Blue Moon in a Sunny Berlin

Kaplow, Linklater, and Hawke Team with Lorenz Hart

By: Susan Hall - Feb 25, 2025

For the screening of 240 films at its international berlinale, Berlin was sunny, sometimes crisply cold and at others, almost balmy.  Perhaps because it is under the big sky, this city is a perfect place to see films in which the artists take their time, and let character and story emerge paced to the subject.

Choosing what to see may be an art too.  While I did not watch any of the big winners, I saw some marvelous films.  As a US-centric viewer," Blue Moon" was high on my list.  Richard Linklater’s new work starring Ethan Hawke as Lorenz Hart, is a perfect film, which takes place in one room.  It’s Sardi’s, not the studio of photographer Peter Hujar, where the entire Ira Sachs film "Peter Hugar’s Day" takes place.  Both films subtly bow to Virginia Wolff and James Joyce, a day in the life of. 

Ethan Hwke’s performance as Hart is spot on and surprising. He of course had a script whose words, each and every one of them, define Hart, reveal and honor him. Robert Kaplow’s script offers dialogue which has a musical rhythm capitalized on by a pitch perfect Hawke.  It is funny, sad and true.  

Height is an issue here.  Hart was 5'2" tall. Alan Ladd  at 5’3” had a ramp system of planks built for him to be on eye level with Sophia Loren in" Boy on a Dolphin.  The cinematographer used low light stands to help create the illusion of height. Tony Jones who played Truman Capote in "Illusion" was pretty short himself.  Philip Seymour Hoffman, also playing Capote, went for the writer’s essence. In "Capote" he looks very much himself. Not a mimic, he succeeds in capturing the spirit of the small, gay man. 

Now Hawke, with  only one visible ramp to make his height smaller than others, uses head positions, and a crumpled sense to make us feel Hart’s tiny size. That Hart was a man of words is clear in script and delivery.  How wonderful it is when a film celebrates words as well as images.

We can not forget how difficult it was to be gay in 1943.  

One question lingers at the end of the film: Were the love songs written for Rogers, who rejected Hart?