Nouvelle Vague
There’s a fundamental sense of indulgence that comes with any film about making a film. It’s too clever to a turn, it’s a way of showing audiences how filming works, and often, how smart the director needs to be to bring all the elements together. That doesn’t mean it can’t make great cinema- it just means that the filmmaker is not necessarily telling an original narrative. Chances are, they’re pulling from their own reality.
Richard Linklater has always found ways to break down the filmmaking process into its essence in his films. The essence of cinema is time passing, and not just the running time. The moments between the characters. The time in which the story unfolds. The lives that were one thing when the story started, and then another thing when the credits roll. In “Nouvelle Vague,” Linklater is choosing that most indulgent of filmmakers as his subject- Jean Luc Godard.
Of the French New Wave filmmakers, Godard is probably the most polarizing. He played with the language of film the most. He worked in specific genres shamelessly. He experimented throughout his career, and while that led to a career of riches, it also meant a lot of abject failures, as well. His place in film history is undeniable, though, and it started with his first feature, “Breathless.” The creation of that movie is what we are watching here.
The year is 1959. Francois Truffaut is the latest of the critics at the film publication, Cahiers du Cinema, to take to filmmaking with his debut film, “The 400 Blows.” First, however, Truffaut (Adrien Rouyard), Godard (Guillaume Marbeck) and Claude Chabrol (Antoine Besson) attend the premiere of a film by producer George de Beauregard. Godard is harsh about the film, and vows to begin directing. After “400 Blows” premieres at Cannes to resounding acclaim, it’s time. Godard chooses the outline of a crime story by Truffaut as his subject, and he begins getting his crew together. When the film begins production, however, Godard’s almost improvisational approach disarms everyone, including his American female lead, Jean Seberg (Zoey Deutch). How on Earth will this become a coherent piece of filmmaking? In Godard we trust, I suppose.
Linklater is a filmmaker clearly inspired by the likes of Truffaut and Godard, and his approach to the narrative laid out by screenwriters Holly Gent and Vincent Palmo Jr. (with dialogue by Michèle Pétin and Laetitia Masson) is very much in keeping with the loose structure of not just his films, but those of the French New Wave. There’s a lot of love in the way he shoots this film with cinematographer David Chambille, and it has a freewheeling momentum that makes the film’s 106 minute running time fly by. Along with his other 2025 film, “Blue Moon,” Linklater is looking at artists who find themselves resolute in how they approached their art. One at the beginning of their career in Godard, and one reflecting at the end in Lorenz Hart. I think “Blue Moon” connected with me more, but “Nouvelle Vague” is a fun exploration of how one filmmaker is paying tribute to another, like a lot of movies about moviemaking were before, and others will after.
