Richard Linklater on making ‘Nouvelle Vague’ and why Godard would have approved of its Netflix deal

“It is a film about youth and enthusiasm,” says Richard Linklater of Nouvelle Vague, his love letter to the French New Wave movement. “Of course it’s a film for cinephiles, but to see people having fun and creating doesn’t alienate anyone, it invites them in.”

Nouvelle Vague follows the production of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1960 film Breathless, a pivotal moment in the French New Wave movement. Link­later’s film made its world premiere in Cannes in May, where Good­fellas sold it around the world for theatrical release, including to Netflix in the US. The streamer is giving it an awards-­qualifying theatrical run on October 31 before it lands on the platform on November 14.

Set in 1959 and shot in black and white, Nouvelle Vague filmed mostly on location in Paris using Academy aspect ratio and vintage lenses. It takes in some of the locations showcased by Godard in the original film, which starred Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo. Godard made it quickly, improvising with his actors along the way.

For Linklater’s version, Guillaume Marbeck — in his first feature film role — plays Godard, alongside Zoey Deutch as Seberg and newcomer Aubry Dullin as Belmondo. Link­later cast mostly unknown French talent to play figures including Francois Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, Jean-Pierre Melville, Robert Bresson, Jacques Rivette and Juliette Gréco, all boasting a resemblance to their real-life counterparts.

“I always describe the movie as this seance where we got all of these people back together in ’59 and they were so happy to be together,” explains Linklater. “We’re just dropping a camera down and trying to capture a moment in time.”

Paris-based Michele (Pétin) Halberstadt produced the film with her husband Laurent Pétin for ARP Sélection, which is releasing it in France. “The cast were always together, even when we were not shooting, and they became a real gang of friends,” she says. “We called it a ‘hanging out’ film.”

Linklater adds: “It is a hanging out movie, for sure. I didn’t want this to seem like an important period film — just a moment in time. The conceit is that they’re doing something that ends up becoming very historically significant, but not one of them outside of Godard perhaps would see it in those terms.”

Radical debuts

Nouvelle Vague took Linklater back to his own early years, starting with 1990’s Slacker. “I had my own radical first film, a film no-one understood, unconventionally scripted, hard to explain — it was my American indie version of Breathless. Some things never change… all the excitement and enthusiasm mixed with insecurity and inexperience.”

Linklater has directed 24 narrative features and two documentaries. He has been nominated for multiple Oscars and has two films playing at TIFF: Blue Moon starring Ethan Hawke as musical lyricist Lorenz Hart (which premiered at the Berlinale) and Nouvelle Vague.

But despite the US auteur’s track record, Nouvelle Vague was a tough sell. Linklater says the film was more than a decade in the making, having first bounced around ideas with screenwriters Holly Gent and Vincent Palmo Jr, and lightly shopping it around to producers at the time, with no-one biting.

“Financing was complicated,” admits Halberstadt. “None of the TV networks in France wanted to do it. They told us a film in black and white about Godard would only be for old film buffs, not to mention without a well-known cast, and they all asked, ‘Why is an American doing this?’ The odds were stacked against us.”

Canal+ ended up coming on board in addition to backing from the CNC’s French tax incentive and advance on receipts. Further support came from Chanel, which, says Halberstadt, “didn’t impose anything, they just asked, ‘What do you need?’” The fashion house provided costumes for Deutch, remaking a dress worn by French New Wave actress Jeanne Moreau in 1959.

“There were zero pre-sales,” says Halberstadt. “Since everyone had refused before we shot, we showed the film only to [Cannes Film Festival delegate general] Thierry Frémaux and [sales agent] Good­fellas, and no-one else. We banked on the surprise factor. Before the Saturday screening in Cannes, no-one had seen it.”

With no distribution support, the $9.9m (€8.5m) film was still missing $5.2m (€4.5m) from its budget, so ARP took a huge risk and self-­financed the gap.

Linklater says the producing duo “just rolled the dice with their passion”. He explains: “This film required freaks getting together. I was never in doubt about the actors, writers and crew, but we also needed producer freaks, and Michele and Laurent are that — they knew Jean-Luc, they loved this era and we came to them for that reason.” He also credits “the film industry of France, the way they operate and take care of themselves. We did get support from the CNC and I don’t take that lightly — that meant everything.”

Despite struggles to find financing, Halberstadt says Linklater was never deterred by the tepid early response from the industry. “Richard didn’t ask any questions, he wasn’t scared, he went all in. A French person would never have dared.”

The director explains: “We were on hallowed ground in the French film industry, but I think they liked that there was an American doing it. They were like, ‘We haven’t been able to do this, maybe you can.’ I didn’t feel the same weight of the French New Wave that a French person might. These aren’t my elders or my fathers and grandfathers. I’m just a fan.”

Halberstadt agrees. “It’s an American’s vision of French cinema. A French director could not have made this film. It would have either been too caustic or critical, or too reverent and respectful without anything to say.”

“Genre-wise, there’s something cyclical going on,” adds Linklater. “Godard was making a low-budget film inspired directly by American gangster films. He was doing his own French twist on that genre. Nouvelle Vague is the French New Wave filtered through an American consciousness.”

