Latest news with #NouvelleVague
New Statesman
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
Beware the girlosphere
The word 'girlhood' is everywhere. But hearing it feels a bit like being flashed by a nudist. Nobody complains about Richard Linklater's film Boyhood; and 'childhood' is completely normal. As a young woman, I feel comfortable admitting I was recently a girl; but saying I had a 'girlhood' sounds bizarre. The feeling started to creep in around 2023, when the word came up as a fashion-industry descriptor – baby pink was legion and you couldn't move for fear of bumping into a hair bow. The online magazine Who What Wear collaged together some outfits by Miu Miu and Sandy Liang and used the headline 'How Celebrating Girlhood Quickly Became the Internet's Favourite Trend'; Dazed called the same thing 'Girlhood-core.' That year, director Sofia Coppola released a book of behind-the-scenes photos, bound in the same pastel pink, to her female fanbase. 'Bows, Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides, and the entirety of Lana Del Rey's discography are all things that were once shamed for enjoying, but have become core components of what makes up girlhood…' The look isn't new. But it found its creepy moniker as adults flocked to TikTok over the pandemic, bearing years of residual Internet detritus from the time when Tumblr held most of the alternative market share. For around fifteen years this exact amalgamation of whites and pinks, Nouvelle Vague hairstyles, Lana Del Rey videos and Sofia Coppola films has held currency wherever young women exist online. The nostalgic aesthetic is refined but has no single creator; its resounding motifs have been pinned, reblogged and retweeted until they became a universal online language. Welcome to the girlosphere, the least understood corner of the political internet. We are already familiar with journalistic fretting about the 'manosphere,' which shovels anti-feminist and white nationalist ideology from underground message boards onto increasingly visible parts of mainstream social media. Influencer Andrew Tate allegedly radicalises young men into misogyny, they say (though recent Ofcom research has found his reach might be overstated); Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson forms the more acceptable face of this loose digital grouping. More than any individual, the manosphere's standard bearer might be the green cartoon frog, Pepe, who presides over the digital basement of the alt-right. In May this year, Stephen Graham's smash Netflix show Adolescence took over the national conversation. The four-part series follows the Miller family after their 13-year-old son kills a female classmate. It's all about male rage, and online misogyny. 'Adolescence is such powerful TV,' the Guardian wrote, 'that it could save lives.' Now, secondary school pupils in England are to be taught about incel culture, and misogyny inherent to the so-called manosphere, according to statutory government guidance recently published by the Labour government. Less thought – almost none – is given to the opposite corner of the internet. We know all too well about the damage social media has wrought to a specific class of online adolescent women. Their rates of depression, anxiety, and self-injury surged in the early 2010s, as social-media platforms proliferated and expanded. Being in the 'girlosphere' puts you at personal risk. The current 'manosphere' panic revolves around a group of all-powerful influencers, who basically act like radio pundits; it seems frivolous by comparison to worry about how the internet looks. But young women do things online that men don't; they make moodboards, curate feeds, and live vicariously through 'aesthetic' images. In this case, the visuals themselves might be key. The girlosphere is broad enough to subsume any ideology without obvious cognitive dissonance. The beliefs that reach it become glamorous by association; it is aesthetically coherent but politically all over the place. It has no Andrew Tate; its only universal 'influencers' are enigmatic fictional characters, models and pop stars. Nine or ten years ago you could plausibly be a teenage Dworkinite and have all the same glittery pink images on your blog as a pro-porn liberal. 'Cottagecore', the vague grouping of unthreatening rural aesthetics that emerged in the dying days of Tumblr, accommodated both 'tradwives' and second-wave feminists. Today, pro-eating disorder images on X and Pinterest are made more palatable when they use suitably 'coquette' images of Slavic fashion models. Dangerous habits get embedded in the girlosphere at light speed; young women searching for escapism are at higher risk of getting sucked in. