Richard Linklater — paragon of American cinema — has decided to go French. In addition to unveiling his Lorenz Hart chamber piece “Blue Moon” at this year’s Berlinale, Linklater went intercontinental by premiering his ode to the French New Wave, “Nouvelle Vague,” in competition at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. (And hey, he had already had a 2019 exhibition in his honor at the Centre Pompidou.) Watch a teaser for the film below.
“Nouvelle Vague” is set during the 1959 Paris-set shoot of Jean-Luc Godard’s debut feature, “Breathless.” Starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and American actress Jean Seberg, “Breathless” follows an aimless criminal and his unwitting romantic interest as they fall in love, while at the same time being pursued by the law. Aubry Dullin and Zoey Deutch fill the roles of Belmondo and Seberg, while Guillaume Marbeck takes on the maestro himself, Godard. Other luminaries of the French New Wave featured in the film include François Truffaut (Adrien Rouyard), Suzanne Schiffman (Jodie Ruth-Forest), Claude Chabrol (Antoine Besson), Agnès Varda (Roxane Rivière), Jean Cocteau (Jean-Jacques Le Vessier), Éric Rohmer (Côme Thieulin), and Jacques Rivette (Jonas Marmy).
As with “Breathless,” “Nouvelle Vague” was shot in black-and-white with a 4:3 aspect ratio that matches the framing largely used up until the 1950s and ’60s. In keeping with the traditions of the French New Wave, Linklater employed a number of elements made famous during this movement, including voiceover, jump cuts, existential irony, and tracking shots. The tight budgets used for these productions are also reflected in showing Godard utilize a food cart as a camera dolly. As many other figures of the French New Wave, such as Truffaut, Rohmer, Rivette, and Chabrol, Godard began his career as a critic for Cahiers du Cinéma, a film magazine that was founded in 1951 and remains in circulation today. However, the publication was bought by a different outlet in 2020, pushing the editorial staff to resign.
The French New Wave would go on to inspire many other cinematic movements across the globe, including the New Hollywood era of the late 1960s and ’70s. It was heavily influenced by shifts taking place in Italian cinema around the use of neorealism and surrealism. Though the most famous influences on the French New Wave came out of Cahiers du Cinéma, or the “right bank” group, the “left bank” collection of filmmakers included Varda, Chris Marker, and Alain Resnais. A majority of “left bank” filmmakers were older and operating as an extension of arts and literature, rather than expanding purely on cinema.
Watch the teaser for “Nouvelle Vague” below.
