"In his two new movies-"Blue Moon," about the lyricist Lorenz Hart, and "Nouvelle Vague," about the director Jean-Luc Godard's making of "Breathless"-the central conflicts involve time. Linklater has made two dozen features in a career now in its fourth decade; having learned to work the clock, he finds pathos in the idea of two artists at risk of being late."
"The story involves two waiting games. Larry knows that he'll have to put on a brave face when Rodgers, Hammerstein, and their entourage arrive. He's also waiting for a woman, who, he tells Eddie, is twenty and beautiful. He is forty-seven, with a slicked-down comb-over, and all too conscious of being short and wizened. In other words, the vainly hopeful Larry is about to endure twin humiliations, leaving him feeling bumped out of his life and into the past-a has-been, instantly old."
Blue Moon is set in New York on March 31, 1943, mostly in Sardi's bar during the premiere of Oklahoma!. The film follows lyricist Lorenz Hart, called Larry, who leaves the show, takes refuge at the bar, and wrestles with bitterness, jealousy, and a sense of becoming obsolete while awaiting a young woman. Nouvelle Vague centers on Jean-Luc Godard's making of Breathless and also engages the theme of time. Both films frame central conflicts around waiting and the risk of artists being late, finding pathos in how professional and personal timing shapes reputation and selfhood.
Read at The New Yorker
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