TIFF Review: Nouvelle Vague (Richard Linklater)

There are at least two movies in Nouvelle vague. The one for the Cahiers fans, about the Parisian film culture in the fifties, and the one for Linklater, about the making of À bout de souffle. Not that these two are not intertwined, but it’s good to have clear expectations.

It’s such a curiosity, I would even describe it as odd. Why is this American filmmaker from Austin, the fun Richard Linklater, making his non-English debut, with this French-language film about a young Godard?

I would say it’s definitely not for the first movie, for the Cahiers fans, even though there’s probably still some of that, but more so for the second one.

Does fan-fiction have a bad rap? Maybe a little: stories of erotic encounters between Harry and Hermione in the Harry Potter universe, the Twilight universe, etc.

But nothing is entirely wrong with fan-fiction per se. And I would say that Linklater does it very well. As an independent filmmaker working since at least 1988 (the year I was born), I would say he’s probably more qualified than most to know and show what it’s like being on a film set.

I think it would be crazy to say that this is a “personal” film for Linklater: Apollo 10½ is probably more about his childhood and the Before movies about being young and growing older.

But there is something about Nouvelle vague that captures the energy of being young, daring, and finally making your first feature which I assume Linklater identified with.

There’s something about the energy of It’s Impossible to Learn to Plow or Slacker that I feel like it’s recreating. A certain jealousy of Godard of his peers that have already made it. A good humour of Godard of having his own ideas of cinema and wanting to act on them. And the whole dynamic of the set is very special too. The more mature but scrappy cinematographer Raoul Coutard is ready to follow Godard in his schemes. Pierre Rissient as the bumbling assistant, lovingly and ironically taking orders. Jean Seberg (incredible) as the annoyed but wonderful American starlet. And Godard taking all of these breaks for inspiration to hit.

And then there’s the whole Cahiers mythology. You can tell Linklater and everyone involved was living a dream being in that world during the time of the shoot. Hell, I would be too. And there’s something contagious about that energy. Do these portrait shots of all these historical figures sometimes take us out of the narrative? Perhaps. But it’s fascinating to see the casting. When I saw Luc Moullet he said that he thought the François character was pretty good. And there’s something about the physiognomy and gestures that make some of the characters really stand out: Suzanne Schiffman is pretty great, and so is Rohmer and Rivette in his smaller role.

While writing my university thesis I wrote something along of the lines that the New Wave films were made with conscious film references in mind as inside references for their peers, and my (then) supervisor asked for a reference, which I found annoying. It was more of an intuition, but it was nice to see that it was presented in the film. 

I don’t know, it was cool to see the Jacques, Doniol-Valcroze, Rozier, and Demy coming into life. And you can tell Linklater and his crew either studied or talked to the foremost expert Antoine de Baecque on the subject (without ever being slaves to the mythology). So many anecdotes of this period are on full display here (even though we can always dispute some of the historical accuracy), but there’s a freshness too that’s exciting. 

I can’t wait to rewatch it in the cinemas when it comes out, and then study it in more detail when it’s out on home-viewing on Netflix. There are so many details about Nouvelle vague that I want to further study. Such a rich experience.