In 'Blue Moon,' Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater examine the bittersweet end of an artistic partnership

"Blue Moon" tells the story of famed lyricist Lorenz Hart, who was left behind by his creative partner Richard Rodgers, who went on to join forces with Oscar Hammerstein II.

Ethan Hawke and Richard Linklater have one of the all-time greatest partnerships between an actor and a filmmaker in cinematic history. After meeting in the early 1990s in New York City, where Linklater saw Hawke in a play that co-starred their mutual friend Anthony Rapp, Hawke and Linklater have worked together on the beloved “Before” trilogy, the decade-spanning “Boyhood,” and experimental indie hits such as “Tape” and “Waking Life.”

But for their ninth collaboration, which has been a dozen years in the making, Hawke and Linklater have chosen to examine the end of an artistic partnership. “Blue Moon,” directed by Linklater and written by Robert Kaplow, premieres in theaters Friday. It follows 20th-century lyricist Lorenz “Larry” Hart (Hawke) as he crashes the opening night party for “Oklahoma!,” the hit musical by his former partner, musician Richard Rodgers (Andrew Scott), and Rodgers’ new collaborator, Oscar Hammerstein II (Simon Delaney), at the legendary Sardi’s restaurant in New York City.

Starting in 1919 until Hart’s death of pneumonia in 1943, Rodgers and Hart combined their respective geniuses to create a string of musical comedy hits: “My Funny Valentine”; “The Lady Is a Tramp”; “Isn’t It Romantic?”; “My Heart Stood Still”; “Manhattan”; “Bewitched” and “Blue Moon.” In a career-best performance that could very well earn him his third acting nomination at the Academy Awards (and his fifth overall), Hawke captures Hart’s many contradictions as both a brilliant songwriter and an alcoholic with a penchant for self-destructive behavior.

“We always talked about this film as a little howl into the night of an artist being left behind. Not only by the times changing — ‘Oklahoma!’ is the future; his kind of music is the past — but his partner’s leaving him,” Linklater told NBC News in a joint interview with Hawke. “There’s a lot of movies about romantic breakups almost to the point that there’s kind of a similarity there, but not enough films about artistic breakups, which are so complex. Because, in this case, it’s not about the art. It’s really about Larry’s life and his addictions, his problems. He’s made himself hard to work with, and it’s just heartbreaking to see that relationship coming to an end.”

Richard Linklater directs scene of "Blue Moon."Sabrina Lantos / Sony Pictures ClassicsHawke noted that “there’s an intimacy to artistic relationships” that is difficult to articulate.