This past January, I posted a casting call indicating that Richard Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague” would start production in Paris on March 4. That intel was correct. We’re now off and running on Linklater’s latest film, which has already been shooting for a few weeks.
Zoey Deutch is in the cast, playing “Breathless” beauty Jean Seberg. Deutch revealed her Seberg look on Instagram. Seberg was American, so Deutch’s casting makes perfect sense. The film will reunite the actress and Linklater following their team-up in 2016’s “Everybody Wants Some!!”
I can now confirm a few additional details. Save for Deutch, the actors taking part in “Nouvelle Vague” are all newcomers, they include Jean-Jacques Le Vessier, Jodie Ruth-Forest and Jonas Marmy. The film is also being dubbed as a “comedy” and “love letter” to the French New Wave, Godard and company.
The cinematographer will be David Chambille, who photographed Bruno Dumont’s last three films (“L’Empire”, “France” and “Joan of Arc”). Furthermore, “Nouvelle Vague” will be shot in black and white 1:33 just like Godard’s “Breathless” was lensed in 1959.
“Nouvelle Vague” will be Linklater’s first project shot entirely in French. The film will reconstruct the story behind the creation of the Nouvelle Vague movement in French cinema and focus on the production of Jean-Luc Godard’s 1959 groundbreaker, “A Bout de Souffle” (“Breathless”).
The characters in the film will include legendary filmmakers such as Jean-Luc Godard, Jean Cocteau, Robert Bresson, Roberto Rossellini, Jean-Pierre Melville, Eric Rohmer and Jacques Rivette — most of them were responsible for the rise of the Nouvelle Vague in the ‘60s. No other casting details are known at this time.
In a recent interview, Linklater had confirmed the project and went on to describe it as being “like a New Wave film.”
Linklater is up there with the best filmmakers of his generation. His filmography is as original and diverse as they come: “Dazed and Confused,” “Waking Life,” “The School of Rock,” “Boyhood” and the ‘Before’ trilogy, among many more.