M, 106 minutes
4 Stars
Review by © Jane Freebury
Of all the film directors who took part in the French New Wave, no one rode it quite as long as tyro auteur Jean-Luc Godard. Throughout a long career but recently ended, the late director’s name became synonymous with radical cinema everywhere, where the idea was to make a film that reflected a filmmaker’s personal voice and vision.
His very first feature, A Bout de Souffle aka Breathless, has come to stand for the moment the New Wave film movement hit the screens. Even though in 1959 other striking films, like Francois Truffaut’s The 400 Blows and Alain Resnais’ Hiroshima Mon Amour also appeared, it was Godard’s film that grabbed and held attention. Irresistible for its insouciance, its refusal to follow the rules, for its insolent take on the Hollywood B-movie film noir, and for its charismatic stars. Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg.
It’s easy to believe that Godard was the unpredictable and elusive character he is portrayed as by actor Guillaume Marbeck in this new feature from director Richard Linklater. This American filmmaker’s body of work prior to Nouvelle Vague, includes gorgeous films like the Before trilogy, Boyhood, and Me and Orson Welles. The generosity and relatability that are traits of his are here in Nouvelle Vague too, along with stunning attention to detail on how Godard’s first feature, A Bout de Souffle, came about.
Remarkable that Godard was able to hold it all together
In case you hadn’t heard, all you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun. Godard’s famous quip crops up here in casual conversation. In essence, these were indeed the key elements in Godard’s original film, A Bout de Souffle, the story of a petty crook, originally played by Jean-Paul Belmondo, who is shot after being betrayed by his ingenue American girlfriend.
Marbeck’s Godard is spot on, and just as hard to read behind the sunglasses. Nouvelle Vague reveals how remarkable it was that the director managed to hold production together. His friend Francois Truffaut had roughed something out, but there was no script. And in the interests of realism, Godard withheld the actors’ lines, often supplying them from behind the camera during the shoot.
Jean-Paul Belmondo (Aubry Dullin) is portrayed as relaxed by this, but Jean Seberg (Zoey Deutch) had been building her acting career with the likes of Otto Preminger and was ready to walk. Alarmed by a filmmaker who liked to cut after one or two takes, preferred her au naturel without makeup and was resistant to sharing his ideas, or other lofty sentiments. Are you making it up as you go along, she asks.
You bet! Godard was revelling in the improvisatory possibilities offered by breaking the rules of classic Hiollywood studio production. To hell with continuity, avoiding crossing the line, make-up artists, etc. It was also all the easier to shoot with a camera that didn’t record synch-sound. The actors would dub themselves in post-production.
Spirit of the New Wave brings with it pure cinema pleasure
Then, when his producer informed him to stay within the 90-minute feature envelope, Godard instructed his editors to cut within scenes. In future films, Godard doubled down on the disruptive jump cut he loved so much. Interesting to see that even Pierre Rissient, who was the assistant director and went on to become the Cannes film festival guru, had little influence on Godard’s technique.
The film has a little trouble containing its many significant characters in bit parts, awkwardly labelled, but Nouvelle Vague is still beautifully constructed and based on a terrific, dense screenplay. Holly Gent, Vincent Palmo, Michele Petin and Laetitia Masson were on the writing team. All the crew, besides Linklater of course, were French.
After establishing a reputation making short films and both famously and infamously, as a film critic through his contributions to the French film journal Cahiers de Cinema, Godard put his assertion to the test that making a film oneself best constituted a review.
It’s great to revisit the spirit of the French New Wave. Who can forget Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg as lovers in a Paris attic studio, or strolling down Les Champs-Elysees? The very idea that A Bout de Souffle deserved a Hollywood remake in 1983 with Richard Gere was an outrage. I can’t pretend this trip to the original film set wasn’t pure cinema pleasure.
First published in the Canberra Times on 10 january 2025. Jane’s reviews are also published at Rotten Tomatoes