A personal review of Richard Linklater's "Nouvelle Vague" (and some resources about the French New Wave) [Something Interesting #70]

I haven't really watched a lot of movies for the last couple years but I got a pleasant surprise from Richard Linklater's Nouvelle Vague when I chose it on a whim yesterday. I recommend it but with some caveats since it's mostly a good film but not really a great one. Part of the issue is that it is a love letter movie, in that you have to know something about the subject before going into to appreciate it. You can't really go into this blind without knowing something about the major players of Cahiers du Cinéma and the French New Wave overall (part of the subtitles involve flashing names of notable people in that scene each time they first appear, many of whom only show up for a split second) or having seen Breathless (À bout de souffle), the primary subject of this story. Breathless is one of the films I really like during my Criterion Collection journey during my 20s, so I recognized all of the scenes when they showed Godard and company filming them. This is a thing that rewards inside knowledge and I imagine it would irritate someone coming in cold.

The other issue is that there's a weird clash between messages when you ponder more, which I've mulled over since watching it. Linklater and his cast and crew do a fantastic job capturing the mood, feel, and general tension that must've occurred while filming Breathless, highlighting heavily that film production is really a group project that doesn't gel well with Godard's bratty impatience and his Artistic Genius obsession. This is especially well-captured by Zoey Deutsch's performance as Jean Seberg, which deserves any and all awards she can since she not only looks and sounds like Seberg but also does wonders in capturing the aggravation that Seberg would've most likely had from having to put up with her director's lack of professionalism. This whole thing apparently was just a 23-day improvised shoot that also contained pissed-off producers, perpetually confused crew members (Matthieu Penchinat as cinematographer Raoul Coutard is especially funny with his willingness to roll with it all despite being stuffed in a rolling cart at one point), and a leading man who saw this as just a lark to help a friend out. The fact that the final product turned out to have any influence or credibility is impressive, since the success occurred despite Godard rather than because of him.

Which then gets to the part I have trouble with regarding the ending. The final minutes of the film basically pass this off as Godard succeeding in proving his theories about how films ideally should be directed. "The genius auteur wins" is the sentiment Nouvelle Vague appears to end on, with Godard and his producers watching the final cut and acknowledging its worth with underhanded praise (leave it to the French to refer to something they admire with a smirk and calling it a "piece of shit"), followed by quick biographical notes covering what happened to Godard, Seberg, and Belmondo for the rest of their careers.

This almost soured my entire view of Linklater's take on the subject since (if my intrepretation is correct) that discounts much of the input brought in that made Breathless memorable to someone like me: Truffaut's suggestion that Godard play the guy who rats Michel to the cops or Seberg's anger about picking her lover's pocket as he's dying and instead choosing to improvise the final iconic scene of the whole film. The little details that became iconic weren't sprung directly from Godard's brain but rather from people reacting from the chaos around them. There was no guarantees any of this was going to work and Nouvelle Vague does a great job showing that right up to last five minutes.

When I was in my mid-20s, I bought into the whole Lone Genius idea that the ending gives us. Now being 40 and knowing more about the various processes found throughout different types of media and forms, experience has shown that concept to be total bullshit. The fact that an esteemed director like Linklater would do that is more that a little baffling to me.

All that said, Nouvelle Vague is a good movie and I would still recommend it, especially if you like the subject it presents. Funny enough, it has the feel of an enjoyable "hang-movie" that you can throw on for 90-ish minutes and just drink it in if you don't think too much (appropriate since this is Richard Linklater we're talking about, one of the Masters of that kind of movie). I still recommend it but I'd advise on viewing it less of a record of fact (all biopics are essentially fiction, anyways) and more like a well-filmed mood board. It's a replication of the old black-and-white French movies that many find either exciting or pretentious, done incredibly well and without any breaks in the facade by an American indie-film icon. It's there for those who vibe with that period of film history.

Extra Context Resources

Funny thing: while I like Breathless enough, it's actually not my favorite movie from this group - I actually would choose either The 400 Blows (François Truffaut's debut and the start of all this) or Agnès Varda's Cléo from 5 to 7. I've gone ahead and added some articles and videos that delve deeper into the subject in case this is something you'd like to explore further.