#804) Before Sunrise (1995)

#804) Before Sunrise (1995)

OR “Lovers and Other Strangers on a Train”

Directed by Richard Linklater

Written by Linklater & Kim Krizan

Class of 2025

The Plot: While on a train traveling through Austria, American Jesse (Ethan Hawke) strikes up a conversation with French Céline (Julie Delpy). The two have an instant rapport, and Jesse convinces Céline to get off the train with him upon its arrival in Vienna. Over the course of a day, the two walk around Vienna, learning about each other and having deep conversations about love, pain, gender, death, and everything in between. With Jesse’s pending flight back to America in the morning, how deep will their newfound relationship go…before sunrise?

Why It Matters: The NFR write-up is mostly a salute to Linklater and “[h]is innovative use of time as a defining and recurring cinematic tool”. The film gets a shout-out as “one of cinema’s most sustained explorations of love and the passage of time”.

But Does It Really?: Richard Linklater is one of those filmmakers who should have multiple entries on the NFR, and “Before Sunrise” is a good choice. I had never seen “Before Sunrise” prior to its NFR induction, and overall I enjoyed its lowkey vibe and the chemistry between Delpy and Hawke. Above all, “Before Sunrise” made me nostalgic for the impulsivity of your early 20s when you know everything and can go anywhere, a feeling this movie captures perfectly. As another standout in Linklater’s filmography, and the first in a surprise trilogy, “Before Sunrise” earns its NFR status.

Everybody Gets One: Linklater spent nine months trying to cast his two main characters before finding Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke. Julie Delpy was born in Paris to artistic parents and began acting at a young age in such films as “Europa Europa” and Krzystof Kieślowski’s “Three Colours” trilogy. Ethan Hawke also started off as a child actor in Joe Dante’s “Explorers”, and was initially reluctant to pursue an acting career until his supporting turn in “Dead Poets Society” led to more acting opportunities. Both actors were segueing into more adult roles when “Before Sunrise” came their way. Fun Fact: Because I had to put this somewhere, Ethan Hawke directed the music video for Lisa Loeb’s “Stay (I Missed You)”. It’s incredibly random until you learn that Loeb was a member of Hawke’s Malaparte theater company in the 1990s.

Wow, That’s Dated: I imagine this whole movie would have been quite different if both Jesse and Céline had smart phones. If nothing else, they could exchange contact information quickly and/or stalk each other on social media.

Seriously, Oscars?: No Oscar nominations, but “Before Sunrise” received an MTV Movie Award nomination for Best Kiss, losing to Jim Carrey and Lauren Holly for “Dumb and Dumber”. Both “Before” sequels received Oscar nominations for their screenplays.

Other notes

When we last saw Richard Linklater on this blog he was coming off the cult success of “Slacker”. After his next movie, 1993’s “Dazed and Confused” (which should be on the NFR, right?), Linklater wanted to base a movie on a night he spent in 1989 wandering the streets of Philadelphia with a woman he had just met. Knowing his script needed a strong female perspective, Linklater hired Kim Krizan (an actor in his previous films) to co-write the screenplay, despite her never having written a script before. Krizan had had a similar romantic experience years earlier while riding trains across Europe, and the final script was an amalgamation of these two stories. Claims that Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy re-wrote all of their dialogue has been disputed by Krizan, though let the record show that both actors receive screenwriting credits on the sequels.
Jesse’s idea for a cable access show that follows people around is basically “The Truman Show” on a global scale. Are you listening, Peter Weir?
My first takeaway from this movie’s train scenes is that the film is a more focused version of “Slacker”. It’s still a series of philosophical vignettes like “Slacker” was, but now each vignette centers around the same two characters, allowing us to delve deeper and care more about these characters.

Is this what people think backpacking through Europe looks like?
I get where the screenplay authorship questions come into play, because this all sounds very natural. As far as I know, everything in this film was scripted, down to the pauses and the overlapping dialogue. This is a Cassavetes-level of natural film acting, easily the hardest type to pull off, and Hawke and Delpy do it with ease.
Linklater very quickly applies an important filmmaking rule: If you’re going to have a lot of talking scenes, stage them with a lot of movement. Whether it’s on a train or a trolley car or just two characters walking, the background is always changing, which helps keep things visually interesting as all these philosophical ideas get tossed around.

I was wondering if Jesse and Céline were going to take the “Sound of Music” tour, but then I remembered that’s Salzburg, not Vienna, so never mind.
As the author of a film blog it is my duty to point out that the ferris wheel Jesse and Céline ride on is the Wiener Risenrad, the same one from “The Third Man”. Do with that information what you will.
Jesse and Céline take in a game of pinball while discussing their past relationships. This begs the question: Why pinball? This is the most important conversation they’ve had up to this point, and you’re practically muting it with pinball? That’s a choice.
Céline’s American “dude” accent made me laugh. No further observation, just an amusing moment as this movie rounds the corner into its third act.

The other thing this movie makes me nostalgic for is the kind of deep late night conversations you have with friends. Good times.
I’m glad that after all this talk Jesse and Céline are finally entertaining the notion of hooking up. That was driving me nuts the whole movie: they’re in their early 20s, they’re in Europe, and they’ve shared plenty of emotional intimacy. How are they not getting it on like rabbits?
[Spoilers] Aaaaugh that ending. After much hesitation, Jesse and Céline agree to meet at the train station in six months’ time without exchanging information. It’s equal parts romantic and frustrating. Imagine seeing this in 1995 and leaving the ending at this without knowing that there will one day be sequels. On a more positive note: This may be the last movie to feature a tearful farewell at a train station, a cinematic mainstay of the ‘40s and ‘50s. I assume it was replaced by “dramatically running through the airport”.

Legacy

“Before Sunrise” premiered at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival, just a few days before its general release. The film was a modest hit, and went over like gangbusters with critics (it currently holds a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes), and found continued success over the next few years thanks to home video and TV airings.
While there was no overwhelming demand for a sequel from audiences, Linklater and his two lead actors all expressed interest in the idea over the years, culminating in “Sunrise” being the first in a trilogy! 2004’s “Before Sunset” reunites Jesse and Céline nine years after the events of “Sunrise”, and 2013’s “Before Midnight” catches up with them after another nine year time jump, each time examining their evolution as people and their relationship with each other.

Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy cameo as Jesse and Céline in Linklater’s animated film “Waking Life”, elaborating on conversations they had in “Before Sunrise”. Where this fits into the continuity of the “Before” films I have no idea.

Richard Linklater’s immediate follow-up to “Before Sunrise” was 1996’s “SubUrbia”, and he has continued cranking out movies for the last 30 years, including several collaborations with Ethan Hawke (“Boyhood”, “Blue Moon”, etc.). Personally, I’m looking forward to Linklater’s most ambitious time concept yet, an adaptation of the Stephen Sondheim musical “Merrily We Roll Along” filmed over the course of 20 years. See you in the early 2040s!