- [Announcer] Funding for "Overheard with Evan Smith" comes from HillCo Partners, a Texas government affairs consultancy.

Claire and Carl Stuart.

Christine and Philip Dial.

Eller Group, specializing in crisis management, litigation, and public affairs communication.

EllerGroup.com.

Diane Land and Steve Adler.

And Karey and Chris Oddo.

- I'm Evan Smith.

He's a prolific director and screenwriter, a five-time Academy Award nominee whose credits include "Boyhood," "Slacker," "School of Rock," "Hitman," and, of course, "Dazed and Confused."

His latest films are "Blue Moon" and "Nouvelle Vague."

He's Richard Linklater.

This is "Overheard."

(uplifting music) (audience applauds) A platform and a voice is a powerful thing.

You really turn the conversation around about what leadership should be about.

Are we blowing this?

Are we doing the thing we shouldn't be doing by giving into the attention junkie?

As an industry, we have an obligation to hold ourselves to the same standards that we hold everybody else.

This is "Overheard."

(audience applauds) Rick, it's good to see you.

- Yeah, always great to talk with you.

- Thank you very much for being here.

Congratulations on these two new films.

I'm excited to talk about them.

This feels to me like the art about art phase of your career.

Both these films are about art.

- It just happens to be that way.

- It's a coincidence?

- Yeah, kind of.

They came to the finish line around the same time, but I've been working on both of them for well over a decade on both.

I called it like my artist trilogy to go with a film I did years ago called "Me and Orson Welles."

It was the backstage of an Orson Welles production in '37.

So these are two more little moments in time in artist's careers.

- Coincidental that they just happened to be coming out - at the same time.

- Yeah.

- You didn't write either of these films.

- No.

I developed them with people I'd worked with before.

- But the majority of the films that you write, you direct.

Pardon me, you either write by yourself or you write with somebody else.

- Write, co-write, or it's all a blur to me.

It's all the same.

I mean, I'm working with friends, and yeah, we developed the script over time.

By the time I'm making it, I never- - It feels like it's yours.

- Of course, yeah.

- But you don't, there's no distinction that you make in terms of how you approach a film that you've written as opposed to somebody else.

- Not at all.

- It's basically the same.

So, let's talk about "Blue Moon" first.

We'll go to "Nouvelle Vague" second.

So, "Blue Moon" is the story of Lorenz Hart, the great lyricist.

- Yeah.

- Partner of Richard Rodgers over many, many years.

Talk about this story.

- Well, Robert Kaplow, who actually wrote the book "Me and Orson Welles."

You know, we just became friends, and I was asking him like, "What do you," you know, like a high school English teacher and a writer and does a lot of cool stuff.

I said, "What are you doing?"

He said, "Oh, I'm writing this thing on Lorenz Hart."

And I'm like, "Really?"

Because I'm like a big Rogders and Hart fan.

And I love the music from that era.

And I knew a little bit about him, an interesting life.

And he said he was setting it on the night, and this is the perverse idea, the opening night of "Oklahoma," which is notoriously when Rodgers has left Hart behind and moved on to Oscar Hammerstein.

- Oscar Hammerstein.

So it's actually a Rodgers and Hammerstein production.

Not a Rodgers and Hart.

- I know.

So it all takes place in Sardis.

So this whole thing's kind of like, your ex is getting married and you show up at the wedding kind of.

- Right, yeah.

- Like, what are you doing here?

My tagline to the movie is like, "Forgotten, but not gone."

- But not gone.

- Yeah, so he's going through all the motions of being a supportive friend, but he's really, his heart's breaking because- - Well, the angst, the angst of this person who was an alcoholic.

- Yeah.

- Suffered from depression.

- Yeah, of course.

- That's really what - I know.

- this character's angst is kind of the through line in this story.

- Yeah, it's a painful, like, artist breakup movie.

But it's not brought on by his artistry, which is just the best.

It's really his life.

- And even in talking to his ex, Richard Rodgers, who was played by Andrew Scott.

Lorenz Hart is played by your longtime collaborator, Ethan Hawke.

We'll talk about him in a second.

So when he's talking to Rodgers about the fact that he's no longer his partner, even Rodgers acknowledges, "You're great."

- Yeah.

- Like, he's totally unambivalent about how great Hart is, and Hart is just very insecure.

- Yeah, and he's still trying to work, like they're gonna revive "A Connecticut Yankee" and write some new song.

