Before Sunrise (1995) and Before Sunset (2004)
... The first movie is about hope
and romantic projection and dreaming, and this one
is about reality, in real time... We want to do a
third movie that's about eroticism, a full on porno...
No, I'm just kidding about that." - Ethan Hawke in
"IFC Rant"
"I certainly don't wait another
nine years if we're going to do sex scenes." - Julie
Delpy in "IFC Rant"
Note: As always it is much better
to see a film before reading about it.
It should come as no surprise that
any film by Richard Linklater should be about the
motion, the passage of time and existential angst,
even if it is a "romantic comedy." Linklater's films,
from the very beginning, have been about these ideas.
The original film in this series, 1995's "Before Sunrise,"
continued these themes already evident in the filmmaker's
work with its literal motion forward in trains, trolleys
and "walking," its leisurely passage of time (taking,
as did his previous films "Slacker" and "Dazed and
Confused," only one day to occur) and its existential
discussions with a decided bent towards male and female
relationships. These themes reappear with equal importance
in the film's sequel, this year's "Before Sunset,"
a film that heightens Linklater's obsession with chronological
matter by existing in real time.
Linklater has always been cinematically
obsessed with trains. His first real feature film,
"It's Impossible to Learn to Plow by Reading Books"
took much time to expose a train trip to the west
from Linklater's beloved Austin, Texas home. It was
there, with his first feature, it seems, that the
filmmaker began his love of using film to provide
an essay on the ever forward moving passage of time
as it is quite possible that nothing could express
this idea more eloquently on film than a train. Locked
in a predetermined path and fueled at a consistent
speed, leisurely paced yet bound by and running on
a controlled schedule, a train can seem a beautiful
metaphor for life. Once on such a vehicle, we are
born into a situation, a life, we cannot fully control.
Our destination, once chosen, is predetermined. The
length of the trip is foreordained as well, leaving
very little choice but to sit back, relax, and enjoy
it as best we can. When Linklater shows us a train
on film, he is showing us "existence." He is showing
us "life."
And while we may get off the train,
like his lovers Jesse and Celine do in "Before Sunrise,"
we are still stuck in the slow movement of time. Notice
that his romantic duo is almost never shown to have
freedom to move at a speed of their choosing in either
film. The modes of transportation for them are all
either scheduled motorized vehicles, like trolleys
and tour boats, or modes they cannot control, like
a chauffeured car. And while they may seem to have
more control of their "tour" (their existence) when
on foot, they are still bound by the limitations of
their own bodies. They rarely run and often find themselves,
seemingly unconsciously, rambling aimlessly around
without destination or appointment. Even when they
stop, to enjoy a coffee at a restaurant or look in
a window, they are surrounded by a world that continues
to move around them. Linklater's films, in this case
on the theme of love, remind us that life is immediate
and now, it moves forward without any options available
for us to stop or pause it, and as such demands that
we exist within it. This idea is perhaps the most
relevant one that should be expressed in a film about
love because the very notion of love insists that
we act upon it now, without hesitation or examination,
lest the "moment," like time itself, be lost forever.
Even the titles of the films themselves
suggest time. These films are building up to something
finite and final. "Before." Something is coming (the
end) that will cause the slow momentum through time
to cease. There is a climax implied here, and it is
more than a culmination of this meeting that we will
presumably never see. "Before Sunrise" ends leading
us to wonder if the two will ever meet again. We are
perhaps at the start of something that will continue
when they do indeed meet again, and our slow delivery
to it is as important as what is to come. Likewise,
with the new film, an even more finite and concrete
ending is implied to be on the horizon. "Sunset" itself
implies "the end" - the end of the day. And "The end
of the day," in Linklater's universe, implies the
end of the film, the end of time, the end of life.
