“New Wave”, Forever

The same screens at the Cannes Film Festival that in 2017 screened Michel Hazanavicius‘ film Godard, mon amour (Le Redoutable) an explosion of basic colours that showed us a caricatured Jean-Luc Godard during the filming of La Chinoise (1967) and May ’68, hosted the premiere of New Wave, the outstanding tribute by an American, Richard Linklater, to the director of Breathless. Written by Holly Gent and Vincent Palmo Jr. and adapted by Laetitia Masson with Michèle Pétin, the new biopic of the director of Blue Moon features a large cast headed by Guillaume Marbeck as Jean-Luc Godard, Zoey Deutch as a magnificent Jean Seberg and Aubry Dullin as Jean-Paul Belmondo.

The commendable work of cinematographer David Chambille gives us the illusion of spying in real time on the pre-production and shooting of the film for which —despite having shot more than thirty— Seberg would be remembered in his premature obituary. In a 4:3 format and in perfect black and white, facing the camera, the characters who nurtured the editorial staff of Cahiers du Cinéma (and the emergence of the most prolific film production of its time), appear with a label that is sometimes unnecessary due to the tremendous resemblance to the real ones.

The list of participants is exhaustive: Raoul Coutard (Matthieu Penchinat), Suzon Faye, François Truffaut (Adrien Rouyard), Pierre Rissient (Benjamin Clery), Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer, Jacques Rivette, Robert Bresson, Jean-Pierre Melville, Suzanne Schiffman, Agnès Varda, Jacques Demy, Juliette Gréco, and even Rossellini, who was honoured in the editorial office of Cahiers, from where he left with a handful of snacks.

The sudden success of The 400 Blows at Cannes was the prelude to the contract between Georges de Beauregard and Godard, for a film based on a treatment by Truffaut, which would give the producer a crucial role, after a tortuous path. Genius doesn’t come for free, you can’t demand that someone who is going to break all the known rules of the seventh art be a brilliant civil servant, and the director will take it to the ultimate consequences, to the despair also of the protagonist of Bonjour, tristesse, bewildered and disappointed at not having a script, shooting two hours a day or being sent home because Godard doesn’t feel inspired, or being content to have her make-up artist as a companion, because he prefers her with her face washed.

Together with the crew, who, astonished and dedicated, remain faithful and proactive, we accompanied Godard during the 20 days of filming and glimpsed his last provocation, in the editing room, where his unusual indications open up a radical breach in the experience of the editors.

This French production, in which the CNC collaborated, is a consistent homage to the pure spirit that informed a whole movement, even if Linklater’s proposal is still very traditional in form and content. Nevertheless, the result is brilliant and fun, full of the quotes (even within quotes) of a pedantic and provocative Godard. Charming, capable of making us share the spontaneity and the discoveries that were the first known DOGMA and, also, the art of making a virtue out of necessity, New Wave is a reinvigorating film, which reconnects us with pure cinephilia. Nouvelle vague is a necessary reminder, which, without imposition, includes us in a shared, magical, foundational universe.