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Structure
Interesting Questions, Facts and Information
- There are a total of 20 general entries.
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 Interesting Questions, Facts, and Information
 Before Sunrise
| Which actors starred in the leading roles of Jesse and Celine? | Before Sunrise
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Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. Hawke plays Jesse, an American travelling round Europe following a break-up; Delpy plays Parisian student Celine.
Hawke and Leonard starred together in the 1989 movie "Dead Poets Society". Julie Delpy has starred in many French movies, most notably in the "Three Colours" trilogy.
on a train. Celine is returning to Paris after visiting her grandmother; Jesse is travelling to Vienna in order to catch a plane home to the US. They strike up a conversation, and when Jesse gets off the train he manages to persuade Celine to join him for a day and night in Vienna before he catches his plane.
Vienna. The film was partly financed by the city of Vienna, and understandably so, as it appears to great advantage: beautiful, intriguing and romantic.
Richard Linklater. Linklater was also responsible for directing "Dazed and Confused", "Slacker" and the 2004 Jack Black movie "School of Rock". Despite the relative lack of box office success enjoyed by "Before Sunset", Linklater and the main actors enjoyed it enough to make a sequel which was released in 2004, titled "Before Sunset".
Linklater also co-wrote the screenplay with Kim Krizan: the script is extremely natural and refreshingly realistic.
| Jesse and Celine visit a graveyard. What is special about many of the graves there? | Before Sunrise
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they are the graves of unknown people. The "Friedhof der Namenlosen" is situated on the outskirts of Vienna, and was used for burials between 1900 and 1940. The name translates as the "Cemetary of the Nameless".
Celine explains that the tumbling, overgrown graves belong to people washed up on the shores of the River Danube. She is particularly affected by the grave of a thirteen year old girl called Elisabeth. Celine explains that when she first saw the grave they had both been children; now Celine is ten years older and Elisabeth is still a child. This poignant scene is a beautifully understated moment, typical of the film as a whole.
| Celine and Jesse wander along the banks of the Danube, where they meet a homeless man. Instead of begging for money, he offers to write a poem specially for them. He asks for a word around which to base his poem. What word to they suggest? | Before Sunrise
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milkshake. The poem, "Delusion Angel" was written for the movie by David Jewell.
The central lines seem to describe Jesse and Celine's relationship perfectly:
"You have no idea where I came from.
We have no idea where we're going.
Lodged in life like branches in a river
flowing downstream
caught in the current..."
in a ferris wheel. There is a beautiful scene in a second-hand record store, where the two characters listen to Kath Bloom's "Come Here" in an old fashioned listening-booth. They keep making brief eye-contact and looking away: the mutual attraction is apparent to the audience but not to Jesse or Celine, and we can surely all identify with their excitement, butterflies and embarrassment during those moments.
Their first kiss, however, does not come until some time later, when they ride in Vienna's famous Riesenrad, the giant Ferris wheel in the Prater. This is a popular part of Vienna where tourists flock to the parks, gardens and funfair rides.
| What do Celine and Jesse do in a restaurant during the evening (apart from eat)? | Before Sunrise
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pretend to phone their friends back home. Jesse initiates this game: they each make a pretend phone call to their friends back home, and explain that they're in Vienna with a total stranger. They indirectly admit the depth of their attraction in a very touching and funny scene.
| At one point during the evening the couple meet a fortune teller who reads Celine's palm. Jesse is rather cynical about the whole thing, although Celine is delighted. Celine is told that she's far from home, that she's a traveller, and that Jesse is a stranger to her - all fairly obvious facts - and that she's becoming a strong and independent woman. What does the fortune teller say about Jesse? | Before Sunrise
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that he's learning. Celine is amused, but Jesse seems rather offended at being so sidelined by the gypsy.
| During most of the film, Jesse and Celine agree that their night in Vienna will be their only time together, and that they will not meet again. Right at the last minute they change their minds, and promise to meet up again. How long do they decide to wait? | Before Sunrise
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six months. Jesse's first suggestion is ten years, but they agree to meet again in Vienna in six months' time, even though it will be the middle of winter. It is left to the audience to decide whether they will meet up or not.
"Before Sunrise" is one of those rare movies where one can feels so strongly about the characters that we really care what happens to them after the credits roll.
The seconds of consciousness when you know you're about to die. Jesse and Celine are talking in the dining car about why Celine took the train from Budapest instead of flying. She says she's afraid of flying because she can picture the explosion, falling through the clouds, and is afraid of those last seconds of consciousness where you know for sure you are going to die.
He took pride in it and saw his life as his own doing. He said that he thought of life as a big party that he wasn't meant to be at, but was 'crashing'.
She's learning. The gypsy tells Jesse he is learning. He's not very impressed.
general of an army. Celine says she feels like a general in an army, plotting her strategy, knowing what would hurt/seduce him, etc.
like an adolescent. In the cafe she pretends to call her friend in Paris and tell her all about Vienna.
Because they're sick of being around themselves. Jesse raises the point that he has never been anywhere where he hasn't been. He's never felt a kiss that he wasn't a part of, never seen a play that he wasn't part of the audience. Then he suggests that maybe people hate themselves because they're always around.
In the spaces between people. This is probably my favourite idea in the movie.
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