So Rodgers is playing it like, "Yeah, of course, we still have a future, but I'm gonna work with other lyricists.

I want to..." You know, so it's a slow moving train wreck of a breakup.

- Right, this one did not feel to me necessarily like a movie I would've made you out as the director of.

- Well, I don't think anyone would think that.

- But, again, you said you're personally interested in that era of music.

- Yeah, what's a guy from East Texas making a movie about New York musical theater in the '40s?

- In the '40s, right.

- Yeah, so.

- Right.

- But- - But something, something drew you to it.

- I just happened to love all that music.

And, you know, the character is such, Robert wrote such a just a, oh, this movie is like a little howl into the night of an artist being left behind.

And not only breakup, but the times are changing.

That's what's really clear.

"Oklahoma" is a new kind of musical.

His kind of musical's kind of it's war time.

- And Lorenz Hart- - You know, tastes are changing.

And his kind of musicals being left behind too, so.

- Lorenz Hart acknowledges this is probably gonna be the most popular musical for decades.

But also he himself can't quite come to grips with it as art.

Like, it's not his kind of thing.

- No, he thinks it's, yeah.

He's of two minds, you know?

- So why Ethan Hawke?

Ethan Hawke is such a versatile actor.

He's played in your movies and other people's movies, so many different kinds of parts.

This is really kind of a scenery chewing part for him.

- Well, you know, over 10 years ago when we were working on this, Ethan's like, "Hey, I'm ready."

I was like, "We're not ready to make this.

You're not old enough."

You know, we've got a ways to go here.

This was very different for him.

I mean, if you thought I was kind of a weird casting choice, he is too, you know?

He has to be five feet tall.

You know, we shorten him up quite a bit in the movie.

He's bald, he's gay.

- He has that Rudy Giuliani comb over, doesn't he actually?

- Which was achieved by, Ethan looked like a freak the whole time we were doing it, which helped him get into character.

but, you know, completely shaved head, but left it long so he could do the comb over.

I mean, he just wore a cap all summer.

(audience laughs) But I was like, "Ethan, take that cap off."

Like, it helped him so much.

And then when we kind of reduced his height, looking up at everybody and looking in the mirror and seeing himself.

That's what he needed to kind of come back to earth for that character.

- He really dissolved into that.

- Yeah, it was a real deductive process.

You know, people said, "How did he do it?"

It's like, well, you take away all Ethan.

And I was a naggy director.

I'd say, "Ethan, that little gesture you just did.

No."

Larry Hart, the way you touched your hand, no, he would never do that.

He's not confident enough.

That's a really confident, no.

Just take away everything, every Ethan Hawke gesture as possible.

And just leave him.

What's Lorenz Hart?

He's a brain, he's a wit, he's a poet, but that's all.

You know, everything else is gone.

He's just this kind of open wound of, you know?

So Ethan was just left with that.

- Well, you did it and lemme just say Andrew Scott who- - Oh yeah.

- I knew first from the Phoebe Waller-Bridge TV show.

- Sure.

- The hot priest.

- Hot priest.

- And who has become a very reliable and celebrated actor.

- He's so good.

- He's terrific in this.

- Oh, he's fantastic.

Well, he's just a great actor.

- He really is.

- He's amazing.

- And this the first time you'd worked with him?

- Yeah, yeah.

He did "Vanya" in New York recently I saw where he played every part, if you can believe that.

- [Evan] Amazing.

- I was watching it going, not many actors on planet Earth who can do what I'm watching.

So I was working with some- - He's great.

- high-level people.

- Bobby Cannavale, Margaret Qualley.

- Yeah.

- So back to Ethan.

So this is the first time you've worked with Andrew Scott.

Do you know how many times Ethan has been in one of your movies?

- We did the math.

You know, we realized we hadn't worked together in 10 years.

We're really associated with each other.

People put us together a lot.

But I was like, yeah, it's nine times, I think six leading parts and some kind of cameo small parts.

- And "Blue Moon" is 10.

- [Richard] Yeah?

- "Blue Moon" is 10.

- Oh, really?

I thought "Blue Moon" is nine.

- "Blue Moon" is 10.

- We keep saying nine.

- I counted it up.

- Well, I trust you.

- I'm counting "Scanner Darkly," which I should count, right?

- Wait, "Fast Food Nation."

- I mean, no, no.

Is he not in "Scanner" also?

- No, he's not in "Scanner."

