Henry O'Brien
In the introductions to his two newest films, Blue Moon and Nouvelle Vague, Richard Linklater made it a point to make the same joke both times. He referenced that his first film to premier at the Toronto International Film Festival was Dazed and Confused at a Midnight Madness screening back in 1993. He then followed by saying how honored he was to be at the 50th edition of the festival, before joking about he wants to be there for TIFF No. 100 (Linklater would be 115 years old in 2075).
Linklater’s reverence for the fest feels fitting now considering that he’s presenting not one, but two films at TIFF50. They also represent Linklater’s ability to be a cinematic shapeshifter; he can go from a portrait of childhood reminiscence in Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood and follow it up with a masterpiece about a psychotic killer in Hit Man.
Blue Moon and Nouvelle Vague both take place in the past. But Nouvelle Vague is about a beginning, Blue Moon is about an ending. They are both light on their feet, but both come to differing conclusions about an artist’s struggle. Both are small scale, but one is an afterparty chamber comedy-drama, and another is a sprawling look at an entire film movement.
In any event, they reflect Linklater’s attempt to look back on the major artistic moments of the mid-20th century. Based on the films themselves, this is both a good and bad habit at the same time.
Blue Moon
There’s De Niro and Scorsese, Cassavetes and Rowlands, DiCaprio and Scorsese, Washington and Lee. But if there’s any duo that rightfully belongs in that pinnacle group of actor-director duos, it’s Richard Linklater and Ethan Hawke. The two have made six films together and have written two of them together, some being the great works of their generation including the Before trilogy and Boyhood.
While Blue Moon will feel slight compared to those aforementioned cinematic classics, its commentary on an artist’s spiral feel as ethereal and inquisitive as any of their prior collaborations. The film depicts lyricist Lorenz Hart (Hawke) stewing and reflecting at a bar following the world premier of the musical “Oklahoma!,” which signaled the start of Rodgers and Hammerstein, and the conclusion of Rodgers and Hart.
If there’s anything that the seventh film with Linklater and Hawke together will be known for, it’s Hawke’s stellar performance as Hart. Hawke, who has such a puppy dog-like exuberance for the arts, plays the much shorter Hart as a boozer with an impeccable ability to turn a clever and funny phrase. Even when Hart has to match wits with Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott) or the bartender Hart can’t get enough of (Bobby Cannavale), Hawke makes the humorous retorts feel so buoyant and effortless. Linklater, whose love of rehearsals feels all the more fitting for a film about the theater, also knows how to block and shoot Hawke for maximum comedic effect.
But this chamber drama has an edge that it might not get due credit for. Similar to Hit Man, which I and others found to be much darker than what was on the surface, the darkness and doom that lurks right underneath the sheen of Hart’s crass jokes. Nearly everyone at this afterparty, Hart included, puts on an act, whether it is to be a member of polite society or not just to ruin the good vibes after a smash hit premier.
Blue Moon’s cruel irony is that it becomes a reverse of the song for which the film is named. The beginning of the song starts out, “Blue moon, You saw me standin’ alone, Without a dream in my heart, Without a love of my own.” And in Linklater’s darker streak, the movie begins and ends with Hart all alone; his creative partner has moved on to greater success and the girl he had feelings for (Qualley) never really loved him. There’s no chance that the moon will turn to gold for Hart, which adds a level of bitterness and sadness hidden within Linklater’s other projects.
Nouvelle Vague
If Blue Moon is Linklater showing the nasty side of the arts world, then Nouvelle Vague is his attempt to show his reverence for art and creativity. The film, which follows Jean-Luc Godard (Guillaume Marbeck) in the making of his revolutionary feature debut Breathless, has all the makings of a classic Linklater hangout movie.
But Nouvelle Vague feels as though Linklater caving to his worst instincts as a filmmaker. So many of his films are examinations of the past, the passage of time and how viewers relate to both of those things. It doesn’t have any of the introspection that is present in Boyhood, Dazed and Confused or even Apollo 10½: A Space Age Childhood.
The film introduces all of the major figures of the French New Wave, stopping the progression of the plot for stills and a title card of all the filmmakers, actors, writers and more. It’s similar to Oppenheimer in the sense of how it had so many of the key figures in the movement. But giving a title card to every single character who comes on screen makes it feel more like a painful history lesson, and not a cinematic experience to be enjoyed.
The robotic nature of the whole affair is exemplified by lead actor Guillaume Marbeck, who played Godard. This version of the French legend never takes his sunglasses off and only exists to think about movies, ignoring the transgressive and political side of the filmmaker that came to define over the next half century. Marbeck makes Godard a hollow shell of what the director was.
Many folks online pointed out the irony that a film about one of the greatest film movements ever would be streaming on a platform that has looked to kill the theatrical experience. But the larger irony is that this is a nostalgia film that focuses on a director who hated nostalgia. Nouvelle Vague wanted to be an ode for a great filmmaking movement, it became an easter egg-filled Marvel movie.
The end of the film shows Godard screening the first cut of Breathless to Francois Truffaut and Agnes Varda among others, and they all laugh when the main financier of the project calls it “a piece of shit.” Godard and his friends jokingly take pride in that, but it sadly feels apt for what Nouvelle Vague turns out to be.
