"It's been 40 years since Richard Linklater founded the Austin Film Society, beginning his crusade to make scrappy, personal, romantic and boisterous cinema. It's fitting for a director who first broke out in the 1990s "Indiewood" boom that his latest film, Nouvelle Vague, is an origin story of cinema's enfant terrible par excellence, Jean-Luc Godard, mounting his iconic debut film Breathless. As Linklater's first non-English film, Nouvelle Vague feels like a film fanatic has staged and animated decades' worth of behind-the-scenes anecdotes - genuine and apocryphal alike - to show a turning point for cinema as the Texan director imagines it: lively and collaborative, tetchy and confounding, an amusing slew of rules broken and manifesto points declared."
""I've always had that French New Wave notion that a film should just be an extension of your life," he said in 2024, six months before his love letter to impish and rule-breaking artistry debuted at Cannes. In this light, Nouvelle Vague is about an old pro returning to the halcyon days of being an indie amateur with a lot to prove and a cult status badge to earn."
"You can't suggest which Linklater films are the most essential without the gnawing fear that you're leaving tons of inventive and surprising work in the dust, and about a dozen of Linklater's films about slackers, yearners, and loudmouths have firmly established their place in the popular canon of great films. (We have not forgotten Slacker, Tape, or School of Rock). Still, the joint release of Nouvelle Vague and the recent announcement of Ethan Hawke's Oscar nomination for Blue Moon demands a guide of absolute highlights to the irascible and searching work of Richard Linklater, the Gen X extraordinaire."
Richard Linklater founded the Austin Film Society forty years ago and pursued scrappy, personal, romantic, boisterous cinema. Nouvelle Vague serves as an origin story of Jean‑Luc Godard mounting Breathless and represents Linklater's first non‑English film. The film channels film‑fanatic devotion, blending genuine and apocryphal behind‑the‑scenes anecdotes to portray a lively, collaborative, tetchy, and confounding turning point in cinema, full of broken rules and declared manifestos. A body of Linklater films about slackers, yearners, and loudmouths has entered the popular canon, and the joint timing of Nouvelle Vague and Ethan Hawke's Blue Moon nomination spotlights Linklater's highlights.
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