- His voice is not in "Scanner"?

- No, you're- Well, I'm saying you're sure?

Of course, you're sure.

(audience laughs) - "Scanner," I'm wracking my brain.

I'm like- - I looked it up.

"Scanner" shows up in his credits.

- Maybe you're right, you know, put things out of my head.

I don't know.

I don't think he played that.

I don't remember.

- Let's do this.

Let's take the under.

- Let's call him up.

- Let's take the under and say it's nine.

- [Richard] Yeah.

- Robert De Niro has only been in nine of Scorsese's movies.

- Really?

- Like, this is an extraordinary thing for one actor and one director to be in the same kind of universe for this many times.

Max von Sydow was in more Bergman films.

John Wayne was in more John Ford films.

- Right, maybe so, but- - It then hits you and Ethan.

What a partnership this has been.

- Kinda like the "Before" trilogy, it's sort of accidental.

We didn't plan it this way.

I remember 30 years ago when "Before Sunrise" came out, people said, "Are you guys gonna work together again?"

We looked at each other and go, you know, we looked at each other and like, "I hope so," you know?

- Right, but look at what's happened.

- Yeah, I give Ethan a lot of credit too for that.

Because he's a guy who's, he's such an enthusiast.

He gets really excited about stuff and makes it- - Right, but there's something about the two of you.

And there's clearly something about you as a guy who cares a lot about casting.

You seem to be a very- - Very much, yeah.

- particular director when it comes to casts.

- It's everything.

- Look at the people who over the years have gone from being early in their career in your movies into the world as big stars.

Matthew McConaughey, Ben Affleck, Parker Posey, Anthony Rapp, Glen Powell.

- Yeah.

- Right?

All these people really got early starts with you and look at where they've gone.

And I have to believe that you saw something in them the way that you saw something early on in Ethan.

- Yeah, well, when I first met Ethan, he was in a theater production.

John Marc Sherman's "Sophistry."

99-Seat Theatre, Ethan's own theater company.

He's 22 years old at this point, but he's already kind of, he's been in "Dead Poets Society."

He's already kind of a name in his age range.

So I just met him backstage at that play.

because Anthony Rapp was in that play.

- [Evan] Yeah, yeah.

- And then I met Ethan, and I was like, you know, "Hey," we just started talking.

And I think I had already declared like "Before Sunrise" was gonna be my next film after these two big ensemble movies.

I wanted to do that.

And he had heard about it.

He hadn't read the script or anything.

But we just started talking that night, and we've been talking ever since, you know, 36 years.

- Amazing.

- Yeah.

- And continue to work together.

- Yeah.

- Well, it's amazing.

Anyway, "Blue Moon," great, interesting, different, a great role for him and- - Kind of a real time one-room drama too.

- People will really enjoy it.

Now film about art number two is "Nouvelle Vague," which is a film about the French New Wave.

It's about Godard and the making of the movie "Breathless."

- Yeah.

- You know, I liked "Blue Moon" a lot.

I loved "Nouvelle Vague."

This to me was one of the movies of yours over time that I thought, "I'm gonna see this movie 15 times."

- You can easily because it's really fun.

- But also there's something about it that is just, it's infectious.

I could not stop looking at it.

- Thank you.

- Look, it's black and white.

It's in French.

It's the first film you've made in a foreign language.

All the actors but one I believe are French, right?

- Except Zoey Deutch playing Jean Seberg.

- She is playing Jean Seberg, but she's the one American actor, and I wanna come back to her in a second.

There's tons of smoking, which I thought was kind of fun to watch.

- Oh yeah.

- Everyone is smoking the whole time.

- It's the French New Wave, you know?

- Guillaume Marbeck who plays Godard, I don't think he takes the sunglasses off the entire film.

- No.

- Right?

There is not a single scene in the film- - He looks above it three times.

You barely see his eyes.

- But it is about as good a story of being a cinephile, about love of movies as any that I can recall.

Now, again, you did not write this.

- The whole movie's about that.

But Vince and Holly and I, we've been working together since "Dazed and Confused."

We're cinephile friends.

- [Evan] Yeah.

- And so, again, about 13 years ago, you know, just like, "Oh, we're working on this thing."

And I'm like, "Really?"

So I just jump on board right at that point.

And we go with it.

They were great collaborators.

- And the subject matter is something that is not unknown to you.

The French New Wave - Yeah.

