Nouvelle Vague, 2025.
Directed by Richard Linklater.
Starring Guillaume Marbeck, Zoey Deutch, Aubry Dullin, Alix Bénézech, Paolo Luka Noé, Tom Novembre, Jade Phan-Gia, Nicolas Dozol, Jean-Jacques Le Vessier, Bruno Dreyfürst, Adrien Rouyard, Jodie Ruth-Forest, Matthieu Penchinat, Laurent Mothe, Jonas Marmy, Benjamin Cléry, Côme Thieulin, Roxane Rivière, Niko Ravel, Antoine Besson Blaise Pettebone, Pauline Belle, Léa Luce Busato, and Benoît Bouthors.
SYNOPSIS:
After writing for Cahiers du cinéma, young Godard decides making films is the best film criticism. He gets Beauregard to fund a low-budget feature, creating a treatment with Truffaut about a gangster couple.
The prospect of a black-and-white film following the production of film critic Jean-Luc Godard’s first feature-length film, Breathless, admittedly comes across as an insular, stuffy vanity project, even with one of the greats, Richard Linklater, at the helm. That makes it all the more joyous to report that the result couldn’t be further from the opposite. Instead, Nouvelle Vague (referring to the French New Wave of 1960s/70s filmmaking, where over 100 now-celebrated artists got their big break) is, in a word, fun. It often feels like watching The Disaster Artist, except this time the mad genius behind the camera, breaking all the rules of cinema, defying all concerns, objections, and criticisms from everyone around him (producers and cast members) to wind up making what is regarded today as a masterpiece and pillar of the French New Wave movement.
In a sense, it is a film about Jean-Luc Godard demonstrating an acute understanding of those rule-breaking cinematic techniques and insistence on capturing art in its purest expression, by way of sharp, snappy, and to the point Richard Linklater direction (which is unquestionably elevated by the screenplay from Holly Gent, Vincent Palmo Jr. and Michèle Pétin, working from an adaptation by Laetitia Masson).
This also allows for a zippy structure where each day of shooting tends to get into a unique, oddball tick of Jean-Luc Godard (played here by Guillaume Marbeck), such as crafting lines in the moment (although there was a bare-bones story about a pair of robbers conceived by him and François Truffaut, played here by Adrien Rouyard) and leaving his actors (with Zoey Deutch as Jean Seberg seeking a project outside of Hollywood, Aubry Dullin as Jean-Paul Belmondo who would go on to become a star despite never believing in the project on set, and others) in the dark until performing a scene before giving them some guidance, hoping that last lot will be put into how to play it, in turn, finding more truth in the emotions.
There are also bizarrely short shooting days, with Jean-Luc Godard refusing to film unless he has a burst of inspiration, sometimes wandering off to a pinball machine or lounging around. Unsurprisingly, it drives his producer Georges de Beauregard (Bruno Dreyfürst) nuts. Jean-Luc Godard also loathes the compulsion to maintain continuity, asserting that it’s irrelevant and ruins the mood of a shoot. In one sequence involving a woman undressing, he also wisely suggests that leaving the nudity suggested to the imagination is more impactful. It’s also simply about a revolutionary filmmaker breaking down the laws of storytelling, and it’s easy to appreciate on that front even without having seen Breathless.
In familiar Richard Linklater fashion, this is a freewheeling, lightweight look at the dysfunction throughout the creation of a cinematic classic. There is also no denying that mileage was still very based on one’s knowledge and appreciation for Breathless, this era of moviemaking, and the numerous cameos of its iconic artists (I cheered when Agnes Varda popped up on screen for a few seconds), especially given one of the later revelations about why Jean-Luc Godard is withholding so much dialogue instruction for Jean Seberg. Most of all, Nouvelle Vague is a radically chaotic and humorous way of capturing cinematic brilliance.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
