Nouvelle Vague, directed by Richard Linklater, tells the story of the shooting of Breathless (À bout de souffle, 1960), the first movie by Jean-Luc Godard, starring Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg.
It premiered in Cannes, and streams on Netflix as of November 14.
Nouvelle Vague or the French New Wave was a movement started by film critics of the magazine Cahiers du Cinema, that rejected the old tropes of traditional French movies, then put their revolutionary theoretical ideas into practice, starting with The 400 Blows (Les quatre cents coups) by Francois Truffaut, which premiered in Cannes in 1959.
After seeing this amusing retelling with a surprisingly funny Godard, American actress Zoey Deutch as Seberg, and a cast of French actors, I pulled out the unopened DVD of Breathless from my extensive collection, but discovered that it was damaged and would not play. So I rented the movie from Amazon from $3.99, which was good because it was a restored version.
When I first saw Breathless (Fino all’ultimo respiro) I was a tween living in Italy, and I was instantly smitten with Belmondo. I would then watch every single movie by Godard with great delight, excited by his subversion of movie conventions, his belief that cinema was an art form.
His work was the main reason why in 1969 I decided to write my thesis about cinema at the University of Bologna. My professors would not allow me to study Godard, however, I had to choose Alain Robbe-Grillet, since his work spanned from literature, to screenwriting to directing.
Some Godard movies are available on streaming.
A Woman Is a Woman (Une femme est une femme, 1961) with Anna Karina, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean-Claude Brialy, was shot in color.
My Life to Live (Vivre sa vie, 1962) stars Anna Karina (Godard’s first wife)
Contempt (Le Mépris, 1963) with Brigitte Bardot and Michel Piccoli, is based on Alberto Moravia’s 1954 novel Il disprezzo, Watch here a scene. Bardot, reading from a book about Fritz Lang, quotes the director: “We must rebel when we’re trapped by conventions.”
Alphaville (1965) stars Eddie Constantine and Anna Karina
Pierrot le Fou (1965) stars Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina
Masculin féminin (1966) stars Jean-Pierre Léaud, who debuted in Truffaut’s The 400 Blows as a teenager.
Weekend (Week-end, 1967). The film concludes with two title cards: “End of film” and “End of Cinema.”
After La Chinoise (1967), starring his second wife Anne Wiazemsky, and Week-end, Godard abandoned the movie industry to found a Marxist cinema collective.
In 1968 many of us young people in Italy and France were occupying universities and protesting the Vietnam War.