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Saturday, Jul 11, 2009
Richard Linklater talks about adult passion and why he, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke know so much more now than they did nine years ago.
Jul 2, 2004 | In 1995, Richard Linklater made "Before Sunrise," a perfectly tuned picture in which Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke played Celine and Jesse, students (from France and the United States, respectively) whose paths cross on a train to Vienna. The two click almost immediately and spend a night wandering the city together, talking about themselves and their feelings about life and the world. The connection they form is one of the rarest sorts -- but, being young, they have no sense of how special it really is. They agree to meet again in Vienna in six months' time.
Until now, fans of "Before Sunrise" -- which did poorly at the box office but flourished on video and DVD -- didn't know if either Celine or Jesse, or both, kept that appointment. Some fans may not have wanted to know: Part of the movie's power lies in its open-endedness. Even so, it's probably safe to say that Linklater's new movie, "Before Sunset," which shows us where the 30-ish Celine and Jesse are today, answers just enough of our questions to satisfy us without draining the romantic mystery from Celine and Jesse's story.
Jesse is now a novelist (he has written an autobiographical novel about his one night with Celine) who feels trapped in an unsatisfying marriage. Celine is living in Paris and working for a humanitarian-aid organization, with a string of boyfriends behind her and her own disappointments.
During a recent trip to New York, Linklater sat down with Salon to discuss the kind of connection Jesse and Celine have, and about how our expectations of ourselves and other people change as we get older -- as well as the miraculousness of having made a sequel to a movie that was never a box-office hit to begin with. (The last half of the interview includes a few vague references to the film's end -- so skip it if you prefer to know absolutely nothing until you've seen the movie for yourself.)
One of the things that's so moving about Jesse and Celine -- particularly the younger Jesse and Celine -- is that they're connecting over things they feel passionately about. On the surface, that connection may seem like a simple thing, but it's really pretty complicated, particularly as a subject for a movie.
We -- Ethan, Julie and I -- have always tried to depict this kind of inexplicable deep connection with someone else. We're never saying there's only one person in the whole world that you can have that connection with. But it is rare. When you're young, you think those connections will keep happening. But often they don't. Your life goes on, and you're less open. Celine talks about it in "Before Sunset." She's settled for less, and it's OK -- it's just not that [same connection].
But then, sometimes when you have that connection, is that good? The chemistry is there, but does that always make for a long-term relationship? That can drive you crazy too -- it can be more volatile and ultimately more hurtful. It's one of the crazy aspects of relations in life.