There are only so many moments left before time will
cease, before this forward momentum will cease. We
are existing here, before "IT" happens, whatever "it"
may be. Finally, thank God, at the end of the story,
the end of the new film, there is some control. "You're
going to miss that plane," Celine reminds Jesse. "Yes,
I am," he replies. Finally, they have decided to stop,
to become still. To "live" in the moment. We are finally
at the "now" that for two films we have sensed we
were "before." The climax has been reached, but it
is a choice that only leads to other choices. In "Before
Sunset" Linklater seems to have finally learned, and
is finally telling us, that forward momentum can stop.
We are allowed to make a choice in our journey, in
life. We have choice. We have free will. We have control.
Linklater told us this in "Waking Life." ("If you
want to wake up... then you should just... WAKE UP!)
But here he makes us realize it is truth even more
so. He allows us to see how it relates to us much
more obviously and intimately than ever before.
This idea of "time" as "life" is
present everywhere in Linklater's two films about
love. And it doesn't just flavor the film, the movie
is soaked in it. Linklater's film is drenched in time
passing. It's a theme that continues in all his films,
whether they be about the passage of a single day
-seeming real time - as in "Slacker," "Dazed and Confused,"
"Tape" as well as these two films, his romantic diptych,
or as the complete inability of man to control his
place in time as in "Waking Life." Again, here, time
is so binding that Jesse and Celine end up 80 minutes
later, at the end of the film, exactly where they
would in 80 minutes of "real time."
Even the idea of this sequel itself
presents these themes in its concept of the passage
of time, nine years, between them. Life has gone on;
time has passed. Jesse is older, wiser, less cynical,
more relaxed, less needy. Celine herself has changed,
decidedly in the opposite direction; she is older
and wiser herself, but more world weary, her optimism
tinged with sadness and the nagging doubt that comes
with disappointment and the experience of how life
really works. Time has continued to move on in this
"universe," even in the moments (the years) where
Linklater is not filming.
In fact, Linklater continues to
work on this theme in his films. The writer/director
is said to be working on a film that won't be completed
for several years - perhaps not until he is an old
man, filming a now young actor every few years (something
he plans on continuing for several decades) until
he slowly compiles a film that will be about an entire
life. In non of his films is Linklater's obsession
with the passion of time angst ridden and sad, however,
perhaps because he is still a fairly young man. His
passion seems to be fueled by curiosity and the acceptance
that time is unstoppable. Linklater, in fact, expresses
a real love of the passage of time, a real love of
life itself, with his films. In this way, in a religious
sense, Linklater is a composer of hymns to time, to
love, to life, his films passionate yet still removed
reveries of the passage of time, the stream of life.
This idea, this passion, is furthered
by the existential dialogue in Linklater's most important
and personal films. "Before Sunrise" and its sequel,
like "Slacker" and even more so like "Waking Life,"
are talking pictures. While it would be wrong to say
that there is little here but talk, the verbosity
of the films is the key to what they are at their
core. Jesse and Celine walk, ride, sit and look around
in some of the most beautiful and charming locales
we've ever seen in film, but mostly they talk and
listen. Just as Wiley Wiggins, Linklater's nearly
silent witness in "Waking Life," listens to those
he meets attempting to glean some sort of sense of
himself and the world he exists within, Jesse and
Celine listen intently to one another seeking basically
the same. In their universe, unlike Wiley's, they
are able to somehow latch onto something, each other,
at least for a small moment in time, that helps to
somehow seem to make things more clear. This connection
leads to the experience of a universe of two. Where
Wiley sought God and the meaning of life in "Waking
Life," Celine and Jesse seek each other and hope to
find within their union God and meaning. Perhaps it
is more accurate to suggest that as a single man,
Wiley has several connections in his quest, while
the duo here are seeking a much more monogamous ideal.
(But such is the nature of heterosexual women, and
"Before Sunrise" and its sequel are nothing if not
"chick flicks.")
The importance of women as equals
to Linklater is obvious in his approach to the films.
The first was written with Kim Krizan (a Linklater
collaborator since the "Slacker" days) who obviously
wrote much of Celine's dialogue as a give and take
to Linklater's script for Jesse. This latest work
is more improvised and then scripted by Linklater
and the two actors, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, with
the latter obviously having much control over what
Celine has to say. The beauty of this duo is that
they work as a heterosexual couple while almost never
straying into stereotypical male or female roles.
