The ‘Nouvelle Vague’, which revolutionised French cinema at the end of the 1950s, is one of the enduring myths of film history. A group of film critics from the magazine ‘Cahiers du Cinéma’ - Francois Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, Jacques Rivette and Éric Rohmer - started making films themselves. One of their spokesmen, the Swiss Jean-Luc Godard, was relatively late with his first feature film ‘À bout de souffle’ (Out of Breath) in 1960.
In ‘Nouvelle Vague’, the American director Richard Linklater traces the genesis of the legendary film. Godard is played by the relatively unknown Guillaume Marbeck, who was chosen because of his resemblance. He is allowed to pronounce the typical sayings about cinema for which Godard was famous ‘Tout ce dont vous avez besoin pour un film, c'est d'un flingue et d'une fille’ - (All you need for a film is a gun and a girl). Or: ‘L'important n'est pas de savoir d'où l'on prend les choses, mais où on les emmène.’ - (It's not important where you take things from, but where you take them to).
Accordingly, Godard is not shy with quotes from other films in ‘Out of Breath’, above all he refers to his cinematic idols in American cinema, demonstratively Jean-Paul Belmondo has to imitate a gesture by Humphrey Bogart and stroke his lip with his thumb. At a distance of 65 years, this seems a little late-juvenile. Godard sets out to reinvent cinema, but at the same time he feels the need to constantly recite classics from da Vinci to Gauguin.
Richard Linklater has portrayed the shooting of ‘Out of Breath’ in an amusing way, for example how Godard drives producer Pierre Beauregard to despair when he cancels filming after two hours because he lacks inspiration. The material is then edited with jump cuts etc. in such a way that, thanks to its form, the film is still considered an innovative milestone in film history and Godard is revered as a revolutionary of modern cinema. Linklater's film emphasises this heroic story once again.
Unlike Michel Hazanavicius, who painted an ironic portrait of Godard eight years ago with ‘Redoutable’ (2017). His film focuses on the year 1968, when Godard, played to rapturous effect by Louis Garrel, crashed the Cannes Festival together with Francois Truffaut in order to carry the revolution from the Latin Quarter in Paris to the Côte d'Azur in a grand gesture. Godard's Maoist phase then began, which he shared with the offshoots of “May 68”. The master was not amused by this portrait and spoke of a ‘very stupid idea’.
'L'inconnu de la Grande Arche' (The Unknown of the Arc de Triomphe) by Stéphane Demoustier , in the sfestival section Un certain regard, is also about a Making Of, but about a work of architecture. In 1982, President François Mitterand selected the design of a relatively unknown Danish architect for his project of a modern triumphal arch in the financial district of La Défense. When the name of the winner of the architectural competition was announced, there was general bewilderment at the Elysée Palace. Johann Otto von Spreckelsen?! Never heard of him! A call to the Danish embassy in Paris doesn't help either. With subtle irony, director Stéphane Demoustier traces the genesis of the pharaonic project at the entrance to La Défense and the uncompromising attitude of the Danish architecture professor von Spreckelsen (Claes Bang), who until then had only designed three churches and a residential building.
Over the years, the original design was watered down more and more so that the architect finally resigned and withdrew his name. It is sad to see the difference between von Spreckelsen's actual design and the finished building. A continuous glass front like the one I.M. Pei had built in Boston is not permitted in France, the Carrara marble is replaced by a cheaper version, the small cubes that lighten up the ensemble are cancelled. The architect dies at the age of 57 before his building is inaugurated in 1989 to mark the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution. The film ends on a melancholy note. Why should you watch it? Not least because of the ensemble of French-Danish stars: Xavier Dolan as the busy presidential advisor, Swann Arlaud as architect Paul Andreu, who completes the building, Claes Bang as von Spreckelsen and Sidse Babette Knudsen as his wife and closest collaborator.