Nouvelle Vague (Richard Linklater, 2025)

[hearthesilence]

I caught this again at MoMA on a DCP, partly to catch a Q&A but also because as mentioned that 35mm screening I saw was marred by sound issues. I have to say even if sound wasn't a factor, the DCP would still win out. I knew Linklater said they had to do a LOT to the picture in post-production to get the right vintage look, but I didn't realize they put in digital film defects and even faked some wear around the reel changes. (Some of the damage looks too perfect, like a big dot with very crisp and sharp edges.) Real cute, but I think this really drove home the idea that unless you're preserving something in the photochemical realm, anything worked over in digital, especially when it's heavily worked over, isn't really going to benefit from being dumped on to 35mm aside from degrading the image. Something to keep in mind when some places like the Angelika are actually charging MORE for a 35mm screening.

Also kudos to the MoMA programmer who scheduled À bout de souffle for the very next evening.

[reaky]

Frustrating that while this was slated to appear on Netflix UK at the same time as it did in the US, it seems to have been pulled. Does anyone know why?

[Ribs]

That isn’t accurate; Netflix only acquiredd US rights for this one, it has a different distro in the UK and much of the world.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

I caught this again at MoMA on a DCP, partly to catch a Q&A but also because as mentioned that 35mm screening I saw was marred by sound issues. I have to say even if sound wasn't a factor, the DCP would still win out. I knew Linklater said they had to do a LOT to the picture in post-production to get the right vintage look, but I didn't realize they put in digital film defects and even faked some wear around the reel changes. (Some of the damage looks too perfect, like a big dot with very crisp and sharp edges.) Real cute, but I think this really drove home the idea that unless you're preserving something in the photochemical realm, anything worked over in digital, especially when it's heavily worked over, isn't really going to benefit from being dumped on to 35mm aside from degrading the image. Something to keep in mind when some places like the Angelika are actually charging MORE for a 35mm screening.

It's not just that it was worked over in digital, most of it was shot digitally in the first place:

...you have to do a lot of work to get those overexposed exteriors. Stocks are just faster today. We were emulating it, but it's all fake, all reconstruction. We shot some film, but it was mostly digital. We got better results digitally because film stocks aren't the same now. We could achieve that look either way, but it was ultimately a little easier to shoot mostly digitally. But not everything. We used some Kodak 5222, their black-and-white stock. And we use many visual effects, too. I don't want the viewer to think they’re in a visual effects movie, but truth is, we would own the foreground with cars and extras, but the far backgrounds, we were really visual effecting. "Painting away," as they say. And it's so much easier now — I couldn't have made this ten years ago. The rue Campagne Premiere, the street where [Belmondo] dies on the famous cobblestones, it's asphalt today. So, what do you do? [The VFX artists] recreated it. You film some cobblestones and then you lay it out. You don't need green screen. They just put them in. I mean, the first time they did it, it just looked like badly laid carpet. So, it's months of back and forth. But they got there. It was kind of magical. It's one of the more technological films I've done because of all the CG, the painting stuff out. But I didn't want to feel that way. I wanted to replicate the Nouveau [sic] Vague feeling of just showing up and shooting. But with us, it was actually anything but. It's all a trick.

He also confirms that they borrowed the actual Éclair Cameflex from the Breathless shoot, but that (contrary to what's been claimed elsewhere) it was only used as a prop and not for actual filming.

[hearthesilence]

Hah, I heard about the Kodak black & white film stock, but I didn't realize so little of the film was actually shot on it.

[Altair]

Ha! Doesn't this seem to underline the film as a work of fantasy, as 'real' as Scorsese's Hugo...

[zedz]

I caught this again at MoMA on a DCP, partly to catch a Q&A but also because as mentioned that 35mm screening I saw was marred by sound issues. I have to say even if sound wasn't a factor, the DCP would still win out. I knew Linklater said they had to do a LOT to the picture in post-production to get the right vintage look, but I didn't realize they put in digital film defects and even faked some wear around the reel changes. (Some of the damage looks too perfect, like a big dot with very crisp and sharp edges.)

Reel end 'dots' or circles were incredibly sharp, as long as the film was projected in focus, as they were punched through the actual film print.

[zedz]

Ha! Doesn't this seem to underline the film as a work of fantasy, as 'real' as Scorsese's Hugo...

What on earth are you talking about? By that reasoning any film set before 1895 is a 'fantasy' because it was shot with a film camera.

Unless you mean Linklater didn't film his 'making of documentary' on the actual set of Breathless, which is an even bigger head-scratcher.

[hearthesilence]

Reel end 'dots' or circles were incredibly sharp, as long as the film was projected in focus, as they were punched through the actual film print.

I mean, I've made it clear that I regularly see 35mm prints, so I've obviously seen what you're talking about, but a digital graphic can look unnaturally sharp in definition compared to a piece of plastic that's been cut or punched.

[Altair]

Ha! Doesn't this seem to underline the film as a work of fantasy, as 'real' as Scorsese's Hugo...

What on earth are you talking about? By that reasoning any film set before 1895 is a 'fantasy' because it was shot with a film camera.

Unless you mean Linklater didn't film his 'making of documentary' on the actual set of Breathless, which is an even bigger head-scratcher.

