The air outside the Austin Film Society Cinema smelled faintly of tobacco and nostalgia on Monday night as Richard\u00a0Linklater premiered \u201cNouvelle Vague,\u201d his cinematic love letter to Jean-Luc Godard\u2019s \u201cBreathless.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Inside,\u00a0Linklater was joined by stars Zoey Deutch and Guillaume Marbeck for a Q&A that felt half film theory seminar, half s\u00e9ance for the spirit of French New Wave.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The film, a meticulous black-and-white re-creation of 1959 Paris, follows the making of \u201cBreathless\u201d \u2014 but it\u2019s also about the act of creation itself. As\u00a0Linklater put it, \u201cAnything can be a film.\u201d He approaches the movie like an excavation, using the same model camera that shot \u201cBreathless\u201d and reconstructing Godard\u2019s chaos through careful rehearsal and historical precision.<\/p>\n
Deutch, who plays American actress Jean Seberg, described the paradox of embodying spontaneity through discipline: \u201cIt was the least free I could possibly ever feel,\u201d she said, laughing. \u201cBut the constraints were fun \u2014 almost spiritual.\u201d The result, she noted, is a layered performance in which she plays\u00a0Seberg, Patricia, and \u201cJean playing Patricia\u201d \u2014 each with its own voice and body.<\/p>\n
Marbeck, who portrays the young Godard, reflected on how \u201cBreathless\u201d once represented rebellion for French film students. \u201cWe\u2019d make something messy, and teachers would say it didn\u2019t work,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019d just say, \u2018Yeah, but Godard made ‘Breathless.” They had no answer.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2019s robust arts funding system. \u201cWe could all learn things from France,\u201d he said. \u201cThey walk it like they talk it. One city like Paris spends more on the arts than our entire country.\u201d<\/p>\n