- is something that you as a director and as a film enthusiast, you've been a big proponent of watching those films, bringing the people who make those films to Austin, to other places.

So this is not a new subject for you.

- Yeah, but you're right.

The whole film is about just the cinephile life.

It's all these people who just love movies.

That's their only language.

And it's 1959 Paris, which is just- - [Evan] Again, gorgeous.

- Yeah.

And the film is made to look like, I had this idea early on, like, oh, as I was just reading it and thinking about, it's like, "Oh, it'll just look like a film made at that time."

It was a very distinct look, you know, 137, black and white, the texture of the film stocks, and just everything about it.

So I was like in a cinematic dream making this movie about making a movie.

But it's also about just the how you do cinema.

They're all writers and critics.

You know, it's just the culture that birthed these films.

- Truffaut is a character, Chabrol is a character, Melville is a character, Rossini is a character.

- Yeah, they're all there.

- They're all there.

And it's a scene.

It's a world that you created.

- Yeah, no, it was unbelievable to recreate that world.

We built the "Cahiers du Cinema" offices and Rossellini's in town from Italy.

And he's giving a talk and the whole, you know, Agnes Varda and Jacque Demy are there, Jean Rouch, all the other filmmakers from the new Nouvelle Vague are there too.

And we were just on set.

They all look like them because we cast very specifically people who look like them.

And we were just like, my script supervisor, Sammy, she came over to me and was like, "Why am I so emotional?"

Like, yeah, they're all here.

Not one of them is still alive, these people.

And they were all there, and they were just happy to be together.

I was like, this movie's a seance, you know, we brought them all back.

- [Evan] Brought them all back from the dead.

- Yeah, and they were there, and was just talking about film and love of cinema.

It was really moving to everybody.

- And the thing about this film and this moment is that it is a pivotal moment - Yeah.

- in the history of cinema, in that it is really the kind of launch point for this type of film.

It is Godard's first full length film.

- There's a film revolution going on within this film.

- Jean-Paul Belmondo who is a lead character in this film, the actor Aubry Dullin who plays Belmondo is terrific.

He goes on to be a big international star after this film.

- Sure.

- I mean, so much happens as a consequence of "Breathless" being made.

- Yeah, it's such an influential film.

But at this moment, it's a 20-day shoot.

They don't have much money.

They don't have an art department, sound department, costume department, no casting.

- Famously, they don't have a script.

- They don't have a script.

He's driving everybody crazy.

I mean, nobody save one maybe who would think the film would even make any sense.

- Right, and it ends up being a massively influential film.

- Yeah, it's maybe a happy accident.

I just think Godard did, you know, he just conjured up, he just created the conditions where lightning could strike.

I think Seberg and Belmondo have a lot to do with that, but it's just kind of a magical film.

And the more I know it, you know, because making a film about making a film in Paris, it's well documented.

You know, we a lot of archive.

The camera you see in the film shooting the film is the camera that shot "Breathless."

You know, we got that from an archive.

It still works.

- It's a faithful telling of the story - It's so faithful.

- in that sense.

I mean, let me say again, Zoey Deutch, Aubry Dullin who play Jean Seberg and Jean-Paul Belmondo are gorgeous.

- [Richard] Yeah.

- Like, the sight of them in this film.

Well, in fact, there's a point in the film where I remember the crew says to the cameraman, I think, "Will this shot work?"

- "Will this work?"

- And the cameraman says, "It's a good thing that the camera loves these two."

- "Loves these two."

- And the camera does love them.

So there were two lines in this film that stuck with me.

And it gets back to this idea of being a cinephile.

And it really gets back to you, even though you didn't write this.

One was, "Art is not a pastime, it's a priesthood."

That is a line from this film.

That's actually a line from Cocteau, isn't it?

Yeah, he says it in Truffaut's ear at the "400 Blows" premiere.

- Indeed, and so I actually- - [Richard] Which we recreated.

- And sort of as I thought about that line, I thought, well, you know, for you, I'm now projecting onto you, it is really a priesthood.

Movie making is really a priesthood.

It's something you're devoted to.

You don't take this as, you know, work.

- No.

- Or it's not just like a hobby or an advocation.

This for you is kind of in your bloodstream at this point.

- Yeah, it was a long time ago.

I really realized at age 22, I was kind of all in on cinema.

And I've been that way ever since.

It's been a real blessing.

I can channel my whole life through it, but I realized I had to kind of dedicate everything to it.

