rewrite this title Cannes 2025: Linklater’s ‘Nouvelle Vague’ is a Zany Tribute to Godard | FirstShowing.net

Cannes 2025: Linklater’s ‘Nouvelle Vague’ is a Zany Tribute to Godard

by Alex Billington May 18, 2025

Linklater you mad genius! The Austin, TX-based filmmaker is back at a second film festival this year with his other movie in 2025. Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon premiered at the 2025 Berlin Film Festival earlier in the year, and his next film Nouvelle Vague just premiered at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. Nouvelle Vague is Linklater’s very first film shot entirely in French – because it’s a spunky tribute to the iconic French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, who passed away in 2022 at 91 years old. Nouvelle Vague, which translates simply to New Wave in English, is about the French New Wave of the 1960s. Specifically about the making of Godard’s first full-length film titled Breathless (or À bout de souffle in French). While making it they had no idea if it would be any good, but the film went on to debut at the 1960 Cannes Film Festival and then influence cinema forever as the defining French New Wave film at the time. This is Linklater’s meta tribute to Breathless by recreating the making of Godard’s film with the exact same artsy B&W style as the original.

Nouvelle Vague is fantastique! Filmmaking fun! Inspiring and entertaining and so geeky! It’s as if Linklater time traveled back to 1959 and made a documentary about Godard being a kooky madman filming all these shots on the fly and pulling off Breathless. It’s immensely enjoyable in so many different ways – not only as an exercise in mimicking style and as a filmmaking challenge by painstakingly recreating Paris in 1959 and casting lookalikes for every single person involved in cinema in France at the time. But also as a fun look at how crazy (and full of himself) Godard was and yet how he somehow pulled off making Breathless without writing any script and just winging it during every shooting day for 20 days. He broke every rule and didn’t even care and yet somehow changed cinema forever! I believe that Linklater is honoring and bowing down to Godard and the ambitious French New Wave cinema movement, while also mocking and making fun of them (in a very playful, loving way of course). Perhaps some Godard die-hard fans will be bothered by this, but I found it laugh-out-loud funny throughout. Linklater does not shy away in showing how eccentric and audacious and ridiculous he is – it’s all in there and we get to enjoy Monsieur Godard being a cinema prick.

A confession: I am absolutely not a fan of Godard as a director and I am also not a fan of the film Breathless either. That said, I can certainly respect and appreciate and admire his filmmaking, and I understand how much he influenced cinema. And it’s fascinating to watch him working on Breathless, because even though he’s pretty much a full-on pretentious asshole throughout most of the shoot, you’re also kind of wondering if being an artistic genius and being an asshole really do go hand-in-hand. In staying true to the original film, Linklater cast unknown first-time French actors for every single role in this film (except for Jean Seberg, who is played by already famous American actress Zoey Deutch, also referencing how Serberg was already famous at the time she agreed to star in Breathless). Guillaume Marbeck stars as Jean-Luc Godard, with Aubry Dullin as Jean-Paul Belmondo, Adrien Rouyard as François Truffaut, and Matthieu Penchinat as cinematographer Raoul Coutard (my favorite character in Linklater’s film he’s the best). There were times while I was watching Nouvelle Vague where I thought for sure Linklater is actually trying to show us that this guy was absolutely crazy. But at the end of the day he is paying tribute to him, reminding us filmmakers can be like this but as long as they’re still creating incredibly unique cinema that is what matters the most…

To me, Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague feels like an homage to Godard but also a reminder that you should not be worried about following rules and doing what is expected if you want to be a truly innovative filmmaker. Linklater has made all kinds of different movies of all sizes and budgets, and I am sure he wants to remind young filmmakers of today to take risks & make films any way they can. Just go out there and do it. This is the strongest inspiration within Nouvelle Vague. Many critics in Cannes have also pointed out that watching this film might inspire young movie-lovers & budding cinephiles to get excited about the French New Wave, and to go back and explore these film & filmmakers. Don’t forget about them! Get excited about this kind of cinema again! And let that excitement carry over to modern movie-making as well! Whether or not the film has anything intensely profound to add besides that, or whether you enjoy it or not – the recreation of this time in Paris and these scenes and all of the many people involved in Godard’s shoot is truly amazing. It’s a masterful exercise in going back in time to pay tribute. And to show us what it was like creating cinema in the 1950s and 60s. All this is also proof that Linklater really is one of the BEST filmmakers of modern times.

Alex’s Cannes 2025 Rating: 7.5 out of 10Follow Alex on Twitter – @firstshowing / Or Letterboxd – @firstshowing

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