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe The fictional basis of the girlosphere has stayed the same for over a decade. It is deliberately voyeuristic and distant. Goodreads tells me that the Virgin Suicides gets tagged as 'girlhood' more than any other novel on the platform; the book and its film adaptation have had a cult online fanbase of young women for over a decade. But both are narrated by a cast of male characters; we barely see the central, insular group of sisters outside of dreams, rumours, windows and the 'coquette' craze on TikTok was borrowed wholesale from a decade-old Tumblr subculture, whose prime influence was the haunted paedophilia-Americana of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. If you're a young girl in this sphere then you're probably edgily imagining yourself as the abductee – but the whole point of the novel is that it obscures the abductor's criminal motivations through a veil of aesthetic-first literary devices. The manosphere, by contrast, is fundamentally anti-aesthetic. It puts its real-world grievances and ambitions before its visual concerns. Men do not participate in the collaborative collaging that made 'girlhood' into a nebulous vibe and Lana Del Rey into an all-purpose political tool. Nobody's living vicariously through the MS Paint cartoons of Pepe the Frog; Andrew Tate's livestreaming backgrounds have made no impression on the current generation of interior designers. You can write its acolytes off as political undesirables after a single glance. The girlosphere is a different kind of entity. There was nothing inherently malevolent about it in the beginning, but its escapist foundations have made it into a potentially sinister tool. Young women come to seek aesthetic pleasure and end up ricocheting over the political spectrum. The mainstream fashion devotees of the 'girlhood' aesthetic pose it as a symbol of reclaimed sisterhood, but this is the most sinister proposition of all, like something out of the Stepford Wives. It has only resounded for so long among young women online because its creepy voyeurism puts it at arm's length from the real female experience. You don't have to think with empathy when you mix modern-day policy and the vibes of a fictional middle America; you don't have to consider the practicalities of your own body when you spend all day collaging together old photos of Slavic supermodels. And once you enter the girlosophere, you can never leave. Future generations will have to endure this too: a ballet flat stomping on a human face, forever. [See more: On freedom vs motherhood] Related
Sydney Morning Herald
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Sydney Morning Herald
Why School of Rock director Richard Linklater is obsessed with new wave cinema
The year was 1960. Jean-Luc Godard was nearly 30; for at least 10 years, along with his fellow film critics and buffs clustered around the film magazine Cahiers du Cinema, he had been champing at the bit to make his own film. His comrade Francois Truffaut had managed to make The 400 Blows, which was shown at the Cannes Film Festival. Godard was poised to make a film – black and white, barely any script, shot from the shoulder – that would be a slap in the face to stolid French film culture. And then, finally, it happened. He made Breathless. Richard Linklater's Nouvelle Vague recounts how Godard persuaded a producer to back him, then proceeded to spend a lot of time in cafes with actors Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg and his crew while improvising a film about a petty criminal's love affair with an American student. It manages to be energetic, nostalgic and inspiring all at the same time. Without a doubt, it was also the most fun anyone had at the last Cannes Film Festival, but not just because it was preaching to a receptive choir. It's a story about cinephiles, of course, but these swaggering flaneurs could be doing anything that involves wearing sunglasses indoors and smoking Gitanes. 'I am kind of obsessed with collective art,' says Linklater. 'It's about creativity and expressing yourself and doing something as a group. It's great when people come together and do something. Whatever it is. Get together and rob a bank!' Which, as he points out with a laugh, is absolutely the makings of a movie. 