'Nouvelle Vague' is inspiration for the future

With creation story of Godard’s ‘Breathless,’ Linklater shows how to break the rules.

- AMY NICHOLSON FILM CRITIC

ZOEY DEUTCH portrays American actor Jean Seberg and Guillaume Marbeck is French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard in Richard Linklater's "Nouvelle Vague."

(JEAN-LOUIS FERNANDEZ Netflix)

Creative waves are powerful and short. They knock people sideways before receding into the ocean of imagination that’s existed since the first caveman looked up at the stars and said, “Funny story about those.” Richard Linklater surfed one himself when his breakout feature, 1991's “Slacker,” swept him into the Sundance indie movement, a surge of scrappy talent inspired by '60s and '70s New Hollywood, which was itself triggered by earlier French New Wave filmmakers like Jean-Luc Godard and François Truffaut. No wave lasted on its own, but each energized the next group to get their feet wet.

As a young cineaste, Linklater once said he loved “anything by Godard.” It’s hard to imagine that “Slacker,” a format-breaking youth riot shot without permits on the streets of Austin, could have summoned the audacity to exist if Linklater hadn't seen Godard’s similarly semi-improvised crime romance “Breathless,” shot without permits on the streets of Paris in 1959. Now that Linklater has ascended to the establishment, he’s encouraging cinema’s future by turning to its inspirational past with “Nouvelle Vague,” the lively story of how Godard (Guillaume Marbeck) directed “Breathless” with a tiny bit of cash and a ton of ego. It’s the origin story of Godard, and, in a way, of himself. Even more importantly, it’s a manual for what, Linklater hopes will be a fresh wave of talent storming the shore any minute. (I’m counting on it.)

MATTHIEU PENCHINAT, from left, Guillaume Marbeck, Aubry Dullin and Zoey Deutch in Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague.”

(Netflix)