Blue Moon (dir. Richard Linklater)
Ethan Hawke is one of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood, and while there’s no denying his immeasurable talent, he’s not a guy I’d ever refer to as chameleonic. Until now. Yes, he’s under a fair amount of makeup for his role as Lorenz Hart, Broadway lyricist and former writing partner of Richard Rodgers. And yes, everything is shot in a way as to make him appear at least a foot shorter than everyone else on screen, but what makes Hawke disappear so seamlessly into the role has much more to do with his performance than any technical bells and whistles. His Hart is a prattling drunk with an ego outsized only by his tremendous appetite for vice. He’s as lovable as he is pitiable. His genius as appparent as the disdain his former writing partner holds for him. He is, to put it bluntly, a self-destructive little shit.
It’s the night of the premiere of Oklahoma!, and Hart is posted up at the bar waiting for the after party to begin. He knows that his star is fading as a result of his habits, and he knows that his protege-turned-successor, Oscar Hammerstein is bound to surpass his own legend in every way. As much as Hart can’t stand the crowd-pleasing nature of the soon-to-be hit musical (he has nothing but disdain for exclamation-pointed titles), he recognizes that it’s about to become a Broadway staple.
The first half of the film is Hart waxing philosophical with the bartender (Bobby Cannavale) and the piano player (Giles Surridge) while awaiting the arrival of a young woman who he may or may not be sexually attracted to (Margaret Qualley). The second half is a parade of cringeworthy interactions as Hart must swallow his pride and beg (not explicitly, lest he bruise his own ego) to grab hold of the coattails he helped to create.
Theater nerds will adore every second of this film, which is chock full of Easter eggs and industry references, but not so much that a casual viewer can’t appreciate its charms. It’s a light, delightful distraction with little by way of conflict, short of the internal agony our protagonist is clearly suffering. It’s a tragedy in a way, as the film opens with Hart’s death, which happens just a short time after the events of the film. We know he’s doomed, and we hope that he’ll secure some semblance of his former glory before he passes. I personally had never heard of Hart before the film, so I can confirm his legacy has been extended in some small way!
Nouvelle Vague (dir. Richard Linklater)
I recently started making a movie of my own, and due partially to my lack of experience and partially to anxiety, I’ve done a lot of it guerilla style, and many shots were done in just one or two takes. It’s a terrifying prospect, and even though I’ve made peace with the fact that, as my first film, it’s bound to hold a wealth of mistakes, it was still nonetheless quite validating to learn that Breathless, Jean-Luc Godard’s debut film was shot at the same fly-by-night level of production. Will my little found footage flick be an enduring masterpiece all the same? No, but my whole heart is in it.
If Blue Moon was theater nerd shit, Nouvelle Vague is film nerd shit. The film chronicles Godard’s transition from criticism to filmmaking, and the subsequent production, during which his desire to capture the most genuine energy ran counter to the needs and habits of literally everyone else involved. Yet despite this clash of methodologies and the resultant tension, the movie unspools at an appropriately leisurely pace. We all know how it ends: Breathless is released, and cinema is forever changed. So instead of wondering if the film will be completed, we get to sit back and enjoy watching Godard piss off his producer from behind his too-cool-for-school sunglasses.
This biopic(?) is Linklater at his most playful. He’s clearly having a blast playing around in the black and white world of period accurate production design. What a delight it must be to watch Breathless and then work backwards to imagine the act of shooting some of cinema’s most iconic images. He doesn’t linger on them, however, which helps keep the proceedings from feeling like a novelty (the bedroom scene is relegated mostly to the background, for example). Helpful to this end is a sprawling cast of French New Wave stand-ins. It’s remarkable how much each person looks like their real world counterpart, down to the least notable among them. Naturally it all lives and dies by our leading trio of Godard, Seberg, and Belmondo, played to perfection by Guillame Marbeck, Zoey Deutch, and Aubrey Dullin, respectively. Shifting between French and English, the trio regularly impresses. It’s like traveling through time to be a fly on the wall of film history.