'And it's such an intriguing moment in history: the birth of the personal film, which is still kind of a radical notion.' He told his own cast – including Guillaume Marbeck as Godard, Zoey Deutch as Seberg and Aubry Dullin as Belmondo – to forget the film's iconic status: that came later. At the time of filming, Godard and his team were busy throwing out the rule book. 'It turns out to be the most influential film of its time, but the vibe of it isn't that,' says Linklater. 'It's an origin story. There was always room for the new, the revolution. I can relate. My own first film [ Slacker, 1990] felt that way – and it's important for the artist to feel that way.' The aspiring revolutionaries expected their film to be bad but, somehow, everything came together: the score, the look and feel of it, the spark and freshness of Belmondo and Seberg. Cinema was born in 1895. Breathless, Linklater points out, now marks its halfway point. The filmmakers identified with the New Wave were operating with tiny budgets. Cranes were out of the question; for aerial views, they made do with shooting from third-floor balconies. Dollies (for mounting cameras on wheels) were too expensive; Godard had to make a virtue of a hand-held camera's immediacy, while his famous jump cuts glamorised any awkward joins. Nouvelle Vague is shot in the same way. 'I'm using the syntax of the time,' says Linklater. 'No steadycam, no cranes, no dollies.' He also has a cast of actors who, like Belmondo and Seberg, seem to have walked from nowhere straight into their roles. Marbeck is still wearing Godard's sunglasses, suit and tie in Cannes; he says he had studied Godard's work in film school, but had to work on his Swiss accent, spending days lying on his couch 'like with a psychiatrist' recording and repeating the lines until he mastered each tricky consonant. Dullin says he auditioned when he saw a casting call on Facebook for Belmondo look-alikes. 'When I was young, two or three people told me oh, you look like Belmondo. So I said 'why not?'' Deutch, who swapped her long dark hair for a blonde pixie cut, looks uncannily like Seberg in the film. Loading The film was made in French with a French crew. Linklater is a fan of rehearsal; the script had every line in French and English and they would rehearse in both. 'It made it too easy for him!' snickers Marbeck. 'He didn't have to learn French!' Actually, nobody is sure how much French Linklater speaks; he says himself that he wouldn't want anyone to have to listen to him try. He was an early convert to the New Wave, around the time he realised he would rather make films than write novels. 'I started a film society just to see the movies. And the spring of '88 I showed 17 Godard films! We lost a lot of money but I was doing it for my own education. I thought I had something to learn.' In a way, this film provides further education for a new generation. 'It's not talking down to people who don't know about it,' says Deutch. 'It's saying 'hey, come on, join the party!' Because that's what Rick does. He brings people in. There's nothing pretentious about him, as a person or a filmmaker.' The French are famously chauvinist about their language and culture, but nobody involved seemed to mind a monolingual American telling their story – not this monolingual American, anyway. 'He is very French in a way, because he is very artistic,' says Marbeck. Dullin agrees: 'He is the least 'Texan' Texan guy! I think he loves France so much he understood it. It's not like a foreigner's view of France.' Marbeck had seen some of Linklater's films – Boyhood, School of Rock, Before Midnight – without realising they were by the same director; now he sees the sensibility they shared, both with each other and with the early New Wave. 'He has an approach where the action is more important than his style. It's more about a feeling – and it's the same feeling. So I understand why he would want to make a film about hanging out with French people.' Loading Despite being shot in shades of grey, Nouvelle Vague is a sunny film. Even Marbeck's version of Godard seems much more affable than the man we saw in later life. 'Part of that was me,' he says. 'And part of it is what Jean-Luc was at this time. Because he was hoping for cinema to save him, you know? Can you imagine, he's wanting to make his movie for 10 years. You want, you want, you want and now it's the time! Who wouldn't be happy? Even Godard, I think, would be happy.' Would he be happy with Nouvelle Vague? Probably not, but everyone else is.
