PHOTO VIA THE AP A promotional poster for “Nouvelle Vague,” a Netflix film about the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s French New Wave landmark “Breathless” starring Marshalltown native Jean Seberg, who is portrayed by Zoey Deutch in the new movie.

It’s not everyday a community sees a film released about one of its own. “Nouvelle Vague,” which tells the story of the making of the 1960 film “Breathless,” came out on Oct. 31 in select theaters and starts streaming on Netflix today.

The comedy-drama film directed by Richard Linklater stars Guillaume Marbeck as director Jean-Luc Godard, Zoey Deutch as actress and Marshalltown native Jean Seberg and Aubry Dullin as Jean-Paul Belmondo. It’s told in the style of the original film: black and white and in French with English subtitles.

“Though in limited theatrical release since Halloween, it’s garnered much praise on the festival circuit in the last many months. Turns out the day it drops on Netflix is the day after what would have been Jean’s 87th birthday. So excited for this,” said local Seberg historian Nancy Adams, who continues to help students digitize Seberg memorabilia at the Orpheum Theater, which has been owned by the Marshalltown Community School District since 2021.

Linda Moore, who alongside Adams has volunteered with Jean Seberg festivals and exhibits over the years, called the picture “timely” and said she was excited to see it. Moore spent time organizing the print Seberg memorabilia at the Orpheum when IVCCD owned the facility, and is invested in keeping the late actress’ memory alive.

Seberg was born Nov. 13, 1938 in Marshalltown and died Aug. 30, 1979 in Paris of a probable suicide. Today, she is remembered for her films and political activism and remains an icon of the French New Wave (Nouvelle Vague).

French New Wave is characterized by improvised dialogue, quick changes of scene, and shots that broke the traditional 180-degree axis of camera movement, which maintains spatial continuity.

“Breathless” (À bout de souffle, meaning out of breath), is a motion picture drama written and directed by Godard. It stars Jean-Paul Belmondo as a wandering criminal named Michel and Jean Seberg as his American girlfriend Patricia.

“So I did Breathless — no salary, no script,” Seberg told a film magazine in the 1970s. “Godard worked from day to day and would come in with these crumpled sheets of yellow paper. We literally thought we were making home movies that would never be seen. Then after about two weeks we saw the first batch of rushes, with Godard and François Truffaut, whose idea the film was. We sat and looked at it and we said, ‘Well, it may never get out, but it sure is different to what any of us had ever seen.'”

The movie saw critical acclaim with admirers requesting the “Jean Seberg” haircut in salons across the globe.

David Fear, writing in Rolling Stone magazine, said “Nouvelle Vague” “time-travels to the moment right before modern cinema’s Big Bang, when the French New Wave crested and Godard’s ‘Breathless’ would change everything…His film isn’t just shot in black-and-white, thus resembling the 1960 meta-commentary on American crime thrillers and pulp fictions in all its monochromatic glory; that’s simply a Tribute 101 move. Linklater also insisted the dialogue be in French, a language he doesn’t speak. He throws in retro touches like analog pops and the ‘cigarette burns’ that used to signal reel changes. More importantly, this origin story of a movie and a movement apes the joie de moviemaking and the jazzy looseness of the original to an absolutely amazing degree, replicating an off-the-cuff feeling that’s more than a secondhand buzz.”

Actress Zoey Deutch, 31, who portrays Seberg, is the daughter of director Howard Deutch and actress-director Lea Thompson. Seberg was 21 when she made “Breathless.” Previously, Kristen Stewart played Seberg in the 2019 political thriller “Seberg.”

To keep up with all things Jean Seberg, follow the Facebook page, run by Adams, called Jean Seberg at Home and ‘Round the World.

Nouvelle Vague is rated R and has a running time of one hour and 46 minutes. See the trailer here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=UufRzKVFseg.