below:

My song structure looks like this:

-Intro, Verse 2x, Chorus,

Bridge

-Verse, Chorus, Intro

Additionally, where appropriate, I’ve given you the chord names above the relevant chord shapes. This will help you play more efficiently and learn your chord shapes. The names are relative to the capo — meaning that these would be the chord names in standard tuning with no capo.

**Sting: Shape Of My Heart | fingerstyle guitar

This song is played in standard tuning with a capo on the 2nd fret. Feel free to play it without a capo, or in any fretboard position you like.