{"id":278043,"date":"2025-06-08T07:56:22","date_gmt":"2025-06-08T07:56:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/08\/new-wave-first-look-review-2\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T17:08:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:08:09","slug":"new-wave-first-look-review-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/08\/new-wave-first-look-review-2\/","title":{"rendered":"New Wave \u2013 first-look review"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Richard Linklater’s homage to the filming of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless brings precious little new to the story of the New Wave.<\/p>\n

It is ironic that Richard Linklater has chosen to homage a film carved out of spontaneous new techniques with one so mired in contrivances that it is impossible for it to breathe. To be fair, Breathless<\/em> is the name of the game in this black-and-white reconstruction of the making of Jean-Luc Godard\u2019s first film.<\/p>\n

The year is 1959 and Cahiers du Cinema critic JLG is aware that he is amongst the only of his contemporaries not to have made a feature film. Claude Chabrol has. \u00c9ric Rohmer has. Fran\u00e7ois Truffaut\u2019s The 400 Blows<\/em> is about to premiere at Cannes. (As Nouvelle Vague<\/em> premiered in Cannes, the local audiences hooted and hollered.)<\/p>\n

JLG wants to make a non-traditional film out of natural emotions and essential moments, meaning that he refuses to give actors a full script and, later, pioneers the jump-cut. There is hysterical resistance from his financier at every turn while his movie star, Jean Seberg (Zoey Deutch), is only prevented from pulling out by her manager husband. As we know, JLG was unflappably confident and Linklater arms him with an arsenal of bon mots that he deploys to silence objections. Guillaume Marbeck does an entertaining impersonation of the famous auteur, permanently sporting dark glasses and a nonchalant drone of a voice.<\/p>\n

There are limited larks to be found in the \u2018getting the band together\u2019 procedural elements. A gimmicky approach to introducing all creatures great and small loses its charm faster than you can say \u201cgirl and a gun\u201d. Fresh from Otto Preminger\u2019s Bonjour Tristesse<\/em>, Seberg is famous and sceptical. Untested boxer, Jean-Paul Belmondo (Aubry Dullin) is fresh and game. MVP is Matthieu Penchinat as DoP Raoul Coutard. Asked in reference to a specific shot composition if he has seen Ingmar Bergman\u2019s Summer Interlude he replies with total sincerity, \u201cNo, I was in Vietnam.\u201d Linklater is aware of the absurdity of making cinema your religion when there\u2019s a world of pain out there, and yet in this parish it is a truth we hold to be self-evident.<\/p>\n

This is a rare moment where the world beyond the production of Breathless<\/em> is acknowledged and it stands out, not because movies about movie-making are inherently limited (see Fassbinder\u2019s wonderful Beware of a Holy Whore<\/em> and indeed \u2013 sorry to JLG \u2013 Truffaut\u2019s Day For Night<\/em>). The problem with making it the axis here is that the \u2018will they won\u2019t they pull this off?\u2019 central tension is a moot point. There are no stakes because the destiny of Breathless is a foregone conclusion. So enjoyment here rests entirely upon how much you enjoy historical reenactments.<\/p>\n

Full of inside cinema jokes while, on the flip side, offering a film history 101 class, Linklater has not worked through the contradictions in his approach. He pitches provocations to cinephiles (short films don\u2019t count as films apparently!) while undertaking a doomed effort to charge the enterprise with tension. A Bout de Souffle<\/em> is a canonical classic anointed as changing the course of cinema, a fact that drains all mystery out of JLG\u2019s position within this story as a young, untested upstart.<\/p>\n

To keep celebrating the craft of film, we have to rely on the support of our members. Join Club LWLies today and receive access to a host of benefits.<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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