From the Collection: Nouvelle Vague
Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague has entered the Criterion Collection.
It’s 1959, and a young Jean-Luc Godard (Guillaume Marbeck) is the only one among his film-critic peers at Cahiers du cinéma not to have made a feature film. Determined to put his revolutionary cinematic ideas into practice, he brings his small crew and two stars—an eager unknown named Jean-Paul Belmondo (Aubry Dullin) and wary Hollywood expat Jean Seberg (Zoey Deutch)—onto the streets of Paris to shoot Breathless, an adventure in unfettered creativity that would soon upend the way movies are made. With this enthralling love letter from one cinematic maverick to another, director Richard Linklater captures, with buoyant humor and effortless charm, the intoxicating joy of being young, breaking all the rules, and making art without boundaries.
Here’s What the Disc Includes:
- 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
- One 4K UHD disc of the film and one Blu-ray with the film and special features
- New audio commentary featuring Linklater
- Le making of “Nouvelle Vague” (2025), directed by Lucie Saada
- Interviews with Linklater and actors Zoey Deutch, Aubry Dullin, and Guillaume Marbeck
- Within the Wave, an audiovisual dossier on the real-life figures depicted in the film, by critic Farran Smith Nehme
- Linklater’s prerehearsal manifesto, read by Deutch
- Selection of trailers from French New Wave films
- New cover by F. Ron Miller
- Trailer
- English descriptive audio
- PLUS: Essays by critic Nick James and co-screenwriter Vince Palmo and an introduction by Linklater
Nouvelle Vague felt like an automatic addition to the Criterion Collection following its release last year. Richard Linklater is no stranger to the Criterion Collection, having six films already in the collection, and Nouvelle Vague being the seventh. Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless is an iconic film and a staple of the Criterion Collection. It may seem odd that the Texas-born Linklater would make a French film about one of the most important movies in cinematic history, but it couldn’t be a better match.
Linklater made Nouvelle Vague as a love letter to the French New Wave and early independent filmmaking. You can see the influence of Breathless and the French New Wave throughout Linklater’s career, especially in his debut film Slacker (also available in the Criterion Collection). Linklater paid homage to the French New Wave by shooting the film in black and white, in the Academy aspect ratio (4:3), and using mostly relatively unknown actors, including the film’s star Guillaume Marbeck. The result is a gorgeous, spectacular film about a misunderstood artist and the passion to get something done; themes Linklater has tackled in his movies. Marbeck is superb as Godard, and Zoey Deutch is radiant as Breathless star Jean Seberg. Nouvelle Vague is one of the best movies about movies and is another gem in Linklater’s filmography.
The Criterion Collection’s release of Nouvelle Vague comes in 4K, Blu-ray, and standard DVD, and is loaded with interesting special features. I enjoyed Farran Smith Nehme’s audiovisual dossier dissecting the real people in the film, and Zoey Deutch reading Linklater’s prerehearsal manifesto, which gave us the slightest insight into Linklater’s mind as a filmmaker.
You can find Nouvelle Vague on the Criterion Collection website, wherever you find Criterion DVDs, or watch the film on Netflix.
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From the Collection is an analysis of non-new-release movies, whether viewed on DVD, streamed, or in theaters. It includes a brief history of the film, a review of the film, and content about the experience of seeing the film and/or the contents of the film’s DVD.
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