Thirty years ago, a film hit multiplexes that helped redefine love onscreen for moviegoers. So much so, in fact, that the history of the modern romantic drama might arguably be best separated into two distinct eras: before Before Sunrise, Richard Linklater’s enchanting cult smash stroll through moonlit Vienna, and after. Today on Script Apart, Richard’s co-writer Kim Krazin reflects on three decades of hearing from strangers about how this simple tale – in which two strangers on a train make a spontaneous decision to get off and wander the streets till dawn together – touched them deeply. 

The film starred Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy as Jesse and Celine – one an American tourist, recovering from a botched trip to Madrid to see his now-ex girlfriend, the other a French student, heading back to Paris to continue her studies after visiting her grandmother. Kim and Richard had worked together before prior to Before Sunrise. Kim appeared as an actor in 1990’s Slacker and 1993’s Dazed and Confused. This time, however, they were co-writers, sequestered together for an intense eleven-day writing sprint, hard at work on a boy-meets-girl story with a difference.

Before Sunrise was to be naturalistic. There would be no melodrama – no conflict for the sake of it. Just conversation, as two people brought together by chance, who live a world apart, forge a connection against the ultimate ticking clock: at sunrise, Jesse has a plane to catch. As their attraction deepens, we’re left to wonder: will they see each other again after their expires, when dawn arrives? As it happens, they would; two sequels, Before Sunset and Before Midnight, later followed, the first of which Kim has a “story by” credit on. But in 1995, as the credits rolled, audiences were famously left in the dark. The film’s brilliant cliffhanger ending – in which the couple decide not to exchange any contact information and instead meet at the same Vienna train station in six months’ time – was being written and rewritten right up until 3am on the last night of filming. 

In the spoiler conversation you’re about to hear, you’ll discover what parts of the movie wouldn’t fly today because of the modern technology that connects us brilliantly, but also robs us of the “romance of chance,” pervading every frame in Before Sunrise. We get into early plans to set the film not in Vienna but in Texas, and everything unlocked by the decision to set the movie abroad. And finally we get into whether or not Jesse in the film invents the concept of social media a good decade or so ahead of time. Hear us out on that one. 

Script Apart is hosted by Al Horner and produced by Kamil Dymek. Follow us on Instagram, or email us on [email protected].

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