Linklater and Hawke turn a broken partnership into riveting cinema
Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon uses Ethan Hawke’s portrayal of Lorenz Hart to explore the grief, jealousy and loneliness that can follow a fractured creative partnership. Patricia Edgar argues it is a sharp, claustrophobic film about talent, loss and the human cost of being left behind.
_Blue Moon_, a film directed by Richard Linklater, is an exceptional character study by an innovative film maker and his long-term actor partner, Ethan Hawke.
Linklater and Hawke have made nine films together including the epic, coming of age drama, _Boyhood_ which portrayed the development of a boy from 6-18 within a changing family structure. The film won multiple awards as a landmark of cinema. Blue Moon, too, is a masterpiece which exposes the toll taken on life by the failure of a creative partnership.
Linklater and Hawke tell a story about the fracture of the collaboration between Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers, the song writing team who worked together for more than 20 years. Hawke excels as the embittered lyricist struggling to come to terms with the pain, resentment, failure and crushing loneliness he is feeling, as a rival lyricist shares accolades with Rodgers his long-term friend and partner on the opening night of their musical Oklahoma!
Blue Moon is set in one location, the claustrophobic bar room at Sardi’s in New York where the cast and producers of the opening night of the new stage musical are gathering to await the press reviews. It is March 31, 1943.........
