FOR ART'S SAKE

"Blue Moon" and "Nouvelle Vague."

- BY RICHARD BRODY

Leave it to Richard Linklater to see how, in art, the fundamental things apply. 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. “Blue Moon” and “Nouvelle Vague” are being released two weeks apart (on October 17th and 31st, respectively), a happy accident highlighting their connections in Linklater’s cinematic universe.

“Blue Moon” is set in New York, mainly in the bar at Sardi’s, on March 31, 1943—the night of the première of “Oklahoma!,” the musical that Hart’s longtime collaborator, the composer Richard Rodgers, created with another writer, Oscar Hammerstein II. Hart (Ethan Hawke)—let’s call him Larry, as people do in the movie, to distinguish the character from the real-life Hart—walks out on the show’s title number and takes refuge at the bar. He’s bitter and jealous, aware that the show will be a big hit and that he could never have written it. But he’s nonetheless sincere when venting to the bartender, Eddie (Bobby Cannavale), that it’s sentimental and phony, and that this artificial sweetness is crucial to its success.