Olympic effort

The film shot for six weeks in the spring of 2024 completely on location, mostly at familiar places from Breathless including the Champs-Elysées, Boulevard Saint-­Germain and Cinéma Mac-­Mahon. The production scrambled to fit in everything ahead of the 2024 Summer Olympics that saw Paris shut down for film shoots.

“We would find a location we liked, then we would show up closer to shooting and it was all scaffolding because they were trying to put a little spit-shine on it before the Olympics,” recalls Linklater. “To our credit, Godard made his movie in 20 days and we made ours in 30, and we had to build everything to recreate their world.

“In 1959, they stole shots, they just showed up and filmed. There was not an art department. They just took the world as it was. I said, ‘We want our film to feel like that, but do you know how much work we’ll have to do to create that spontaneity?’

“It was a huge visual challenge,” he continues. “Art, costumes, everything had to be created to conjure up ’59, but it was magical. I felt we were making cinema.”

It is not Linklater’s first rendezvous with filmmaking in France. He shot Before Sunset, the second film in a trilogy starring Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke, entirely in Paris in 2004 but says the experience on Nouvelle Vague was “night and day different than 20 years ago with Before Sunset. As an outsider, it was a little tough to make a film in Paris.”

Linklater thanks his producers: “They were such insiders so it was frictionless [this time].”

He adds: “I love Paris. I told my crew when we were shooting in what was late winter and early spring, ‘It’s raining, it’s freezing, but I still can’t have a bad day in Paris. All I have to do is look up at where I am. It’s all the streets that my heroes walked and where they made films. I’m the luckiest filmmaker in the world.”

Nouvelle Vague may have aimed to capture the carefree creative chaos behind Breathless, but recreating Godard’s off-the-cuff vibe needed weeks of rehearsals for the director, cast and writers.

“I have a 180-degree different approach [to Godard] that requires a lot of time in rehearsal and thought,” says Linklater. “I tell people, ‘Look at the way Jean-Luc makes movies — I wouldn’t suggest you do that at home.’ But it worked for him. That’s what makes it so miraculous. It should not work but somehow it does. I give Jean Seberg and Belmondo a lot of credit too — lightning struck in 1959 and here we are.”

Linklater says his style is based around rehearsal and text. “I never turn on a camera and see what happens. I’ve never been interested in that. I don’t think it’s a good way to tell a story. I have a sports background. You don’t show up at the game. You practise a lot, the coach figures out the team dynamics, and on game day you play the best you’ve ever played.

“As a director, I can say, ‘That scene has actualised itself, we’ve done the best I’ve ever seen or thought about,’ and then we move on,” he continues. “I love the creative, collaborative process, and the bond in the quest for a kind of perfection.”

The film wrapped production on location in Cannes in May 2024, the scene of the premiere of Truffaut’s The 400 Blows in 1959. Halberstadt recalls shooting those final scenes. “We stood on the Croisette and Richard said, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if we came back a year later?’ It was really a full-circle moment when we did.”

Streamer thought

Amid an international festival tour and theatrical release in most international markets, Netflix is planning to release Nouvelle Vague in 25-30 cities across the US — far wider than the awards-qualifying runs often employed by the streamer — before it hits the platform.

“It’s not 1960 and it never will be again,” says Linklater of Netflix’s strategy. “There are not 34 movie theatres on the Champs-Elysées. But I always say that cinema is like church — as Jesus says, something like, ‘Wherever my name is spoken, that is your church.’ So if you’re watching with five friends on your sofa, that’s cinema, but the theatrical experience will always be foundational.

“Jean-Luc Godard was one of the earliest adopters of all technologies,” adds Linklater. “He was always very promiscuous with new formats and new means of communication. He was the opposite of a purist when it came to cinema. He was very curious and quickly adapted to whatever the world was. He would be making films on his phone today or maybe even a film with AI.”

Linklater never met the late Godard, who died in 2022 at the age of 91. “I might have been a bit nervous for him to watch [my film],” he admits. “I like to think he and all his friends in the Nouvelle Vague would be moved to watch this era in their lives brought back to life.”

ARP Sélection is releasing it in France on October 8 on around 300 screens. Halberstadt hopes to attract cinephiles of all generations, “from Letter­boxd fans to Cahiers du Cinéma readers”.

“But mostly, we’re aiming at the young generation,” emphasises Link­later. “They like style, they like sincerity and originality. Young people who see the film love it because it’s cool, it shows people who have a common passion and an enthusiasm that is endearing.”

The director confesses that before making the film he had reservations about showing it to audiences in France, and particularly to critics in Cannes. “I was thinking, ‘We’ll show it everywhere in the world but France. They’ll hate it, they’ll hate that an American did this, they won’t accept it.’ But the closer I got to it happening, I discovered the opposite — they were so excited by the idea, and saw it as a challenge and we felt a huge obligation to get it right.”

Above all, Linklater hopes it will not only bring audiences to cinemas, but revive the rebellious spirit and creative commotion that defined the French New Wave among young could-be filmmakers.

“People have been telling me after watching the movie that they’re going to rewatch Breathless and more of the Nouvelle Vague,” says Linklater. “The Nouvelle Vague was all about personal expression and freedom, and every film is kind of a leap of faith. It’s about saying, ‘Okay, let’s do this.’

“I love that impulse,” he continues. “The idea that maybe what we’re doing is important, at least to us, and maybe it will connect with somebody else. It’s the brave, optimistic people who take these leaps, and we need that everywhere.”