Julie Delpy on the best scene in ‘Before Sunrise’: “I almost fell in love”
Before dating apps and social media, people used to meet organically in bookshops, bars and trains, with chance encounters and serendipitous moments that reaffirmed our faith in relationships entirely. Films from the past remind us of this lost art, whether it be It Happened One Night, Bringin’ Up Baby or even La La Land, with the characters’ paths naturally crossing before falling madly in love.
However, there is one film that most beautifully captures the all-consuming highs and thrills of a blossoming romantic connection, with Richard Linklater’s 1995 film Before Sunrise being a siren call to hopeless romantics everywhere through the relationship between Celine and Jesse.
Starring Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke, Before Sunrise was the first instalment in what eventually became a trilogy that spanned over 30 years, spanning the lifetime of one relationship and the way that love evolves over time. While the first film follows the beginning of their connection as young people, the last film follows the reality of marriage and the toll that it takes on them many years later, with Linklater offering a sobering portrait of commitment and monogamy without the usual rose-tinted Hollywood glaze.
While the trilogy adds a poignant perspective on love and the way it shifts over the years to the cinematic landscape, many people are most fond of the first film in the trilogy, perhaps as a way of pulling the wool over our eyes and pretending that the issues in the last movie do not exist.
Each film is marked by long and naturalistic conversations in which the characters walk and talk, something that is made even more thrilling in Before Sunrise due to the sexual tension and chemistry between two characters who have not yet acted on their romantic feelings for each other, something that is beautifully encapsulated during the listening booth scene.
The listening booth scene happens fairly early in the film, with both characters visiting a record shop and listening to a piece of music together in a booth. They both steal shy glances at each other and pretend to not be looking at the other, unable to help themselves from smiling regardless. It perfectly captures those early feelings when you have a crush on someone and every minute in their presence feels endlessly exciting, with Delpy discussing the process of filming this scene and how equally thrilling it was in real life.
When describing the filming of the scene, Delpy said, “That was really special. It was like magic. Each time I felt Ethan looking away, I would look at him and vie versa. I almost fell in love with him right there, but then Rick said cut”. If anyone could make two people fall in love through a movie with would be Linklater, with both actors having so much chemistry between them that it feels had to imagine that they weren’t a real life couple.
But much to our misery, Jesse and Celine only exist in a fictional world, and while we like might to imagine that they were still out there and somehow making their marriage work, who knows what the reality might be if the team were ever to unite for a fourth film. Regardless, it makes us believe in love and serendipity, with Linklater creating the most timeless and fleeting love story of all time.
