Dazed and Despondent: An Observation of Richard Linklater’s Work in the Context of French New Wave

If you’ve ever stumbled across a Richard Linklater film, specifically an earlier one, you would likely be able to describe them with a few very choice words. “Funny” or “cool” are often high on the list, undeniable descriptors that offer a potential viewer easy entrance into the filmmaking. The more you watch, you start to recognize patterns and use words like “nostalgic” or “human” as you inch closer toward understanding what this guy is about and what he wants to highlight in his films. But suppose you start to reflect on the nuts and bolts of the film, the plot or the techniques used to convey emotions. How do you respond if I ask you to tell me what happens in Dazed and Confused? How do you describe Before Sunrise to people? Does it matter? 

Linklater is seen as a figurehead for independent cinema, and one of the biggest reasons for this title is the excitement that his films carry. They are rebellious and staunchly against popular films of their time. However, this excitement is not the sum of perfectly precise plotting with never-coulda-seen-it-coming twists—it instead comes from a distinct abandonment of these elements. 

Linklater has a seemingly innate ability to create stories centered around characters that he really and truly cares about, and to make it so those stories are emotionally resonant and unpredictable. His characters yearn for a better future, lament the present, and exist in rose-colored pasts. He makes the conversation as exciting as the car chase—and that sensibility didn’t spawn out of thin air.

For such a young medium, film has already entered a space where history is echoing, and because of the nature of the medium, it feels like artists from the past can hear the reverberations of the present. This becomes especially apparent when you look at Linklater, his ties to the French New Wave—explored in his curated series this fall at AFS Cinema—and those ties taking form in his new film Nouvelle Vague. 

Kicked off by a bunch of movie nerds in 1960s Paris, the French New Wave era of filmmaking is often cited as one of the most influential periods for the flicks. Starting from a desire to not only make movies, but to make movies against traditional structures, the films of this movement share many distinctive characteristics. They are, oftentimes, stylish movies about young people that you have to catch glimpses at through cigarette smoke. There is, typically, a deemphasis on plot; instead, the focus is placed on the humanity of the characters. If you’re working in the same vein as Jean-Luc Godard, one of the era's heavyweights, “all you need to make a movie is a girl and a gun.” 

They are humorous, stylish, and emotionally effective. But once you start to boil them down, the shared DNA with Linklater starts to shine through. You look at Slacker, Linklater's first movie, and you see the same storytelling devices. You see the humor, the youth, the yearning of it all. 

Godard’s Masculin Feminin shares much of the same DNA as a Linklater film. Told in a series of 15 vignettes, the film showcases young and idealistic lovers in Paris. Paul, a disillusioned, cigarette-flipping, poetry-spouting youth is searching for his purpose. Madeline, a passionate, free-wheeling, aspiring singer is chasing success. Through a series of conversations, we learn about these people. We understand their tendencies, their dissatisfaction, their apathies, and their passions. 

The film is broken up into a series of vignettes, so the plot exists however the viewer wants to make it exist. In one of the interjections between vignettes, Godard states “THIS FILM COULD BE CALLED THE CHILDREN OF MARX AND COCA-COLA. UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU WILL.” 

The film touches on a litany of topics—activism, the shifting sexual gaze, consumerism—and does so entirely through conversations and very brief set pieces. SubUrbia, a Linklater film from 1996, explores many similar ideas: fleeting youth in a changing world, and the fork between chasing a passion while you’re young and ambitious, or clinging onto youth in the pursuit of freedom.

SubUrbia is about a group of teenagers actively avoiding the task of becoming adults. Despondent, desperate, and drunk, this group of ne'er-do-wells are caught in the crosshairs of consumerism and apathy. Set almost entirely outside a convenience store and consisting of exclusively ponderous conversations, Linklater harnesses the same energy that Goddard was using thirty years earlier: This idea of youth and being stuck, clinging to things in the past and idealistic thoughts of the future. Characters in both films exist in a world they are desperate to change,  overwhelmed by the systems that weigh on their every action. Their response is largely the same: total ambivalence.  

