Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague Celebrates French Cinema with Stunning Cannes Ovation

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It’s tough to envision an independent American film more fitting for a grand premiere on the Cannes red carpet than Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague.” This innovative director’s monochrome homage to the French New Wave was met with thunderous applause during its debut at Cannes’ Palais des Festivals on Saturday night, lasting over 10 minutes and causing a standing ovation from the audience dressed in formal attire.

Linklater remarked that cinema is like magic, as the theater lights brightened and the clapping gradually subsided.

The applause broke out spontaneously, well before the stage was illuminated, as the audience synchronized their claps in admiration of the heartfelt homage to French cinema.

Approaching the evening, there was a lot of excitement building up for Linklater’s 23rd movie. Critics weren’t shown the film before its debut, as it was reported that the director wanted it to be experienced for the first time on the big screen at its French premiere. In a nutshell, the movie’s synopsis is straightforward: “This is the account of Godard creating ‘Breathless,’ told in the same fashion and with the same spirit as Godard created ‘Breathless.’

The film, titled Nouvelle Vague, was captured on film with a 4:3 aspect ratio and features dialogue entirely in French. Starring Guillaume Marbeck as Jean-Luc Godard, Zoey Deutch as his actress Jean Seberg, and Aubry Dullin as Jean-Paul Belmondo, this production aims to portray the intense passion of film enthusiasts, as stated by director Richard Linklater.

Concerning them, renowned movie maestro Quentin Tarantino attended to honor Linklater’s homage to Godard. These two filmmakers rose to fame in the 1990s during the surge of American independent cinema. Before the screening, Tarantino and Linklater exchanged a warm greeting, hugging inside the theater as the crowd applauded and cheered.

Despite his well-known friendly demeanor and casual charm, Richard Linklater stands as an ideal fit for embodying the groundbreaking spirit of the French New Wave’s cinematic innovation, in contrast to the movie’s subject, who was a mercurial genius. Over the course of his 35-year career, which kicked off with the low-budget comedy-drama Slacker (1990), Linklater has consistently challenged and pushed the limits of cinematic conventions. His body of work encompasses genre-defining coming-of-age comedies like Dazed and Confused (1993) and the Before trilogy, as well as animated features such as Waking Life (2001) and A Scanner Darkly (2006), crime comedies with existential themes like Bernie (2011) and Hit Man (2023), period pieces like Me and Orson Welles (2008) and Blue Moon (2024), the decade-spanning American masterpiece Boyhood (2014), and more.

For the first time, Nouvelle Vague is being filmed entirely within France, with a screenplay penned by Vince Palmo, Michèle Halberstadt, Laetitia Masson, and Holly Gent. David Chambille takes charge of the cinematography. The distribution rights for this project are being offered to international distributors at Cannes, with Goodfellas, a sales agent based in Paris, spearheading these negotiations.

Godard’s “Breathless” (originally titled “À bout de souffle“, 1960) is a significant milestone within the French New Wave cinema. The film narrates the story of Michel Poiccard, portrayed by Jean-Paul Belmondo, a petty criminal evading justice after murdering a police officer, and his romantic liaison with Patricia Franchini, played by Jean Seberg, an American student studying journalism in Paris. The film draws loosely from the themes of American film noir, while incorporating these elements with groundbreaking style. Godard’s debut feature, it launched Belmondo and Seberg to international stardom. Beyond being a crime film, it evolved into a symbol of cinematic defiance, reflecting the spirit of rebellion within the industry. The audience at its Cannes Film Festival premiere on Saturday night may have been celebrating both the legacy it established and Linklater’s accomplishment as well.

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2025-05-17 21:24