Nouvelle Vague

There’s always been a bit of Jean-Luc Godard in Richard Linklater’s work. From toying with film form in Waking Life and A Scanner Darkly to the verbose intellectualising of the Before Trilogy to the experiments with video in Tape, Linklater’s work has consistently shared DNA with the French New Wave icon. While too conventional to feel like actual J-LG, Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague, a French language billet-doux to the making of Godard’s breakthrough Breathless, is affectionate, funny and hugely enjoyable. It’s not a warts-and-all portrait, rather a breezy, winning homage to a director, a cinematic movement and the act of making movies itself.

Linklater presents Godard (Guillaume Marbeck), the last of the Cahiers du Cinéma critics-turned-filmmakers to make a movie, less as a tortured artist, more as a perma sunglasses-wearing huckster. He hustles exasperated producer Georges de Beauregard (Bruno Dreyfürst) and is constantly chucking out snappy aphorisms (“Disappointments are temporary, film is forever”), forging his own instant mythos. Marbeck is not only a great looky-likey, but also nails Godard’s detachment and arrogance while adding a layer of likeability the director reputedly never had.

If it is anything, Nouvelle Vague is a film buff’s dream.

Mixing old-school style (an Academy aspect ratio, gorgeous monochrome cinematography) with cutting-edge tech (invisible CGI recreates buzzy late-’50s Paris), the painstakingly crafted stretches depicting the shambolic 20-day shoot offer an affectionate compendium of Breathless lore: Godard sending the crew home waiting for inspiration; the fist fights; the innovations; the bewilderment of US star Jean Seberg (Zoey Deutch). The crew are a fun gang — assistant director Pierre Rissient (Benjamin Clery) is a delight — with each member introduced by a New Wave-y subtitle, a reminder people beyond Godard also contributed to the masterpiece.

If it is anything, Nouvelle Vague is a film buff’s dream. Linklater meticulously re-stages some of the film’s classic moments, from a walk-and-talk down the Champs-Élysées captured by lanky cinematographer Raoul Coutard (Matthieu Penchinat) stuffed in a mail cart, to the final shoot-out. The unsung hero is casting director Stéphane Batut, who finds an incredible bunch of actors to uncannily portray the giants of cinema — François Truffaut, Jean-Pierre Melville, Roberto Rossellini, Agnès Varda — poignantly bringing long-gone greats back to life again.

Still, even for the cine-illiterate, there’s a lot to enjoy. At its very basic level, Nouvelle Vague celebrates the thrill of young people coming together to create something with all the infectious joie de vivre that that suggests. It’s enough to inspire you to make a movie. Or, at the very least, start Duolingo.