Cannes 2025: Linklater’s ‘Nouvelle Imprecise’ is a Zany Tribute to Godard
by Alex Billington
Might 18, 2025
Linklater you mad genius! The Austin, TX-based filmmaker is again at a second movie pageant this 12 months together with his different film in 2025. Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon premiered on the 2025 Berlin Movie Competition earlier within the 12 months, and his subsequent movie Nouvelle Imprecise simply premiered on the 2025 Cannes Movie Competition. Nouvelle Imprecise is Linklater’s very first movie shot fully in French – as a result of it is a spunky tribute to the enduring French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, who handed away in 2022 at 91 years outdated. Nouvelle Imprecise, which interprets merely to New Wave in English, is concerning the French New Wave of the Nineteen Sixties. Particularly concerning the making of Godard’s first full-length movie titled Breathless (or À bout de souffle in French). Whereas making it that they had no concept if it might be any good, however the movie went on to debut on the 1960 Cannes Movie Competition after which affect cinema without end as the defining French New Wave movie on the time. That is Linklater’s meta tribute to Breathless by recreating the making of Godard’s movie with the very same artsy B&W type as the unique.
Nouvelle Imprecise is fantastique! Filmmaking enjoyable! Inspiring and entertaining and so geeky! It is as if Linklater time traveled again to 1959 and made a documentary about Godard being a kooky madman filming all these pictures on the fly and pulling off Breathless. It is immensely pleasing in so many various methods – not solely as an train in mimicking type and as a filmmaking problem by painstakingly recreating Paris in 1959 and casting lookalikes for each single individual concerned in cinema in France on the time. But in addition as a enjoyable take a look at how loopy (and stuffed with himself) Godard was and but how he someway pulled off making Breathless with out writing any script and simply winging it throughout each capturing day for 20 days. He broke each rule and did not even care and but someway modified cinema without end! I imagine that Linklater is honoring and bowing all the way down to Godard and the formidable French New Wave cinema motion, whereas additionally mocking and making enjoyable of them (in a really playful, loving method after all). Maybe some Godard die-hard followers can be bothered by this, however I discovered it laugh-out-loud humorous all through. Linklater doesn’t draw back in exhibiting how eccentric and audacious and ridiculous he’s – it is all in there and we get to get pleasure from Monsieur Godard being a cinema prick.
A confession: I’m completely not a fan of Godard as a director and I’m additionally not a fan of the movie Breathless both. That mentioned, I can definitely respect and admire and admire his filmmaking, and I perceive how a lot he influenced cinema. And it is fascinating to look at him engaged on Breathless, as a result of regardless that he is just about a full-on pretentious asshole all through many of the shoot, you are additionally sort of questioning if being an inventive genius and being an asshole actually do go hand-in-hand. In staying true to the unique movie, Linklater solid unknown first-time French actors for each single position on this movie (apart from Jean Seberg, who’s performed by already well-known American actress Zoey Deutch, additionally referencing how Serberg was already well-known on the time she agreed to star in Breathless). Guillaume Marbeck stars as Jean-Luc Godard, with Aubry Dullin as Jean-Paul Belmondo, Adrien Rouyard as François Truffaut, and Matthieu Penchinat as cinematographer Raoul Coutard (my favourite character in Linklater’s movie he is the most effective). There have been occasions whereas I used to be watching Nouvelle Imprecise the place I believed for positive Linklater is definitely making an attempt to point out us that this man was completely loopy. However on the finish of the day he’s paying tribute to him, reminding us filmmakers can be like this however so long as they’re nonetheless creating extremely distinctive cinema that’s what issues essentially the most…
To me, Linklater’s Nouvelle Imprecise seems like an homage to Godard but additionally a reminder that you just shouldn’t be anxious about following guidelines and doing what is anticipated if you wish to be a very modern filmmaker. Linklater has made all types of various motion pictures of all sizes and budgets, and I’m positive he desires to remind younger filmmakers of as we speak to take dangers & make movies any method they will. Simply go on the market and do it. That is the strongest inspiration inside Nouvelle Imprecise. Many critics in Cannes have additionally identified that watching this movie would possibly encourage younger movie-lovers & budding cinephiles to get excited concerning the French New Wave, and to return and discover these movie & filmmakers. Remember about them! Get enthusiastic about this sort of cinema once more! And let that pleasure carry over to trendy movie-making as nicely! Whether or not or not the movie has something intensely profound so as to add moreover that, or whether or not you get pleasure from it or not – the recreation of this time in Paris and these scenes and the entire many individuals concerned in Godard’s shoot is actually superb. It is a masterful train in going again in time to pay tribute. And to point out us what it was like creating cinema within the Fifties and 60s. All that is additionally proof that Linklater actually is one of many BEST filmmakers of recent occasions.
Alex’s Cannes 2025 Ranking: 7.5 out of 10
Observe Alex on Twitter – @firstshowing / Or Letterboxd – @firstshowing
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