All cinema is a fantasy, that’s part of its beauty. But when you start digitally creating cobblestones due to time and expense, one wonders what is it the audience is meant to be experiencing? There is both a misguided drive for accuracy and a dissatisfaction with conjuring up a real environment. I am similarly suspicious of digitally created reel changes (Linklater is not the only filmmaker guilty of this) - are we supposed to be fooled into thinking it’s a making of documentary? Does he want to trade on the fetishized desire of 35mm without the difficulty and cost of shooting on film? Have it operate as a knowing symbol of one’s fandom? None of these strike me as compelling artistic choices.

[zedz]

Where do you think the money would have come from to shoot the entire thing on film and re-cobble (and de-cobble) the streets of Paris? And why on earth shouldn't Linklater make a film that looks the way he wants it to look? Do you look at all movies through the same perverse purism-o-meter?

[Altair]

I'm a little amused by your defence of digital cobblestones. It would almost be more true to the spirit of Godard to leave in the anachronistic street textures. There seems to me a 'missing the wood for the trees' in many recent American biopics of creative figures, from Dylan to Godard and (reportedly) Springsteen, substituting a digital period recreation for an actual understanding of the artist's work. Are people coming away from Nouvelle Vague with a deeper understanding of Godard? French cinema? I'd be interested in hearing what you valued in the film and, equally, what you think fake reel changes are meant to do for the audience. Linklater clearly made the film he wanted - but a director's (always only partially realised) intention is merely the starting point for a discussion, not the end point.

[knives]

Why would a deeper view of Godard or French cinema matter? The new wave is the film’s tool to tell its own story and reflecting Godard isn’t something it sets out to do. It’s a Linklater film informed by a historical event.

Is Amadeus a failed film because it doesn’t reflect or inform the audience in any way on the Viennese court and it’s artistic trappings preferring to be a fictional tale staring real names?

[Altair]

Ah, Amadeus is a great example - it is a meditation on the fickle nature of genius and the agony of one's awareness of falling short of greatness. It's not a question of 'informing' in terms of facts - indeed, I'm querying Linklater's dedication to factual accuracy beyond perhaps actually having something to say - but having a perspective on the art that one is bringing to life. Ironically, it's thanks to Amadeus that the general public knows who Salieri is as a composer, despite the fictional invention of the play and then film. Inside Llweyn Davis is another great example of a film on a similar theme, and far more compelling than A Complete Unknown - all films about creativity that get at a deeper insight about the nature of being an artist.

If Linklater is only using Godard and Breathless as a prop, then why be so dedicated to recreating the proverbial cobblestones? And if it is a prop, a prop for what? Why bring to life the making of Breathless and not opt for a fictional set-up instead? If you are going to base a film on a true story, I think any artist, writer, or filmmaker should probably have some kind of perspective on the lives they're illuminating. It's undoubtedly a 'Linklater film' but is it a successful 'Linkflater film'? The eye of the beholder and all that, but I remain unconvinced by his aesthetic and narrative strategies here.

[JSC]

I appreciated the attempt to recreate the mileu of the period coupled with the technical style (and visual
blemishes) of film, but it served more as a general distraction overall. As I stated previously, for me it
would've been more interesting for the film to have been set in the present with the technical and budgetary
restraints that Godard himself faced at the time. The thing that makes Breathless a joy to watch is its
sense of spontanaiety, of capturing moments on the fly.

[knives]

That’s just asking for a whole different film with different aims rather than engaging with the film you are presented with. I guarantee a lot of this bellyaching wouldn’t happen with a film about Rembrandt that used digital means to duplicate his style. It’s only because Breathless is known about and cared about that crying is so loud. It reminds me of the immature crying about inaccuracy im The Artist.

[JSC]

That’s just asking for a whole different film with different aims rather than engaging with the film you are presented with.

Maybe it's because the film I was presented with wasn't all that engaging... zing!

[knives]

Okay, but then how could a film with its aims be made engaging? Certainly making props cobblestones versus indistinguishable digital ones engagement does not make.

[JSC]

Don't mind me... I think I'm just getting older and more curmudgeonly. If I'm being honest I found
myself strangely irritated through most of the screening.

[zedz]

Perhaps that's because you were clearly expecting an entirely different film (a modern day remake: how exciting) and were miffed that Linklater hadn't consulted you first before making his one.

If you want to see modern films made with similar constraints (or usually much more severe ones) to those Godard was operating under, they're all around you, and they're nothing like Breathless - because why would they be?

[JSC]

Okay, you've all made your point.

[Michael Kerpan]

Amadeus is no model for accuracy either factually or "in spirit". People may know that Salieri was a senior composer in Mozart's Vienna -- but Are given no clue that he was almost surely the most generous and helpful older composer to upcoming young composers (not just to Mozart himself but to Beethoven and Schubert and many others). Neither does one learn how much help he provided to Mozart's widow and young son (whose musical education he personally provided for). Quite the contrary....

[domino harvey]

Getting a Blu-ray release in Australia via Via Vision in April

[Lowry_Sam]

Did this ever get a proper theatrical distribution? I remember seeing the festival screening listings last fall, but didn't feel like driving to Santa Rosa as I thought local distribution was imminent, but then I never saw it pop up for any local theaters. In fact I've been noticing that for a lot of the films I want to see (and even see trailers for), they either come & go so fast or they actually never end up in the theater (I'm guessing), so it wouldn't be the only film I somehow missed.

[The Elegant Dandy Fop]

It got the typical Netflix roll out of being released in a few select theaters for awards season consideration. I caught this at the Vista Theater in Los Angeles and saw that it was playing at the Nuart and certain Landmark Theaters locally that Netflix four-walls to get Academy voters to go. I don’t think any Netflix release gets a proper rollout even in a major metropolitan area like Los Angeles.