I’m not really sure whether you need to have watched a lot of French New Wave cinema to appreciate Richard Linklater’s (Boyhood, Blue Moon) new film. But I’m sure it helps, since a lot of the characters are the biggies of the genre. It tells the story of Jean-Luc Godard directing his first film, Breathless, which right out of the gate cemented him as one of the greatest young directors on the planet. The film changed cinema.
It is 1960 in Paris, and Godard is a film reviewer at the prestigious Cahiers du Cinéma. He’s smack dab in the center of the film world, but itching to direct his first feature. He’s fortunate that his friends include the amazing François Truffaut, hot on the heels of his huge success The 400 Blows, who has a screenplay for him about a small time thief and his American girlfriend. He casts little known Jean-Paul Belmondo as the thief and American star Jean Seberg as the girlfriend. And from the very start of production, he breaks all the rules and does everything his own way, entirely confounding the cast and crew. But creating a new kind of filmmaking.
Linklater isn’t making a documentary though. He did find the perfect doppelgängers for his leads in Guillaume Marbeck as Godard, Aubry Dullin as Belmondo, and Zoey Deutch as Seberg. And it is shot in black and white, in French with subtitles. But the film is a celebration of moviemaking and the messy way things come together, especially when a true creative is at the helm.
It’s a lot of fun, too. Godard makes everyone around him fall in line with his madness, and you’re sure that at any moment his beleaguered producer may pull the plug, but he just can’t pull himself free. Even Seberg comes around to trusting his unconventional filmmaking. And thank god they all did.
I do think you can enjoy the film without knowing who all the real life characters were. It is essentially an exhilarating ride through the making of an iconic film and I recommend it! (I’ve also ordered a copy of Breathless from the library to rewatch since it’s been decades since I laid my eyes on it. I hope it lives up to the hype it engendered.)
Watch it on Netflix.