Deux de la Vague (2010)
Directed by Emmanuel Laurent

Film Review

Deux de la vague is a cinephiles' delight, particularly for those whose apex of enjoyment consists of the films of the French New Wave.  It is a film that traces the intense relationship of two of the founding fathers of the Nouvelle Vague, François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard, who, each in his own idiosyncratic way, helped to revitalise cinema in the late 1950s, early 1960s, elevating the importance of the film director to that of auteur rather than mere facilitator.  Esteemed critic and former editor of the Cahiers du cinéma Antoine de Baecque has co-authored one of the most authoritative biographies of Truffaut and is well-placed to spill the beans on a close but fraught relationship that transformed the landscape of French cinema.  In collaboration with independent filmmaker Emmanuel Laurent, de Baecque crafts an incisive portrait of a tragic friendship that is both an illuminating retrospective and warm nostalgia trip for any devotee of the French New Wave.

By interspersing archive recordings and excerpts from films by Truffaut and Godard (some rarely seen), Deux de la vague tells the story of how these two remarkable individuals made the transition from hot-headed film critic to film director, and how a shared fascination with the seventh art led two contrasting personalities (their backgrounds could hardly have been more different) to develop a close friendship and intense mutual admiration.  What is often overlooked is the extent to which Truffaut supported Godard in his early years, not only giving him the plot for his first film (À bout de souffle) but also producing subsequent work (Deux ou trois choses que je sais d'elle).  They even shared a directing credit on one film, Une histoire d'eau (1961), a short that was filmed and abandoned by Truffaut, and later edited and narrated by Godard.

By the end of the 1960s, Truffaut and Godard were on diverging lines, each pursuing a radically different approach to cinema.  The Nouvelle Vague may be history but its two most visible figureheads were still very prominent, Truffaut enjoying sustained mainstream popularity whilst Godard ploughed his own resolutely individualistic furrow towards artisan obscurity, admired by the intellectuals but now irrelevant to the cinemagoing public.  The falling out of these two highly opinionated and passionate individuals was bound to be an acrimonious event and so it was, as bloody and decisive as the grim conclusion to Truffaut's La Peau douce.  After Godard dismissed Truffaut as a bourgeois opportunist, Truffaut sent a hand-written letter to his one-time friend that was absolutely drenched in ill-feeling, an outpouring of invective that left no doubt that the marriage was over.  The film's account of the break-up of the men's relationship has the bitter poignancy of a love affair that had turned horribly sour.

It is at this point that the film begins to drift and struggles to come up with a satisfying closing chapter.  Jean-Pierre Léaud, the young actor whom Truffaut chose to play his screen alter ego Antoine Doinel, is cast as the love child caught in a perpetual tug-of-war between his two separating parents.  The analogy is given credence by some candid archive interviews with Léaud, who, conscious of being controlled by Truffaut, welcomed the opportunity to work with Godard, if only to break free of the Doinel straitjacket.  By focussing on Léaud in its final part (clearly he is an actor who deserves a film biography in his own right), Deux de la vague loses its way and begins to resemble a vague and diffuse homage to the French New Wave.

Rather than having Isild Le Besco as an unnamed girl leafing through endless newspaper clippings between the archive inserts it would have been nice to see specially recorded interviews with those who knew Godard and Truffaut and who could meaningfully comment on their relationship.  The personal perspective is what seems to be missing from the film.  By exclusively using archive material (most from the 1960s) Deux de la vague feels distant and coldly academic, and the legacy of Truffaut and Godard's work (which Le Besco is presumably intended to symbolise, en passant) is not as keenly felt as it should be.  The past only means something if it is in some way linked to the present, and it is this link which is sadly lacking in this engaging but far from perfect documentary.

Film Synopsis

It was a friendship that helped to bring about a revolution in French cinema.  A friendship that was born out of a mutual love of cinema and a desire to radically transform an art form that had become tired and complacent.  François Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard began their professional relationship on the staff of the influential film review magazine Cahiers du cinéma, but they had known one another since they were in their teens, when they attended the Festival du Film Maudit in Biarritz in 1949.  After he had made a triumphant directing debut in 1959 with Les 400 coups, Truffaut went out of his way to launch his friend Godard on his filmmaking career, even providing him with a storyline for his first feature, À bout de souffle.  Truffaut and Godard were in the vanguard of the French New Wave but whilst both were driven by the same desire to revitalise French cinema their objectives and motivations were soon to diverge.  Whereas Truffaut was content to build on conventional cinema as he probed human relationships with increasing depth and sensitivity, Godard was driven to explore more radical modes of expression and use his art to articulate his political concerns.  By the early 1970s the two filmmakers had drifted apart, divided by their diametrically opposed views as to what cinema was for.  In this eye-opening documentary, Emmanuel Laurent and Antoine de Baecque assemble a mass of archive material which shows the slow and painful disintegration of a beautiful friendship, the one which brought about the most explosive revival in the history of French cinema...