The Age
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Age
Why School of Rock director Richard Linklater is obsessed with new wave cinema
The year was 1960. Jean-Luc Godard was nearly 30; for at least 10 years, along with his fellow film critics and buffs clustered around the film magazine Cahiers du Cinema, he had been champing at the bit to make his own film. His comrade Francois Truffaut had managed to make The 400 Blows, which was shown at the Cannes Film Festival. Godard was poised to make a film – black and white, barely any script, shot from the shoulder – that would be a slap in the face to stolid French film culture. And then, finally, it happened. He made Breathless. Richard Linklater's Nouvelle Vague recounts how Godard persuaded a producer to back him, then proceeded to spend a lot of time in cafes with actors Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg and his crew while improvising a film about a petty criminal's love affair with an American student. It manages to be energetic, nostalgic and inspiring all at the same time. Without a doubt, it was also the most fun anyone had at the last Cannes Film Festival, but not just because it was preaching to a receptive choir. It's a story about cinephiles, of course, but these swaggering flaneurs could be doing anything that involves wearing sunglasses indoors and smoking Gitanes. 'I am kind of obsessed with collective art,' says Linklater. 'It's about creativity and expressing yourself and doing something as a group. It's great when people come together and do something. Whatever it is. Get together and rob a bank!' Which, as he points out with a laugh, is absolutely the makings of a movie. 'And it's such an intriguing moment in history: the birth of the personal film, which is still kind of a radical notion.' He told his own cast – including Guillaume Marbeck as Godard, Zoey Deutch as Seberg and Aubry Dullin as Belmondo – to forget the film's iconic status: that came later. At the time of filming, Godard and his team were busy throwing out the rule book. 'It turns out to be the most influential film of its time, but the vibe of it isn't that,' says Linklater. 'It's an origin story. There was always room for the new, the revolution. I can relate. My own first film [ Slacker, 1990] felt that way – and it's important for the artist to feel that way.' The aspiring revolutionaries expected their film to be bad but, somehow, everything came together: the score, the look and feel of it, the spark and freshness of Belmondo and Seberg. Cinema was born in 1895. Breathless, Linklater points out, now marks its halfway point. The filmmakers identified with the New Wave were operating with tiny budgets. Cranes were out of the question; for aerial views, they made do with shooting from third-floor balconies. Dollies (for mounting cameras on wheels) were too expensive; Godard had to make a virtue of a hand-held camera's immediacy, while his famous jump cuts glamorised any awkward joins. Nouvelle Vague is shot in the same way. 'I'm using the syntax of the time,' says Linklater. 'No steadycam, no cranes, no dollies.' He also has a cast of actors who, like Belmondo and Seberg, seem to have walked from nowhere straight into their roles. Marbeck is still wearing Godard's sunglasses, suit and tie in Cannes; he says he had studied Godard's work in film school, but had to work on his Swiss accent, spending days lying on his couch 'like with a psychiatrist' recording and repeating the lines until he mastered each tricky consonant. Dullin says he auditioned when he saw a casting call on Facebook for Belmondo look-alikes. 'When I was young, two or three people told me oh, you look like Belmondo. So I said 'why not?'' Deutch, who swapped her long dark hair for a blonde pixie cut, looks uncannily like Seberg in the film. Loading The film was made in French with a French crew. Linklater is a fan of rehearsal; the script had every line in French and English and they would rehearse in both. 'It made it too easy for him!' snickers Marbeck. 'He didn't have to learn French!' Actually, nobody is sure how much French Linklater speaks; he says himself that he wouldn't want anyone to have to listen to him try. He was an early convert to the New Wave, around the time he realised he would rather make films than write novels. 'I started a film society just to see the movies. And the spring of '88 I showed 17 Godard films! We lost a lot of money but I was doing it for my own education. I thought I had something to learn.' In a way, this film provides further education for a new generation. 'It's not talking down to people who don't know about it,' says Deutch. 'It's saying 'hey, come on, join the party!' Because that's what Rick does. He brings people in. There's nothing pretentious about him, as a person or a filmmaker.' The French are famously chauvinist about their language and culture, but nobody involved seemed to mind a monolingual American telling their story – not this monolingual American, anyway. 'He is very French in a way, because he is very artistic,' says Marbeck. Dullin agrees: 'He is the least 'Texan' Texan guy! I think he loves France so much he understood it. It's not like a foreigner's view of France.' Marbeck had seen some of Linklater's films – Boyhood, School of Rock, Before Midnight – without realising they were by the same director; now he sees the sensibility they shared, both with each other and with the early New Wave. 'He has an approach where the action is more important than his style. It's more about a feeling – and it's the same feeling. So I understand why he would want to make a film about hanging out with French people.' Loading Despite being shot in shades of grey, Nouvelle Vague is a sunny film. Even Marbeck's version of Godard seems much more affable than the man we saw in later life. 'Part of that was me,' he says. 'And part of it is what Jean-Luc was at this time. Because he was hoping for cinema to save him, you know? Can you imagine, he's wanting to make his movie for 10 years. You want, you want, you want and now it's the time! Who wouldn't be happy? Even Godard, I think, would be happy.' Would he be happy with Nouvelle Vague? Probably not, but everyone else is.
