Cannes 2025 Short Takes: Linklater's 'Nouvelle Vague' Celebrates the Madness of Making Movies

Nouvelle Vague (New Wave) is about the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 classic Breathless — a watershed film in the French New Wave movement. Richard Linklater, one of America’s great living directors, pays homage to Breathless and that incredible moment in film history by making a film in black and white, in the same aspect ratio, and in French. The official synopsis of Nouvelle Vague describes it as “the story of Godard making Breathless, told in the style and spirit in which Godard made Breathless.” Nouvelle Vague is a delightful and joyous celebration of the magic and madness of making movies.

Madness is the key word here. Breathless was Godard’s first film (the director is played by newcomer Guillaume Marbeck, who bears an uncanny resemblance), but Godard wasn’t one for either following the rules or traditional prep. So there was no script, only notes. He wrote the dialogue in a café every morning (which reminded me of the way Bollywood writers worked in the ’90s, but the results were dramatically different). Godard didn’t use sync sound. Instead, he shouted directions at actors during the shot. He wouldn’t allow make-up either, which was only one of the reasons his lead actress, Jean Seberg (played by Zoey Deutch), was desperately unhappy. She didn’t want to do the film and even tried to quit. Ironically, Breathless was the film that made her immortal.

A still from 'Nouvelle Vague'

Production designer Katia Wyszkop recreates the Paris interiors of 1959, and VFX helps to recreate the city. We see the Champs-Élysées, the offices of Cahiers du Cinéma, where Godard and the other New Wave masters, including François Truffaut and Claude Chabrol, began as film critics. In one delightful scene, Italian master Roberto Rossellini gives the Cahiers team an inspiring talk and then proceeds to sneakily pick up extra sandwiches — clearly it's never been easy to be an independent filmmaker. The characters onscreen are movie giants, but thankfully, the script by Holly Gent and Vince Palmo Jr. doesn’t get bogged down in reverence. Early in the film, we see Godard, Truffaut, Chabrol, and writer-director Suzanne Schiffman at a premiere, after which Godard (who hasn’t made Breathless yet) tells the producer, “Your movie is a piece of shit,” but Schiffman remarks that at least there is free food!

Nouvelle Vague might play better for cinephiles, but I hope it’s watched by broader audiences— because it’s witty and Linklater’s affection is infectious. Afterwards, I wondered which Indian film would qualify for a making-of film. The answer, of course, is Sholay!