‘Nouvelle Vague’

By Mark Graham

Richard Linklater is the king of the hangout movie. Whether his movie is set in the outskirts of Austin (Dazed and Confused, Slacker), the streets of Vienna (Before Sunrise), or the Great White Way in New York City (Me And Orson Welles), Linklater’s movies tends to focus less on plot mechanics and more on the philosophical musings about life and art that his characters tend to spout. Nouvelle Vague continues that tradition, but this time the action is set in late ’50s Paris as of the key figures in the French New Wave get together to make Breathless, the 1960 film widely credited for revolutionizing the art of cinema. Film geeks will delight in watching the fictionalized conversations between real life figures like Jean-Luc Godard (Guillaume Marbeck), Jean Seberg (Zoey Deutch), and Jean-Paul Belmondo (Aubry Dullin) during this heady time. It’s part cinema studies, part travelogue, and all joy.

Photo: Cannes Film Festival