Can nice artwork be made with out human genius and all its flaws? It’s an important query at a time when synthetic intelligence threatens to subsume Hollywood.
Through new films “Nouvelle Vague” and “Blue Moon,” director Richard Linklater affords a solution — delving into the lives of two good, risky males whose movies and performs formed French New Wave cinema and Broadway.
His conclusion?
“AI is not going to make a film,” the U.S. indie auteur tells AFP.
“Storytelling, narrative, characters? Something that connects to humanity? That’s a whole ‘nother thing,” says the Texan whose notable movies embody “Boyhood,” the “Before” trilogy, “School of Rock” and “Hit Man.”
Linklater’s “Nouvelle Vague,” streaming on Netflix from November 14, charts how younger French director Jean-Luc Godard defied all filmmaking conference to create his 1960 basic “Breathless.”
It captures the swagger, charisma and impulsiveness with which Godard satisfied monetary backers and Hollywood starlet Jean Seberg to make a debut function that had neither a script nor a workable filming schedule.
“He’s a little full of shit, but he’s a genius. A revolution is going on, but he’s the only one who knows it,” Linklater says of Godard, an icon of cinema’s French New Wave motion within the late Nineteen Fifties and 60s.
By distinction “Blue Moon,” in cinemas now, depicts Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart on the finish of his profession.
With composer Richard Rodgers, Hart wrote basic songs like “The Lady is a Tramp,” “My Funny Valentine” and, in fact, “Blue Moon.”
But the movie captures a single night, by which it turns into clear Rodgers has moved on to even higher success with new associate Oscar Hammerstein II, with the debut of their hit musical “Oklahoma!”
Within months, Hart will likely be useless from alcoholism.
“It’s become very clear that the times are leaving him behind. They’re leaving behind his genius,” says Linklater.
Which brings us again to the query of human genius and artwork.
For Linklater, AI is “just one more tool” that artists can use, but it surely “doesn’t have intuitions or consciousness.”
“I think it’s going to be less revolutionary than everybody thinks in the next few years,” he informed AFP in an interview forward of the Los Angeles premiere of “Nouvelle Vague” at The American French Film Festival (TAFFF).
The French New Wave’s trademark documentary-style realism was made doable partially by expertise — the arrival of low cost, gentle, transportable cameras.
But Linklater rejects the declare that the associated fee financial savings and suppleness supplied by AI may unleash one other filmmaking revolution.
“You’re gonna see some cool stuff,” he concedes.
But “the hardest thing to do is still to tell a compelling story that people want to see and be engaged with,” he says. “That’s a lot of points you have to hit — that’s acting, that’s story structure, that’s pace, style. No algorithm is gonna do that. No prompt is gonna do that.”
Among Linklater’s future initiatives is “Merrily We Roll Again,” tailored from Stephen Sondheim’s musical.
Set over twenty years, “Merrily” charts the demise of a friendship between three artists, and is informed in reverse chronology.
As if to show his level about expertise, Linklater has determined to shoot the movie over a 20 12 months span, permitting the actors to really age backward on display.
It is a extra advanced variation of his Oscar-winning “Boyhood” — which he filmed throughout 12 years.
Of course, AI has not too long ago been used to “de-age” actors, like in Tom Hanks’ 2024 movie “Here.” But Linklater has little curiosity.
“It’s not a visual trick, you know? I really want an actor of a certain age to be playing a character,” he explains.
Asking a 25-year-old to play a 45-year-old is “not authentic” as a result of younger folks “don’t know what that even means,” he says. “I want the actors to be that much older and wiser.”
So, do not count on to see “Merrily” in theaters any time quickly.
“That’s my hanging-on-to-humanity approach!” chuckles Linklater.
© 2025 AFP