Hawke is masculine and decidedly male, but he is also
soft, thoughtful, caring, smart, nurturing and open.
Delpy is feminine, caring and giving, but she is also
smart, independent, headstrong, capable and tough.
These two characters embody the best of the human
spirit distilled into a human body with certain physical
gender attributes. As such their true beauty is not
that they fit together physically but that they truly
fit together metaphysically.
There are true scenes of beauty
in these films. I knew I loved the first film when
it began on a train. But truly the most wondrous moment
in the film comes when Hawke and Delpy visit a record
store, find an old Kath Bloom album, steal away to
a cozy listening booth and spend the next two minutes
somehow accidentally avoiding eye contact. The scene
is magical, full of want, desire, trepidation and
hope. In a way, we hope the two can stay in this magic
"if" of a moment, and in a way they do. That scene
is the most important in the entire film. It says
everything we need to know about the characters, their
relationship and the themes of the movie. Trepidation
is important in these films and acts as little silent
pauses in the forward momentum of time made manifest
by the film. This is reprised in the new film comes
when Jesse and Celine share a chauffeured ride and
each, while the other looks away, almost touches their
beloved in a tender moment of sympathy. These are
brilliant and tender moments, popping with emotion,
raw honesty and the warmest affection.
Linklater seems near genius in such
moments throughout the films. The first film has,
as its perfect near climax, a scene where the two
extemporize a phone call to a friend to tell their
feelings for the other in a sequence that allows them
to verbalize their thoughts and feelings in a moment
of truth that works perfectly in film. Playful, honest,
and emotive, the scene is also one of the most charming
moments ever to exist in a romantic comedy.
With "Before Sunrise" and its sequel,
"Before Sunset," Linklater has made a pair of films
that exist perfectly comfortably within his body of
work. These film continue to expose his continuing
existential themes that ask us to question the meaning
of life. Here, he shows us how his work relates to
our lives as well, where love and desire provide the
nexus to make our questioning minds physically manifested
in his delightful and charming lead characters.
Notes:
Both films have sparse dialogue
in other languages (primarily French and German) without
subtitles.
In the sequel Albert Delpy, presumably
Julie's father, has a small cameo.
The first film takes place in Vienna
and the second in Paris. (I'm hoping the third, if
there is one, will be in Austin).
Notice that music only occurs naturally
within the films with the only exceptions (I believe)
being a song over the opening and closing credits.
Delpy sings a song she wrote in the second film on
camera as well as a song over the end credits. A new
song by Kath Bloom appears over the end credits of
the first film.
Nina Simone is a very important
part of the sequel's finale. Her rendition of the
song "Just in Time" is played in the film. Delpy's
impersonation of the singer is perfect in that it
is close but not perfect. Simone is an American performer
who lived in self-imposed exile in Paris until her
death in 2003.
Hawke has stated in interviews that
his dialogue about Jesse's marriage in the second
film was somewhat autobiographical.
Although the actor's receive co-credited
for the script, they insist that the piece was precisely
written and acted, not improvised. The duo also contributed
to the first film's script but their work was uncredited.
An early draft of the script had
the film taking place entirely in a cafe.
Delpy and Hawke portray what is
seemingly the same characters in a small segment in
Linklater's 2001 film "Waking Life." Their dialogue
in that film is consistent with pieces of their conversation
in each of these films regarding the perception of
time and memories.
The original idea for the first
film supposedly came from a night Linklater spent
in Philadelphia with a young lady he had just met
named Amy.
The sequel was shot in only 15 days.
It has been hinted that the next
installment may be a series of short vignettes filmed
over the next few years.
"Before Sunrise" viewed for the
first time on VHS in early July 2004. "Before Sunset"
viewed at the Dobie in Austin just a few days later
with my friend Johnny Oh! (This leaves 1996's "SubUrbia"
as the only Linklater directed film I have not seen.)
