"The director Richard Linklater is cinema's reigning king of the chill hang, capable of mining compelling drama from the most blissed-out characters. So I was initially thrown by his choice of subjects for his two latest films, released back-to-back: a pair of real-life visionaries uninterested in following artistic conventions. But taken together, the movies demonstrate Linklater's interest in probing creative temperaments, including his own. Like his protagonists, the filmmaker went against the grain at the start of his career."
"In Blue Moon, Hart has been kicked from atop his perch of success, and in Nouvelle Vague, Godard is a former peanut gallerist now trying to break into the industry without following any of the rules. Neither character fits in with Linklater's roster of laid-back protagonists, established with movies such as Dazed and Confused. Yet the two films represent how deep the director's bench has become in the decades since then."
Richard Linklater examines creative temperaments through two recent films that portray unconventional real-life artists. Blue Moon follows lyricist Lorenz Hart, played by Ethan Hawke, melting down at a bar near the end of his Broadway career. Nouvelle Vague depicts the making of Breathless and shows Jean-Luc Godard driving cast and crew to frustration with mercurial behavior. Both films were released back-to-back and function as complementary portraits of creative figures on the fringe. The films contrast with Linklater's earlier laid-back protagonists and reflect his long, shape-shifting career from Slacker through experimental animation, thrillers, and comedies.
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