For a filmmaker once synonymous with slackerdom, Richard Linklater has proven to be one of the most prodigious and consistently excellent American filmmakers. A small but rich vein of the two dozen features he’s made have been portraits of artists, including “Me and Orson Welles” and, if you like, “School of Rock.”

This fall brings two more, one set at the dawn of a great career ( “Nouvelle Vague,” about Jean-Luc Godard and the birth of the French New Wave) and another on the cusp of its tragic end: “Blue Moon,” about lyricist Lorenz Hart. Both are, in their way, joyous celebrations of brilliant, stubbornly uncompromising creative visionaries. And both are a grand time at the movies.

“Blue Moon,” the first to arrive of the two, is one of the more sheerly delightful movies of the year. It

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