Korea Herald
10-07-2025
- Automotive
- Korea Herald
Renault Korea rebrands Seongsu center as flagship cultural space
Renault Korea, the Korean unit of the French auto giant, is making headway with its transformation into an experience-driven brand, the company said Thursday, citing new strategies and a series of rebranding efforts. After unveiling its new brand vision, Nouvelle Vague (New Wave), in April 2024, the company introduced the new Nouvel'R emblem to better align with Renault's global identity. A key part of this brand overhaul was the renewal of its Seongsu service center, originally established in 1995, into Renault Seongsu, a flagship cultural complex. Designed with input from Renault's design headquarters in France, Renault Seongsu blends modern French aesthetics with immersive customer experiences. While maintaining its core function as a service center, the space now includes exhibitions, branded goods, pop-up stores, and interactive programs aimed at offering visitors a deeper connection to the brand. It signals a shift away from traditional showrooms toward a space where customers can culturally engage with the brand. On the first floor, customers can view Renault vehicles and browse the carmaker's branded merchandise line. The second floor hosts seasonal pop-up exhibitions and thematic collaborations with lifestyle brands, creating a rotating slate of cultural events. Furthering its push into the Korean market, Renault Korea is set to launch the Scenic E-Tech 100% Electric this August. The French-made EV was named the 2024 European Car of the Year and is expected to play a central role in reinforcing the company's French identity and innovative image.
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
IndieWire and American Pavilion Gave Students an Inside Look at the Best of Cannes: See All the Photos
For film students and rising professionals, the American Pavilion has been an unparalleled resource at the Cannes Film Festival since 1989. This year, AmPav (as it's known) hosted more than 200 film students and provided up-close and personal access to the artists and businesspeople behind the biggest films premiering on the Croisette. The 2025 edition of the festival marked the beginning of a new partnership between IndieWire and AmPav, including the first Cannes edition of IndieWire's Future of Filmmaking summit with partner United Airlines. The event featured a Future of Filmmaking keynote address from Richard Linklater (who was in competition for the Palme d'Or with his new film 'Nouvelle Vague'), a ScreenTalk podcast with Neon CEO Tom Quinn, and panels about the current state of distribution. We also hosted Future of Filmmaking panels about AI and about international production. More from IndieWire Spike Lee Would Trade an Oscar for a Knicks NBA Title: 'I Got Two Already' SAG-AFTRA Launches Its Own Producer Portal to Make Dealing with Union Paperwork a Lot Easier MUBI Global Distribution Head Arianna Bocco Explains Why She's Bullish on Theatrical | Future of Filmmaking Summit at Cannes American Pavilion's programming also included appearances from the likes of Spike Lee, LaKeith Stanfield, Kevin Smith, 'Sorry, Baby' filmmaker Eva Victor, and more. If you attended Cannes with education and networking on your mind, it was the only place to be. Keep reading for all of the best photos of celebrities who made their way to the American Pavilion at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. And visit AmPav's website directly, so you can learn how you can join in on all they do next time. Best of IndieWire Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 56 Films the Director Wants You to See 'Song of the South': 14 Things to Know About Disney's Most Controversial Movie Nicolas Winding Refn's Favorite Films: 37 Movies the Director Wants You to See
