Final Rating: 4/5
Back in 1959, director Jean-Luc Godard released the seminal film, À bout de souffle (known as Breathless in English), and it changed the way filmmakers made films and audiences interacted with them forever. The crime drama is most famous for implementing jump cuts, mid-scene, to give a shattered perspective and making viewers feel like they were going in and out of the story, never to truly know everything the characters are saying and doing.
Director Richard Linklater’s latest film (one of two coming out in the same year alongside Blue Moon), Nouvelle Vague, tackles the filming of the influential film and the beginning of Godard’s career. The title, which is the French word for New Wave, is the name of the movement that À bout de souffle helped usher in. The film follows young film critic Jean-Luc (Guillaume Marbeck) and his cohort at the influential film magazine Cahiers du cinéma. This includes many writers who would eventually become notable directors too like François Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, Éric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, Agnès Varda and more.
Jean-Luc believes he is finally ready to direct his first film after seeing the success that his friends Truffaut (Adrien Rouyard) and Chabrol (Antoine Besson) have experienced and is begging producer Georges de Beauregard (Bruno Dreyfürst), known as Beau-Beau, to back him. Godard is obstinate, difficult, critical and stubborn, which makes him a hard candidate to support with such a collaborative job like making a film. Eventually under the condition that he uses a story written by Truffaut and is mentored by Chabrol, Beau-Beau will finance his debut film.
Due to the popularity of the magazine and the involvement of the two other rising star directors, Godard is able to cast American movie star Jean Seberg (Zoey Deutch), who speaks French and is most famous for working with Otto Preminger and she is looking to get out of her contract with him. She is to star opposite boxer and occasional actor Jean-Paul Belmondo (Aubry Dullin), who previously starred in a short film that Godard made and who was promised a role in his first feature film.
Everything seems to be set up for Godard to succeed, except when day one comes around he has no script, isn’t recording with sound, will use no lights and only will do a second take if there is a mechanical issue to preserve the actors spontaneity. After only a few set ups in a diner, he calls it a day to the shock of the crew and the frustrations of Beau-Beau. He barks orders behind the camera, telling the actors what they should say and making up scenarios on the spot, which utterly frustrates Seberg, a skilled and professional actor.
Godard is callous and rude and when he isn’t shouting orders at everyone to do things his way, he exclusively speaks in quotes by other famous artists about the creation process. He doesn’t even know if his film will end with the guy getting the girl or him being killed (much to the chagrin of literally everyone but Belmondo who says he can perform either scenario).
One of Linklater’s greatest attributes and contributions to cinema is his mastering of the hangout movie. From his debut Slacker, to breakout Dazed and Confused and up to Everybody Wants Some!!, the man knows how to write interesting dialogue and cast actors who you just want to watch. Here we get another form of his hangout film. We get scenes of the Cahiers du cinéma fraternity watching films, insulting them, then talking about how its the greatest medium in the world. And just the act of shooting the film À bout de souffle is a delight to witness. A running joke is after doing one take either Godard or his cinematographer Raoul Coutard (Matthieu Penchinat) would ask if a second take is needed with other always saying they’re good to move on.
Perhaps one of the best touches Linklater infused the film with was giving every character a title card. Whenever a scene was beginning and new players were coming into the story we would get a static shot of the person with their name displayed. This included everyone from the famous directors Godard was friends with, to the people that worked on À bout de souffle. If someone had a line (like the script supervisor, make up artist and more) they got an introduction. The respect and admiration Linklater has for these artists and the impact they have on film (even if most of these people are not known to the world by name) is present.
Along with the Cahiers group, film lovers will get some great “cameos” from other iconic filmmakers who appear in the film include Jean-Pierre Melville, Robert Bresson and Jaques Demy. This is a loving tribute to one of the most influential and iconic French films of all time, and Linklater handles it with care and a great sense of humour. Not much happens in the film and while Godard certainly is an asshole, he’s the film communities lovable asshole, and that is exactly the type of Linklater film we are so lucky to get.
Nouvelle Vague was seen during the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival.
