THE CURBSIDE CRITERION: NOUVELLE VAGUE
(Here at Hammer to Nail are all about true independent cinema. But we also have to tip our hat to the great films of yesteryear that continue to inspire filmmakers and cinephiles alike. This week Chris Reed zooms off with Nouvelle Vague, Richard Linklater’s homage to the French New Wave.)
I watched Nouvelle Vague, Richard Linklater’s masterful homage to Jean-Luc Godard’s seminal 1960 breakthrough movie, Breathless, at the 2025 Middleburg Film Festival, where I also reviewed it. I loved it enough to put it on my Best of 2025 list. A month after Middleburg, I was lucky enough to be able to interview Linklater over Zoom, and during our conversation he discussed his love of the French New Wave and the reasons for many of his directorial decisions.
Some of the same kind of information has made its way to Criterion’s new terrific 4K transfer of the film, replete with the company’s usual impressive special features, plus so much more. I unfortunately do not own a UHD disc player, but based on the quality of the Blu-ray, I will assume that if one does then the additional resolution would no doubt impress. Either way, it’s a very worthy purchase to add to your physical-media collection.
What follows is a brief description of what comes with the disc(s), including the booklet essays.
- New 4K digital master, supervised and approved by director Richard Linklater and director of photography David Chambille, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. The main film is 106 minutes long.
- One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features (depending on what you buy – you can also buy just the Blu-ray, alone).
- New audio commentary featuring Linklater. This is a richly textured accompaniment to the feature, filled with detail about what happened when and, most importantly, why.
- Le making of Nouvelle Vague (31min), directed by French filmmaker Lucie Saada. The behind-the-scenes footage of this behind-the-scenes recreation of one of the most important movies of all time does not disappoint, combining both on-set footage with interviews in a super-fun short documentary.
- Interviews with Linklater and actors Zoey Deutch, Aubry Dullin, and Guillaume Marbeck (25min). This is a solid addition to the aforementioned “making of,” with Linklater joining his principal cast to muse on their collaboration and more.
- Within the Wave, an audiovisual dossier on the real-life figures depicted in the film (28min). Film critic Farran Smith Nehme walks us through the world of Paris and cinema at the time Breathless was being shot. It’s an important contextualizing piece.
- The pre-rehearsal manifesto that Linklater wrote, here read by lead actress Deutch (8min). It helps us understand the director’s process.
- A short video (4min) on the movie’s visual effects, which you can choose to have narrated by Linklater or not, that explains how the director recreated 1959 Paris in today’s version of the city.
- Selection of trailers from 12 French New Wave films: Elevator to the Gallows (Louis Malle, 1958), Le Beau Serge (Claude Chabrol, 1958), Pickpocket (Robert Bresson, 1959), The 400 Blows (François Truffaut, 1959), Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960), Lola (Jacques Demy, 1961), Adieu Philippine (Jacques Rozier, 1962), Cléo from 5 to 7 (Agnès Varda, 1962), Muriel or the Time of Return (Alain Resnais, 1963), Le Samouraï (Jean-Pierre Melville, 1967), Claire’s Knee (Eric Rohmer, 1970), The Mother and the Whore (Jean Eustache, 1973) – 30 minutes in total. If you enjoy, as do I, seeing the way in which movies were marketed in their own time, then this section of the disc should intrigue.
- Nouvelle Vague trailer – almost 2 minutes. It’s a fun bit of modern-day advertising shot to look as if it came out in 1960 (sort of).
And then, on the included booklet:
- A written one-page introduction by Linklater, in which he expresses how much Breathless meant to him and compares the making of that earlier movie to his experience directing his 1990 Slacker.
- “Insolent Like No One Else,” a seven-page essay by critic Nick James, former editor of Sight and Sound magazine. As with Farran Smith Nehme’s video essay, above—though in a different way—this helps provide historical context for Linklater’s movie.
- “Today’s Precise Facts,” a three-page essay by co-screenwriter Vince Palmo, written in a kind of script format (altered slightly from the norm to fit within the booklet’s parameters), in which Palmo walks us through his own involvement with both Linklater and the movie, from genesis to completion.
And that’s all folks. I recommend.
– Christopher Llewellyn Reed (@ChrisReedFilm)
