Blue Moon true story: How Richard Linklater tackles Rodgers and Hart story with “fanciful imagination”

by

When people talk about the best songwriting teams ever, especially in musical theatre, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein III are almost always among the first mentioned.

Rodgers and Hammerstein created several musicals that are now classics, including all-time favorites like Oklahoma!, The King and I, and The Sound of Music.

Rodgers had a long history of writing songs with others, most notably with Lorenz ‘Larry’ Hart. Together, they collaborated on numerous Broadway shows and created timeless classics like “The Lady Is a Tramp,” “Manhattan,” “Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered,” and “My Funny Valentine.”

A new film by director Richard Linklater explores the end of a creative partnership that occurred just as Rodgers began a successful collaboration with Hammerstein. The film is titled after one of Hart’s most famous songs, “Blue Moon.”

The entire film takes place on a single evening following the Broadway opening of Oklahoma!. Ethan Hawke plays Hart, while Andrew Scott delivers a fantastic performance as Rodgers. Margaret Qualley stars as Elizabeth Weiland, a Yale art student with whom Hart is deeply infatuated.

The screenplay, written by Robert Kaplow (known for ‘Me and Orson Welles’), uses letters exchanged between Weiland and Hart as its starting point. However, director Linklater emphasizes that the film is ‘inspired by’ these letters, meaning it isn’t a direct adaptation.

He said the basis of the story is Larry’s life. The letters offer insight into that, as they’re from a woman who knew him. While she tends to focus on herself, she does mention times she spent with Larry.

Robert saw that as a starting point to explore a different idea. The story is largely a creative imagining of what might have happened that night. It’s based on the real event of Oklahoma’s opening night, when Larry Hart attended with his mother, and it explores what he was feeling at the time. That’s what Robert aimed to capture.

What made Hart such a compelling figure – and a good candidate for a movie – was that people had vastly different, almost opposite, opinions about him. You could ask two people and get two completely different answers.

The film immediately highlights the conflicting sides of his personality with two quick quotes from people who knew him.

Hammerstein described his colleague as lively, energetic, and enjoyable to be with.

Another perspective comes from Mabel Mercer, a famous cabaret singer, who described Hart as “the saddest man I ever knew.”

It’s not surprising that Hawke was eager to explore this apparent contradiction in Hart’s actual personality.

I recall reading an old saying about how opposites can be connected,” he said. “For example, a larger person who moves beautifully – a talented, heavier dancer – is really striking. That’s how I began to see Larry Hart – as a perfect example of this connection between contrasting qualities.

He described the man as a study in contrasts – both the most and least imposing person present. He’s a complex individual, openly gay yet deeply in love with a woman. He’s capable of both harshness and great kindness, feeling both joy and pain simultaneously, and possesses a remarkable capacity for empathy.

I realized that question really revealed his character, and the movie’s opening quotes perfectly summarized everything about him.

Similar to the famous songwriting duo Rodgers and Hart, director Richard Linklater and actor Ethan Hawke have collaborated closely for many years. ‘Blue Moon’ is their ninth feature film together, building on their work on well-known movies like the ‘Before’ trilogy and ‘Boyhood’.

Linklater shared that making a film about a fractured creative collaboration helped him value his working relationship with the actor even more.

He said he and Ethan are still much the same people they were when they first met in 1992, and he feels he hasn’t changed much himself. He added that things would be different if either of them had faced a serious struggle like addiction, but otherwise, they still share a strong connection and a lot in common.

Hawke believes we deeply understand and value artistic connection, and how devastating it would be to lose it. He compared the creative partnership of Rogers and Hart – who only worked with each other – to a scenario where filmmakers only ever collaborated with a single person. It was an incredibly focused and intense relationship, he explained.

Read More

2025-11-28 11:35