With the 50th anniversary of Jean-Luc Godard’s ground breaking “Breathless” upon us, Film Forum is unreeling “Two in the Wave,” an interesting but flawed look at the birth of the French New Wave.

Directed by Emmanuel Laurent, the documentary concentrates on the friendship of Godard and François Truffaut and their subsequent feud.

They led a revolution that shut down the Cannes Film Festival in 1968, and “Breathless” is based on an idea by Truffaut. But the directors, who started out in the late 1950s as critics at the legendary French journal Cahiers du Cinéma, subsequently argued over what cinema should be.

Godard’s features became more and more political while Truffaut turned out apolitical romantic comedies, many featuring Jean-Pierre Léaud as the fictional Antoine Doinel.

In fact, Léaud appeared in multiple films by Godard and Truffaut, and he once said that “Godard . . . let me escape the gilded cage of Antoine Doinel.”

Laurent has uncovered rare footage of Godard, Truffaut and Léaud, who made his screen debut in Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows” (1959).

Included is Léaud, then 14, arriving in Cannes by train for the premiere of “The 400 Blows,” and earlier applying for the role. We also see Godard interviewing a monocled Fritz Lang, who plays himself in JLG’s “Contempt” (1963).

That’s all fine and good, but Laurent glosses over the contributions of other New Wavers, such as Eric Rohmer, Claude Chabrol and Agnes Varda. Laurent’s biggest mistake is inserting Isild Le Besco, a wonderful contemporary actress, into “Two in the Wave.”

She’s shown looking through vintage copies of Cahiers and roaming around Paris. The documentary would have been better served with contemporary interviews of New Wavers and people who knew them.

For the record, Truffaut died in 1984, while Godard — nearing 80 — continues to turn out at times perplexing films. His latest, “Film Socialisme,” unreeled this very week in Cannes. I would not be surprised to see it at the New York Film Festival later this year.