- But the switch did not flip at 22.

I mean, when you were younger, you were interested enough in this stuff I have to believe.

- Well, I was a writer.

I was an aspiring, you know, novelist as a teenager, and then playwright around college age, and then discovered cinema.

And once I did that, there was no looking back.

And then, yeah, I put it all out there.

I was like, okay, I'd saved up money working offshore.

I'm gonna move to Austin, watch a bunch of movies and just start making movies.

And I didn't really have a plan B to my life.

And, you know, out of that grew the Film Society.

I just dedicated my life to film.

I didn't know where it would land.

I definitely wanted to be a writer.

- You knew the direction you were heading.

- Yeah, yeah.

I wanted to make films, but a lot of people want that.

- What'd your family say about this?

- I had a tough decade.

My twenties was kind of like, "Well, what are you doing?"

- [Evan] Yeah.

- And I'm like, "I'm watching a lot of movies."

(audience chuckles) "I'm thinking about getting back in school."

Well, I don't know, I'm kind of ahead of myself.

I, you know, took a few classes at ACC.

So yeah, "I'm back in school."

"Okay, good.

You might make it after all."

And then it was, I don't know.

My mom was always supportive.

My dad would never, I got lucky.

My parents, my dad was like, well, it was just advice.

You know, like thoughtful advice.

But I'm like- - Gave you space.

- Yeah, cautiously supportive.

- Well, that's the second line in the movie that I took away from "Nouvelle Vague."

And that is, and I believe it's Godard who says this, the Godard character in the film says, you know, "When I told my parents I had to make movies, it was like saying I wanted to be a composer to someone who hadn't heard music."

- Yeah.

- Right?

- Yeah.

- And I suspect that for a lot of us, the choices that we make, if we go back a generation and try to explain the motivation, it sort of rams up against a wall.

There's no picture.

- Many artists, particularly if you're not from an arts cultural capital like Huntsville, Texas, even Houston, Texas.

I mean, it wasn't on the curriculum, you know, what you're gonna do for a living day, making films was never.

- That's never the subject.

- Doing anything in the arts was you just, it just wasn't a practical thing to aspire to.

So you say it kind of cautiously to people knowing they're rolling their eyes at you or something.

But I was all in, you know?

I'm kind of grateful now I didn't have a lot of, you know, I have friends who grew up in LA in the business.

The person across the street is Hitchcock's editor.

Oh, your uncle writes scripts, you know, like in the biz.

I'm kind of grateful I didn't have that at all.

I felt I was inventing it myself.

I didn't know anybody.

I didn't, you know- - But, Rick, one of the differentiating features about your career, we have talked about this somewhat before, is that once you became this guy, you then stayed here.

Like, the choice was there for you having become this guy to leave, and you chose to stay, and you are instrumental.

I mean, we both, I'm sure marked very sadly, the passing of Robert Redford a few weeks ago, - Obviously, yeah.

- who was responsible for so much of the independent film culture that we have - Hugely.

- been around for so long.

But in a way similar to Redford, you made a decision to stay and to build a film culture.

40 years now, the Austin Film Society - Yeah, Film Study, 40 years.

- has been in business and has been promoting as the slogan goes, "Making, watching, and loving film."

- Yeah.

- And continues to do that.

And that to me is just an extraordinary accomplishment and achievement that you don't get nearly enough credit for.

- Oh, well, it's the world I wanted for myself and anyone else who wanted, you know, the community, Austin.

We were successful from the jump.

We started showing films at midnight at the old Dobie Theater.

A lot of people showed up, and it was kinda like, oh, Austin, you know, it's unique.

- There are other people like me.

- We can show these weird, yeah.

And so that culture just built and built over the years.

I mean, total nonprofit, there was no money in it.

But it was a good example of, if you just want to live a good life and make something happen, you can, if you don't need to make any money at it.

- Pretty amazing.

(audience chuckles) - Yeah, you can have a cool life.

You just don't expect to get paid for it.

But that's my lesson.

And, you know, follow that passion and attract others and, you know, kind of got lucky.

We got grant money, we still do.

We got support.

So if you're doing something that's worthwhile, the world will kind of let you know it.

- Yeah, and these two pieces of your life, the making films and the supporting the culture of film have been on a parallel track for all of these years.

- In my world, they're intertwined.

I mean, I'm more proud of what the Film Society's done than anything I've done.

