Blue Moon, Bio-Pics and the Magic of a Moment
- Ellen Cheshire
- 1 hour ago
- 3 min read
I’ve always been fascinated by bio-pics, so much so that I wrote a book about them!
Seeing Blue Moon (2025, Richard Linklater) at the London Film Festival reminded me exactly why. Opening in the UK this Friday, it is a gorgeous example of how a short window in someone’s life can illuminate an entire world. Richard Linklater’s latest unfolds over a single night in lyricist Lorenz Hart’s life in 1943, at the opening night of his former writing partner Richard Rodgers’ Oklahoma! What seems small at first opens out into a layered portrait of Hart’s personal and professional life.
Blue Moon is unusual in covering a brief period of time in real time, one night, yet it packs an astonishing amount into that single evening. Many bio-pics follow the cradle-to-grave pattern, becoming a tick-box of great hits and life moments, like Bohemian Rhapsody or Ray. Others, such as The Queen’s week after Princess Diana’s death or The Motorcycle Diaries’ pivotal road trip in Che Guevara’s life, like Blue Moon, zoom in on a shorter period of time, putting characters, creativity and conflict under a spotlight and revealing more in intimate detail.
Ethan Hawke transforms into Hart, six years older than Hart was at his death, yet convincingly balding and exhausted. Movie magic helps the 5’10” actor appear almost a foot shorter, perfectly capturing Hart’s presence and weariness. Could Ethan and the make-up team be lucky at the Oscars? Actors playing real people, and the crucial costume, hair and make-up teams, are often awards magnets.
Think Philip Seymour Hoffman in Capote, Reese Witherspoon in Walk the Line, Jessica Chastain in The Eyes of Tammy Faye, and Gary Oldman as Churchill in Darkest Hour. These roles, amongst hundreds of others, invite total transformation, empathy and immersion that voters and audiences find irresistible.
Music is central to films about songwriters, often putting their music back in the charts. Could Blue Moon spark renewed interest in Rodgers and Hart, or more controversially, Rodgers and Hammerstein? Lucky for us, the film does feature the music. But securing rights is often tricky and problems can arise when permission is not granted. The 2013 Hendrix biopic Jimi: All Is by My Side focused on his pre-fame years to work around unavailable recordings. Similarly, the 2020 Bowie biopic Stardust used “sound-alike” tracks, which critics largely ridiculed. And, it seems unlikely that there will be a Frank Sinatra bio-pic soon, as his daughters Nancy and Tina have expressed concerns over how the film would cover their father's alleged mob connections. Martin Scorsese's attempts to make the movie have stalled, most recently being postponed in September 2024, as he has not secured approval from Tina Sinatra, who controls the family estate and has reservations about a "warts-and-all" portrayal of his life.
When handled well, however, bio-pics can do far more than chronicle a life or string together a Wikipedia entry of greatest hits and moments. They can humanise their subject, showing wit, fragility, brilliance and the tensions behind fame and creativity. Blue Moon demonstrates this perfectly. By focusing on a single night, it captures Hart’s character and inner world without needing to explain his whole life, revealing the emotional, intellectual and creative forces that defined him.
Linklater’s fascination with real lives goes beyond traditional bio-pics. Me and Orson Welles and Bernie both feature real people and situations, blending fact with imagination in a way that feels authentic. And there is more to come. His upcoming Nouvelle Vague, about the making of Godard’s Breathless, promises the same playful mix of historical insight and human storytelling.
For me, this is the magic of bio-pics. Whether they cover a lifetime or a single night, they invite empathy, curiosity and a little wonder at the people behind the legend. In Linklater’s hands, even the smallest moments can feel epic.
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