The air outside the Austin Film Society Cinema smelled faintly of tobacco and nostalgia on Monday night as Richard Linklater premiered “Nouvelle Vague,” his cinematic love letter to Jean-Luc Godard’s “Breathless.”
Inside, Linklater was joined by stars Zoey Deutch and Guillaume Marbeck for a Q&A that felt half film theory seminar, half séance for the spirit of French New Wave.
The film, a meticulous black-and-white re-creation of 1959 Paris, follows the making of “Breathless” — but it’s also about the act of creation itself. As Linklater put it, “Anything can be a film.” He approaches the movie like an excavation, using the same model camera that shot “Breathless” and reconstructing Godard’s chaos through careful rehearsal and historical precision.
Deutch, who plays American actress Jean Seberg, described the paradox of embodying spontaneity through discipline: “It was the least free I could possibly ever feel,” she said, laughing. “But the constraints were fun — almost spiritual.” The result, she noted, is a layered performance in which she plays Seberg, Patricia, and “Jean playing Patricia” — each with its own voice and body.
Marbeck, who portrays the young Godard, reflected on how “Breathless” once represented rebellion for French film students. “We’d make something messy, and teachers would say it didn’t work,” he said. “We’d just say, ‘Yeah, but Godard made ‘Breathless.” They had no answer.”
Between references to Truffaut and talk of subtitles, the trio also dug into the politics of making art. Linklater, an Austin fixture and champion of independent film, praised France’s robust arts funding system. “We could all learn things from France,” he said. “They walk it like they talk it. One city like Paris spends more on the arts than our entire country.”
He urged the crowd to fight for Texas’ own film incentive program: “Put the pressure on the politicians — let everybody know what’s important. Call them, threaten, or whatever,” he joked, to laughter and applause.
But amid all the cinephile chatter, the night never lost its sense of play. Linklater admitted that part of making “Nouvelle Vague” was about meeting his heroes—literally. During one shoot in Paris, the crew visited Jean Seberg’s grave while dressed in character. The rain stopped, the sun broke through, and the cameras rolled. “I don’t even believe in ghosts,” Linklater said, “but that was one of those moments.”
“Nouvelle Vague” is a meditation on creation itself, where the spirit of the New Wave didn’t feel like a relic at all, but something still flickering, still alive.