I mean, just because- - Well, "Boyhood's" pretty good too.

- Well, but I don't know.

Yeah, I don't, I'm just proud of the community aspect of the Film Society and what you can do.

I mean, I understand Robert Redford.

He wasn't doing that, there's a selfish aspect too, believe it or not, because it's a world you wanna live in.

Redford want to live in a world of storytelling and artistic talent.

- So you create that world.

- It's like, I wanna live in a cinephile world where people love movies and everybody's around, and yeah, a lot of people wanna live in that world.

So anything you can do to help that, yeah.

- We've got just a couple minutes left.

We started with art about art.

I want to end with art about art.

The film that you're making next.

Although next is, speaking of art, a term of art in this case, is the film version of the musical "Merrily We Roll Along," which is itself a version of a play from many years prior.

You are shooting this film over 20 years.

This is like "Boyhood" plus eight.

- Yeah, that's the math, yeah.

- I mean, it's Paul Mescal and Ben Platt and- - Beanie Feldstein.

- Beanie Feldstein.

- Is Lin?

- Lin is in it.

- Lin-Manuel Miranda is in it.

20 years, Rick.

(audience chuckles) - Well, we're about a third of the way through.

So we're rolling along, you know?

- I'll be able to watch this in the rest home.

Is that basically the point?

- I might be directing from the rest home.

I don't know, if I'm lucky.

- What is the theory, we have two minutes.

What's the theory of the case here?

- It's just storytelling.

That's the story.

- And it's a film about a Broadway producer who leaves his friends and his community and goes out to Hollywood.

That's the original story.

- It's a portrait of a long-term friendship, these people in their early twenties.

It starts in 1957 and ends in '76.

But the trick here is it's told backwards.

- Told in reverse chronology.

- Yeah, so we've already shot the ending, and we're just working our way.

So we shoot it in order, but it's in reverse order.

So it's really nine segments.

But anyway, it's hard to talk about since it's in progress.

- [Evan] Understood.

- Who knows the future.

But it's really fun to get together.

And unlike "Boyhood," that was so much from my own life, and I could work on a script every year.

This, we have a good roadmap, that beautiful Sondheim music in the story.

John Marc Sherman and I are kind of, you know, adapting it every year for film.

- And this one, unlike the two that we're talking about today, is one that you are actually writing.

- Yeah, I don't take any credit for that.

We're just adapting it.

You know, it's not a big thing.

- But it's a Rick project work eventually.

- Well, yeah.

And it's just storytelling.

Like, what doesn't work on the stage so well I think, and Sondheim agreed, you know, he was very supportive and loved the idea, because he is a real film buff.

He liked the ideas.

He's like, oh yeah, whatever problems, the stage thing, the film version kind of eliminates some of those, but.

- So the likelihood is we will see this in... - 2039-40, something like that.

- [Evan] Okay, good.

Great.

- Hey, time goes by, you know?

- No, it's good.

- It gets you there.

- When the time comes, you'll hobble on stage with a walker.

- Fine.

- And I'll have like two big ear things so I can hear you, you know, and we'll have a conversation about that.

- "Boyhood," you talked about that a couple times.

That was 12 years, but this coming year, it's been 12 years since that came out.

- Since "Boyhood."

- Yeah, so 12 years goes by- - Ellar Coltrane's now in the rest home basically.

Rick, we're out of time.

It is never not fun to talk to you.

- Oh, always great.

Thanks for having me.

- Congratulations on all your good success.

Richard Linklater, give him a hand.

- Thanks guys.

(audience applauds) - [Evan] We'd love to have you join us in the studio.

Visit our website at austinpbs.org/overheard to find invitations to interviews, Q&As with our audience and guests, and an archive of past episodes.

- There's nothing special about I think autobiographical versus a story you totally love.

But, you know, you gotta put yourself in it.

I don't make a distinction, so, but I think that's what the Nouvelle Vague taught everybody.

You know, you can make personal films.

It was the notion of make a film about your childhood, make a film about a love affair, make a film about a trip.

It wasn't everything that had to be some big genre.

- Funding for "Overheard with Evan Smith" comes from HillCo Partners, a Texas government affairs consultancy.

Claire and Carl Stuart.

Christine and Philip Dial.

Eller Group, specializing in crisis management, litigation, and public affairs communication.

EllerGroup.com.

Diane Land and Steve Adler.

And Karey and Chris Oddo.

(gentle music)