Words by MATT MAYTUM
Literally translated as ‘New Wave’, the term Nouvelle Vague refers to the movement in French cinema that began in the late 1950s and continued throughout the 60s, when a group of rule-breaking critics-turned-auteurs started defying conventions of film storytelling and grammar. It’s no surprise that director Richard Linklater would feel drawn to the movement – over a directing career that has spanned almost four decades, he’s been inventive and experimental in his own unshowy way, playing with time, fact/fiction, animation techniques and more. Here he documents the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 classic À bout de souffle (aka Breathless).
That film remains vital and fresh today, its jump-cut editing and propulsive momentum as influential as its nonchalantly amoral heroes; it’s a fixture of Greatest Films of All Time lists and Film Studies courses. Risky territory for a contemporary filmmaker to explore, then, but Linklater manages to turn what could’ve felt either dryly academic or wilfully sacrilegious into an extremely fun hangout movie. If it is an exercise, it’s an immensely enjoyable one, carried off with no shortage of style and character. Cinematographer David Chambille shoots in black and white in Academy ratio. The score consists of jazzy, era-specific tracks. The dialogue is (almost entirely) in French, and even the subtitles have a pleasingly retro style. (Now and then, you can even see faux ‘cigarette burns’ pop up in the corner of the screen.) The storytelling is choppy and loose. It’s an extremely convincing recreation of the spirit of the era, and a pleasure to be immersed in.
The casting, too, is spot on. As Godard, Guillaume Marbeck has the necessary charisma to justify why the crew would continue to follow such a chaotic and capricious leader. He also has the insouciance to casually deliver some of the JLG’s celebrated aphorisms; “The best way to criticise a film is to make one,” he says early on of his transition from criticism to directing. Zoey Deutch (from Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some!!) is a fantastic foil as American actress Jean Seberg, providing valuable perspective on Godard’s often frustrating methods, and, like the audience, slowly warming to her new collaborators. Some of the supporting casting is uncannily physically uncanny: Aubry Dullin is an absolute doppelganger for Breathless actor Jean-Paul Belmondo, in looks and screen presence.
At times you even wonder if the film will get finished, as Godard continually seems to get in his own way with on-the-fly script revisions, short shooting days and tricky camera moves; it’s no wonder he ends up in a scuffle with his producer Georges ‘Beau Beau’ de Beauregard (Bruno Dreyfürst) at one point. But throughout, there’s such an infectious spirit of creation, it’s like Linklater is making a rallying cry to grab a camera, get out there and just create. With friends, with conviction, and with gusto.
Pictures courtesy of Netflix
Nouvelle Vague is in cinemas now
