In 1983, Jim McBride attempted an English-language remake of Jean-Luc Godard‘s 1959 cinema landmark, Breathless with Richard Gere. It broke one of Godard’s cardinal rules: It was in color. Although not as terrible an idea as Gus Van Sant’s disastrous shot-by-shot 1998 color remake of Hitchcock’s 1960 Psycho — which, like Godard’s forever-influential movie the year before, also broke all the rules of its genre — it is dismissed today with the original still finding new life with young audiences each generation, as France’s New Wave also continues to do.
With the truly wonderful Nouvelle Vague (New Wave), premiering today in Competition at Cannes (where else?), Richard Linklater smartly has not attempted a remake of Breathless but rather a certain regard and respect for the wildly creative cinematic period Godard and his contemporaries achieved with the French New Wave. A cinema revolutionary in spirit and deed himself — just watch his masterful Boyhood that was shot over 12 years or his currently in-production 20-year shoot of Sondheim’s Merrily We Roll Along — Linklater, working from a great and witty script by Holly Gent and Vince Palmo, instead has made a film about the making of Breathless in the exact style the original was made: in black and white with a 1:37 aspect ratio and completely in French. It succeeds beyond my wildest dreams and with great love and respect for this era and its giants in every way.
One of those New Wave pioneers, Francois Truffaut, made a movie about making a movie, 1973’s Oscar-winning Day for Night, that remains the litmus test for this sub-genre, a movie that can’t be topped. Linklater might not have topped it, but he matches it for sheer joy and pure delight as a movie to remind us why we love movies in the first place.
Near the beginning we see a crowded theater with Godard, Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, and Suzanne Schiffman just as a premiere is ending. “Your movie is a piece of sh*t, ” states Godard to the producer, to which Schiffman comments that at least there is free food at the afterparty. This group along with others all began as film critics for the bible of French movie criticism, Cahiers du Cinema, each going on to great success as filmmakers themselves. Godard (a pitch-perfect Guillaume Marbeck), however, feels he is running behind, especially jealous of Truffaut, whose seminal The 400 Blows is getting a Cannes Film Festival premiere, and he has yet to make a feature (shorts don’t count as cinema in his book).
At the Cannes premiere he becomes more determined than ever to make his first feature, enlisting jaded producer Georges de Beauregard (a wonderful Bruno Dreyfursft) to put up the money. But this is going to be a film done like no other since Godard’s rules of no script only notes, no color, no scope, no sync sound so he can shout out directions, and dialogue he writes in a café each morning before the day’s shoot. He signs on American star Jean Seberg (Zoey Deutch, terrific) who made an early splash as Joan of Arc in Otto Preminger’s Hollywood take on the French icon, as well as that director’s Bonjour Tristesse. Godard tells her he wants her to be just like she was in that movie, no need to act. He also cast rising star Jean-Paul Belmondo (Aubry Dullin), a friend, against Belmondo’s manager’s advice that this crazy movie could torpedo his career before it gets going. Nevertheless, the shoot proceeds with Belmondo assuring the manager it will never get released.
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Linklater shoots all over Paris on the same locations Godard used, setting up familiar scenes from the movie but showing the freedom and lust for cinema that defined the New Wave and Godard’s assured but revolutionary style. He won’t allow actors to see any script pages (there aren’t any anyway) for fear they actually would prepare and create their own take on the dialogue and scenes instead of what he envisions. Seberg cries to her husband Raoul Coutard (Matthieu Penchinat) who is a protector on the set that she wants to quit and doesn’t know why she is in this film. No wonder. Her wardrobe is not exactly glamorous and when her make up artist arrives Godard tries to send her away saying “no one wears makeup in my film”. Belmondo on the other hand seems endlessly amused by the whole improvisational process.
Weaved in and out are other soon-to-be famous directors like Truffaut (an uncanny Adrien Rouyard), Chabrol (Antoine Besson), Jean-Pierre Melville (Tom Novembre) who gives tips when Godard visits his set, and on and on including a wonderful scene where Italian Roberto Rosselini arrives as guest speaker to a room full of eager “New Wave” hopefuls who fill the place with enthusiasm for this “godfather” of Nouvelle Vague.
Clearly Linklater and his team have done their homework and research. All the names (and there are so many flashed on screen throughout) are authentic, nothing appears made up,or at least we hope so. You feel like you somehow got in a time machine and have been taken back to now what seems like a magical place where movies are everything. It has been recreated stunningly with special shout outs to Cinematographer David Chambile, Production Designer Katia Wyszkop, Costume Designer Pascaline Chavanne, and editor Catherine Schwartz. The scenes at the end when Godard finally gets into the editing room, assuring producer Beauregard it will come in at the contractural 90 minutes, are priceless. His mantra is this is where the film will be made, no scenes will be cut, just parts of them until it all becomes a whole.
The casting here is exquisite with Marbeck, in dark glasses at all times, just sensational capturing every nuance that we know is Godard, and snapping off one great line or quote. As he says, “we control our thoughts which mean nothing , but not our emotions which mean everything”. This Godard never stops quoting others too. “Art is never finished, only abandoned” is a Da Vinci saying he lives by. It is an unforgettable performance. Deutch is especially impressive as Seberg. There wasn’t a moment I thought I was watching anyone else but Seberg, On down the line not a false not from anyone.
This is that rare bird, a movie about movies that doesn’t miss a beat. Whether you have seen Breathless or not doesn’t really matter. If you love film, cinema, and the dreamers who create it this one will simply take your breath away.
Producers are Michele and Laurent Petin.
Title: Nouvelle Vague (New Wave)
Festival: Cannes Film Festival (Competition)
Sales agent: ARP Selection
Director: Richard Linklater
Screenwriters: Holly Gent and Vince Palmo
Cast: Guillaume Marbeck, Zoey Deutch, Aubry Dullin, Adrien Rouyard, Antoine Besson, Jodie Ruth Forest, Bruno Dreyfurst, Benjamin Clery, Matthieu Penchinat
Running time: 1 hr 45 min
