Those with even the most cursory knowledge of musical theater would be familiar with the work of Rodgers and Hammerstein; those with similar familiarity with Rodgers and Hart, on the other hand, would be fewer and further in between. And from that simple statement of fact builds Richard Linklater’s “Blue Moon,” a bittersweet biopic of sorts that premiered on Tuesday at the Berlin Film Festival. Pitched halfway between “Midnight in Paris” and “Inside Llewyn Davis,” Linklater’s proudly stagey old-showbiz hangout follows a man as he watches the world pass him by in real-time.
That man is lyricist Lorenz Hart (an elfin Ethan Hawke, made stumpy and squat, and fitted with a deeply unfortunate comb-over) — a titan of the American songbook whose influence can still be measured in show tunes and jazz standards, but whose name and reputation have receded further than his hairline in the eight decades since his death. And though “Blue Moon” opens with the drinking binge that directly resulted in Hart’s November 1943 passing, the film is more interested in the lyricist’s professional end, which Linklater and screenwriter Robert Kaplow date back six months prior, to the ecstatic opening night of “Oklahoma!.”
The musical would have a seismic impact on the American stage, while leaving a more destructive crater in Hart’s life, exacerbating the lyricist’s growing estrangement with composer and longtime creative partner Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott), and thus, hastening the former’s downward spiral. To his credit, Hart seems to recognize as much all at once, fleeing the opening performance well before intermission in order to shack up at legendary Broadway haunt Sardi’s, where everyone knows his name.
They also know about Hart’s self-destructive relationship to the sauce, but that doesn’t stop the good-natured barman Eddie (Bobby Cannavale) from humoring his client with the odd pour so long as Hart sings for his proverbial supper, in so many words. Luckily, the scathing and catty songwriter has no shortage of those, stepping into the West 44th St. watering hole as if he were strutting onto the floorboards, making all in the immediate vicinity audience members of a riposte-laden one-man-show that asks, “Do you really want to watch a show where the lead character’s called Curly?”
Indeed, following Hart into the bar within the first few minutes then never leaving until the credits roll, “Blue Moon” all too eagerly plays up that chamber piece aspect, with the smoke-filled gin-joint acting as a stage for Hart to reminisce about his glorious past, unhappy present and dwindling future. And like the literary salons of “Midnight in Paris,” here too is a spot where so many luminaries of mid-century Americana did indeed hold court, making for an appealing game of “ah of course!” when the quiet man nursing a martini turns out to be E.B. White, or the precocious adolescent from Doylestown goes by “Stevey.” (Those wondering about young Stevey’s family name need only look towards Linklater’s next, decades-spanning film project)
But the film isn’t all games of recognition. Screenwriter Robert Kaplow based the text off of Hart’s personal letters, specifically those with 20-year-old poet and socialite Elizabeth Weiland (Margaret Qualley), and those primary sources present a deeply nuanced character study. Hart in no way conceals his open (if somewhat unrequited) love for a young woman three decades his junior, just as he barely hides what today we would call his queerness. Of course, in another stinging irony, with just fix simple letters – queer – Hart might find a succinct and contemporary expression for an identity that he so struggled to define with own voluminous output.
You see, Hart burns with a romantic, near-chivalric love for Elizabeth, and even if he’s less than interested in consummating that passion on purely physical terms he’s equally tortured by being kept in the limited confines of the friendzone. That obsession consumes him, for Hart, at heart, is a striver – a garrulous showboat relying on wit and verbal prowess to compensate for elements beyond his control. Elements like height, and sexuality, and wider mainstream embrace – elements, in other words, that come easily to longtime creative partner Richard Rodgers as he floats into the bar riding a champagne high from his musical’s ecstatic opening night.
Without ever leaving the bar, “Blue Moon” offers a snapshot of wartime America expressed wholly through shifting public tastes (and the attending egos left shattered.) The public’s appetite for mordant wordplay and urbane humor would soon give way towards something more earnest and emotional – and between Rodgers and Hart, only one would – or, perhaps, could – meet the moment.
And without ever leaving the bar, Linklater dramatizes that shift in real-time, staging the action with unobtrusive visuals rife with mid-shots and long takes. Running a brisk 100 minutes, “Blue Moon” is an unreservedly stagey affair – matching form with content to follow an unhappy man for whom all the world’s a stage right before his curtains fall.