Berlin (AFP) – US director Richard Linklater and long-time collaborator Ethan Hawke have teamed up again for “one-scene” musical drama “Blue Moon,” which premiered at the Berlin film festival on Tuesday. Set in 1943, it sees Hawke play love-lorn and troubled Broadway writer Lorenz Hart, whose credits include “The Lady Is a Tramp” and the song that gives the film its title. The dense, lyrical script sees Hawke take centre stage for almost the entire 100-minute movie, which unfolds like a theatre production inside a hotel and bar on the opening night of the musical “Oklahoma!”.
“It’s basically filmed as one scene. It starts and all the dominoes fall in one gesture,” Hawke told journalists in Berlin on Tuesday alongside on-screen love interest Margaret Qualley (“Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood”). Linklater said he had “always loved this period so much — the 1930s and 40s musical theatre, the craftsmanship of it.” The aim had been to produce a film that echoed the songs written by Hart and his composer partner Richard Rodgers, played in the film by Irish actor Andrew Scott (“Fleabag,” “All of Us Strangers”).
“Our goal with this movie was if it could be like a Rodgers and Hart song too. If it could be beautiful and kind of sad and funny, all at the same time,” Linklater said. The 64-year-old director is back at the Berlinale festival 11 years after winning the silver bear award for Best Director, the second-top prize, for his epic “Boyhood” film, which also featured Hawke.
The duo shot to fame with their work together on the 1995 romantic drama “Before Sunrise,” the first instalment of their “Before” trilogy. “Blue Moon” is one of the most star-heavy contenders in the main competition at this year’s Berlin film festival, which showcases independent arthouse movies and documentaries from across the world.
Last year’s event was overshadowed by a political row in Germany caused by criticism from actors and directors of Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. The festival’s new director, Tricia Tuttle, vowed beforehand that the Berlinale would not “shy away” from current events, but she hoped the news agenda would not eclipse the on-screen stories. The jury, helmed by US director Todd Haynes, is set to hand out its awards on Saturday evening.
The day after, Germany goes to the polls for a national election, with the far-right AfD surging in the polls and earning enthusiastic backing from Donald Trump’s US administration. In an interview with AFP this week, Haynes urged Hollywood to resist Trump and warned about the danger of being “contaminated” by the radical changes underway in the United States. “It is an appalling moment that we’re in right now, that will take every bit of energy to resist and revert back to a system that, flawed as it is, is something that we’ve taken for granted as Americans,” he said.
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