Paul and Madeline, the protagonists of Masculin Feminin, are stuck in the same place in their lives but approaching it differently. Paul is grabbing ahold of whatever can entertain him, hoping that something will stick. Madeline is in pursuit of a singing career, hoping to follow a passion for a lifetime. This same idea is echoed in SubUrbia in the character of Pony, the rockstar that got out of the two-bit town. However, when Pony comes back to town for a show, and reunites with the main crew, we see a wide range of reactions: resentment for Pony making it big, envy for the life he lives, disdain for what he now represents. There’s this everpresent tension within the film, the push and pull of seeing someone like you accomplish something bigger than themselves. 

This idea is present in Masculin Feminin as well, through the relationship of Paul and Madeline. Paul spends his days bouncing around, simply floating in spaces and scenery, while Madeline spends her time recording her songs, working toward that thing that is going to be bigger than her. Paul’s resentment takes a different shape than the resentment in SubUrbia; instead, it’s manifested in an inability to say anything meaningful to Madeline. It becomes impotence that builds up to total dissatisfaction. In a scene set in a diner, Paul leads Madeline from table to table, hoping to tell her something important but failing. Madeline eventually leaves and Paul confesses that he was going to ask her to marry her. SubUrbia and Masculin Feminin both utilize that hopelessness and anxiety you have from being in your early 20s and that struggle you can have with your friends and yourself.

These feelings are hard to capture in coherent thought, and even harder to translate to something tangible like a film. An oeuvre exists in how you present yourself to the world. Linklater makes no secrets about his adoration for French New Wave and the influence that era has on his films. What does being that upfront and transparent about your influence do? Is that a more honest way of filmmaking? A more honest connection to the audience? Linklater places that thought in your head, simply by doing something like speaking in interviews about Godard or programming this series with AFS. It’s this heart-on-his-sleeve cinephilia that helps things persevere, both in the films being made and the ways we talk about them. Embracing the past and using it to cultivate the future is a trait of every great filmmaker. Godard and co. used their adoration for films to alter the medium totally, and Linklater used their alterations as tools for his renovations. Everything exists because of the previous thing, and acknowledging that when you create something new helps create immortality.

It’s remarkable how a film from thirty years ago can influence a viewer’s experience of a film from sixty years ago. To see the cool and apathetic young people talking about the state of everything through cigarette smoke in both films, it feels like watching contemporaries. It feels like watching two artists talking to each other. For Linklater, a movie like SubUrbia doesn’t exist without a movie like Masculin Feminin, but for the audience at AFS this October, Masculin Feminin doesn’t exist without SubUrbia. 

Especially in the streaming age, when audiences no longer have to wait for a theatrical showing, film-watching has become much less chronological. Audiences don’t want to start with Train Comes Into Station and end up at The Minecraft Movie. They want to watch a Linklater film and then see the same images in an Agnes Varda movie. Every film can be influenced by what came before or what came after it, and it’s important to wear all those influences at once. 

Nouvelle Vague, Richard Linklater’s upcoming, is a retelling/tribute to another Godard film, Breathless. Through a The Disaster Artist-ification of the original source material, Linklater remakes key scenes from Breathless while also telling the story of how the movie got made. It’s that mixture of adoration and passion that allows films like that to exist. The images will now exist in both the before and the after. Nouvelle Vague is the actualization of wearing all of your influences all at once. 

However, considering the ease of access to anything and everything, bouncing around runs the risk of nothing sticking. It opens you, like Paul, to not being able to say anything meaningful despite your desperate attempts. It’s hard to focus when everything is clamoring for your attention. 

One of the best ways to find focus is by clinging to cinema stalwarts like AFS or local theaters, seeking out these curated series, and making an effort to, at the very least, make note of the movies that are playing. The act of discovery matters. Today, you can catch your favorite filmmaker's favorite film and use it as your springboard. Don’t just approach older movies with the idea that they influenced the stuff we’re watching today, go into them with all your knowledge. Try to see those ripples and hear the historical echoes bouncing off the celluloid. It’s all there for you. 

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