The behind the scenes drama of the making of Jean-Luc Godard's ground-breaking 1960 debut Breathless.
Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Richard Linklater
Starring: Guillaume Marbeck, Zoey Deutch, Aubry Dullin, Bruno Dreyfürst, Benjamin Clery
The image most often used to promote Jean-Luc Godard's barnstorming 1960 directorial debut Breathless is that of its two leads, Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo, strolling side by side down a Parisian boulevard. Far from a gritty crime drama about two awful people, shot and edited with a punkish disregard for the conventions of cinema, this image might fool unsuspecting viewers into thinking Breathless is a "walking and talking" drama of the type Richard Linklater favoured in his early career.
Linklater has now ironically made a backstage drama about the making of Breathless, and its formalistic approach suggests that perhaps Linklater was more inspired by Breathless's main marketing image than by the film itself. There's little in Linklater's career to suggest a Godard influence, and I can't imagine the French-Swiss filmmaker was ever a fan of the Texan's talky work. But what Linklater and Godard have in common is that they both blew a raspberry at the system and got out onto the streets of Austin and Paris to shoot their debuts in uncompromising guerilla fashion. Nouvelle Vague may be focussed on the making of Breathless, but you suspect Linklater is really patting himself on the back here.
Aside from Zoey Deutch as Jean Seberg, Nouvelle Vague features an ensemble largely cast from French newcomers, whom Linklater wisely allows perform in their own language. Many of the performers are dead ringers for their counterparts, especially Adrien Rouyard as Truffaut, but it helps greatly that they can also act. The role of Godard is taken by Guillaume Marbeck. He adopts quite a different approach to Louis Garrel's more extravagant take in Michel Hazanavicius's Redoubtable. That film took place at a time when Godard had become a darling of the film world and his ego was running rampant. In 1960 we find a Godard who is cocky but filled with self-doubt. Many of his fellow critics at Cahiers du Cinéma have already made acclaimed films, while Godard feels he's lagging behind. Marbeck's Godard never removes his famous sunglasses, and while it adds to the stock pretentious artist look, it also suggests insecurity, a critic shielding himself from the harsh light of criticism.
Godard gets his big break courtesy of frenemy producer Georges de Beauregard (Bruno Dreyfürst), who puts up the money for Godard to direct a film from a treatment by Truffaut inspired by the real life case of a petty French criminal and his American lover. Godard enlists his friend Belmondo (Aubry Dullin) in the male lead role and pulls off a coup in convincing rising American star Seberg to play the female lead.
Roughly half of Linklater's film is devoted to the 20 day production of Breathless, which he details in similar fashion to the shooting of Plan 9 from Outer Space in Tim Burton's Ed Wood. Godard gets into scrapes with his concerned producer and exasperates his lead actress, who worries that her director hasn't a clue how to actually direct a motion picture. Both Burton and Linklater fully convince us however that a film set is exactly where their subjects belong, that this is where the likes of Wood and Godard are at their happiest.
At first Seberg threatens to walk away from the production, so shocked is she at Godard's lax approach. Even by French standards, Godard's working day is relaxed, the director sometimes calling it a day after a mere two hours, sometimes cancelling the day before anything has been shot, and at one point calling in sick like a teenager who simply can't be bothered. But resigning herself to having agreed to appear in a dud, Seberg loosens up and embraces the chaos. Seberg was a very serious and ultimately tragic figure, and Deutch's endearing persona comes out a little too much here, threatening to turn Seberg into a manic pixie-cut dream girl. That said, Deutch lights up the screen here in a way the sullen Seberg rarely did.
Linklater opts for black and white and a 1:37 aspect ratio, but that's where the stylistic similarities with Breathless end (there are no jump cuts to be found here). What Linklater achieves with this choice is a remarkably convincing period piece. It says a lot about how little the centre of Paris has changed in the last seven decades that simply shooting in black and white and putting a cigarette in everyone's mouth is enough to take us back to 1960. Linklater's jazz needle drops also add to the era-specific atmosphere.
Godard is something of a caricature here, the enigmatic artist who walks a thin line between amateurishness and ingenuity, and the film doesn't seem particularly interested in getting inside his fascinating head. But this is less about Breathless and its creator in particular and more about the wider thrill of youthful filmmaking. Is Linklater really recreating the making of Godard's film or is he using it to recapture the sensation he felt himself when he hit the streets of Austin as a young man with a camera to make his own inspirational debut, Slacker? Either way, Linklater's film will appeal less to French New Wave enthusiasts and more to anyone who has ever experienced the rush of filmmaking.
Nouvelle Vague is in UK/ROI cinemas from January 30th.
