By the time Richard Linklater made Before Sunrise (from a screenplay he wrote with Kim Krizan), he was already reasonably well-known for Slacker and Dazed and Confused. In fact, Before Sunrise was the follow-up to Dazed and Confused. For Linklater, it would prove to be an interesting transition. Although both films rely heavily on dialog to reveal both character and plot, and although both films only have the loosest of narratives to begin with, you’re still talking about two movies that differ from one another quite substantially.
Beyond the fact that Before Sunrise wound up beginning a (as of 2013) trilogy, there are a number of interesting elements to this story of two strangers meeting on a train.
For one thing, it represents a tremendous amount of creative risk for Linklater, who chooses in Before Sunrise to put everything on the strength of just two characters interacting with one another. Other people do cross the paths of Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and Céline (Julie Delpy), as they wander the streets of beautiful Vienna. However, it’s pretty much just those two talking for an hour and forty minutes. The bulk of Linklater’s work up to this point preferred to work with a large ensemble. Visiting a universe in a Richard Linklater film meant bouncing around from one character or group to the next. Everyone had their own little stories. When it was all over, you would have something that more or less felt like a rambling-yet-strangely-cohesive story. It worked with both Slacker and Dazed and Confused, because Richard Linklater is a genius at developing believable, instantly engaging characters.
And it works here, even with just two main characters on the landscape. Before Sunrise still has that Linklater quality of wandering a little, shooting the breeze. At the same time, it constantly builds on its two protagonists. We learn a wealth of information about each of them, as they learn about one another, and eventually develop an attraction amongst themselves. The build to that shared attraction is another of the great elements to Before Sunrise. It is beautifully gradual, completely free of dramatics, and absolutely believable.
Even in this age of smartphones, social media, and all the rest, most of us still recognize the value and potential of meeting someone at random in the best way possible. For most of us, there are people out there who can instantly make us feel as though we have been friends (or more) for a long time. After the initial uncertainty and awkwardness, Jesse and Céline fall into something that comes across as effortlessly intimate. That is a testament to not only the screenplay, as well as Linklater’s calm, assured direction.
It is also a testament to the films’ leads. Both Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy were veterans at their craft by this point. Certainly, they understood how crucial their chemistry would be to the success of the film. However, if they were ever worried about it, that doesn’t seem to come through in their confident, moving performances. Both Delpy and Hawke make their shared chemistry look so good on the screen, someone might mistake it for laziness. Or they might think it really was that easy. I don’t think it was either of those things. I just believe that both Delpy and Hawke, under the right circumstances, really are that good.
Before Sunrise is a romantic film. I only mention that because some people have a fairly extreme aversion to anything that might resemble a cinematic love story. I used to have that mindset. By the time I got around to writing about Before Sunrise for a series of essays on Linklater I did for Drunk Monkeys, I had been working to get away from that particular dislike for a couple of years. I’m glad I did. Before Sunrise remains one of the most attractive love stories I have ever seen in a movie. Part of that is because the two leads are so goddamned likable, even when Jesse occasionally makes you want to fucking slap him (good thing I was never that arrogant in my early 20s). Part of that is because Linklater and everyone else involved in the production crafted an exceptionally rare type of love story, particularly for a western film.
Before Sunrise is completely free of pretension. It begins naturally, and it ends on the most realistic note possible. Along the way, everything about the film manages a strange juggling act of being simultaneously magical and grounded. I suppose that juggling act works because those sorts of interactions and conversations happen all the time. It’s just immensely difficult to capture them in a movie. Linklater, Krizan, Delpy, and Hawke all contribute brilliant, vital components to successfully capturing one of those conversations in their own unique way.
None of this amounts to a game-changer kind of film. Before Sunrise never had those aspirations. It simply wanted to suggest the staggering, limitless value of meaningful interaction with other human beings. It is a wonderful success on that front.
Even more impressive is the fact that Linklater, Krizan, Hawke, and Delpy would repeat this trick for the sequels. Spread out over the course of eighteen years, there have been three films in the story of Jesse and Céline. All of them are worth watching on their own terms. Naturally, you should start here. You really couldn’t ask for a better first chapter.
Note: the IMDb Top 250 Cultured Vultures are using is based on the standings from the 16th of November. Inconsistencies may apply.
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