Cannes 2025: Linklater resurrects Godard and the Nouvelle Vague
The Texas filmmaker arrives at Cannes with a love letter to French cinema of the 60s. But what’s really behind this retro-fascinating Nouvelle Vague film?
An unexpected return to the Croisette
Ten years after Boyhood, Richard Linklater returns to the Cannes Film Festival with Nouvelle Vague, a work that runs counter to current trends. Far from Hollywood, he plunges into the cinephile Paris of the late 50s to revisit the genesis of a legendary film: Jean-Luc Godard‘s À Bout de souffle.
But be warned, this is no staid biopic. Linklater explores a pivotal moment in the history of the 7th art, when Godard, Seberg and Belmondo reinvented the grammar of cinema on a Parisian sidewalk. The film is supported by an international cast including Zoey Deutch, Guillaume Marbeck and Aubry Dullin.
A nod to cinephiles… but not only
Described as “the Midnight in Paris that Woody Allen never knew how to make”, the film navigates between erudition and light elegance. References are numerous, but never heavy-handed. Linklater succeeds in combining intellect with emotion, in an assertive neo-retro style.
We’re inevitably reminded of tutelary figures such as François Truffaut and Agnès Varda, whom the American director summons up without freezing them in the past. The film thus becomes a forum for dialogue between generations, a celebration of cinema as a living, subversive art form.
A long-awaited and much-discussed work
As Cannes 2025 approaches, speculation is rife. Will Nouvelle Vague appeal to a younger audience? Or is it just a hushed tribute for the initiated? One thing’s for sure: you’ll have to see it to believe it.
Read also: Mariah Carey accused of plagiarism: the American courts have ruled
