Richard Linklater on His Two New Films, "Blue Moon" and "Nouvelle Vague"

"There are early comedies such as "Slacker" and "Dazed and Confused"; there's the romance trilogy that started with "Before Sunrise," starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy; and crowd-pleasers like "School of Rock" and "Hit Man." Linklater's "Boyhood," a coming-of-age story shot in the course of twelve years as its protagonist grew from child to young adult, is almost without precedent. This month, Linklater has two new movies releasing almost simultaneously, both dramatizing historical moments in the lives of creative geniuses."

"In "Blue Moon," Hawke plays the Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart at the moment his career is being eclipsed by a rival, Oscar Hammerstein II. "My tag line for this movie, that they're not going to use on any posters, but it's my tag line: 'Forgotten, but not gone,' " Linklater tells our film critic Justin Chang. "It's so heartbreaking . . . to do a film about the end of someone's career.""

Richard Linklater is a versatile, widely admired director whose work ranges from early comedies (Slacker, Dazed and Confused) and the Before Sunrise romance trilogy to commercial hits (School of Rock, Hit Man) and the near-unprecedented Boyhood, filmed over twelve years. Two nearly simultaneous releases dramatize historical moments in creative lives: Blue Moon features Ethan Hawke as Broadway lyricist Lorenz Hart during the eclipse of his career by Oscar Hammerstein II, and Nouvelle Vague, filmed almost entirely in French, reenacts the unconventional making of Jean-Luc Godard's 1959 debut Breathless. The work reflects Linklater's interest in the inner lives and career arcs of artists and the imaginative realities they inhabit.

Read at The New Yorker