Before Sunrise

Interesting Notes and Facts about Before Sunrise

Before Sunrise was inspired by a real-life encounter that director Richard Linklater had. In the fall of 1989 he was visiting his sister in Philadelphia and met a woman named Amy Lehrhaupt in a toy store. The two spent the evening walking around the city from midnight until 6am in the morning. Linklater says they did kiss and exchange phone numbers, but the distance between them caused it to eventually fizzle out.
Linklater learned just a few years ago that Lehrhaupt was killed in a motorcycle accident on May 9, 1994, only weeks before Before Sunrise started filming.
Before Sunrise had a budget of $2.5 million, while its sequel Before Sunset had a budget of only $2 million.
Linklater considered a number of different cities for the film including Philadelphia and San Antonio. Part of the reason Vienna was chosen was because of the availability of film subsidies.
Linklater on casting for the movie: "Casting was the single most crucial thing to the movie. I'd met Julie first and she always stayed in my mind. But when she read with Ethan in New York, I said, `Yes, she's it!' I had seen Ethan and thought, `He seems kind of young.' But then I saw him in person and in a play, and I got to talking to him. He was skeptical at first - he is very emotional that way. He had to feel his way into it. It's not something an artist like Ethan can jump right into."
Linklater on Ethan Hawke's look for the film: "That's his own black leather jacket. And we had to cut his hair. It was too long, just too grunge. We were either going to cut the beard and leave the hair or shave the beard and leave the hair. . . ."
Hawke and Delpy were first flown to Linklater's hometown of Austin, TX where they spent three 14-hour days "just talking about life and getting a starting point," according to Linklater. A month later, the three flew to Vienna for three weeks of intense rehearsals before shooting began, and the rehearsals continued long after. Linklater says, "The night before the last day of the shoot we were up to one o'clock rehearsing and rewriting things."
Many improvisations were made during filming, although they occurred during rehearsals only. At one point they needed a cafe scene, and the scene that Linklater wrote was all wrong. Delpy suggested the fake phone call. "It was something she used to do with her girlfriends" says Linklater.
Linklater on the difficulty of the shoot: "I think these were two of the hardest roles anyone could ever have, but I'm not sure anyone will appreciate it. I told Ethan and Julie early on that they would work really hard and then the best thing anyone could say is 'you looked like you were just playing yourself.'"
Julie Delpy on her role: "It's nothing dramatically intense. It's just two people falling in love. But I'm used to doing films where I have to express strong emotions like hate and anger. It's actually more difficult to express mild feelings then it is to scream or cry." She also recalls the experience as "one of the happiest shoots of my life."
Linklater tried to shoot the scenes in sequence as much as possible, even if it meant going back to the same location a second time. This helped the actors. According to Ethan Hawke, "You always had to remember, 'How many hours have we known each other now?' and try to figure out what kind of conversation you would have after 15 minutes versus three hours versus ten hours."
Ethan Hawke has said that Before Sunrise was "one of my favorite filmmaking experiences ever. I walked away from that movie feeling empowered and excited about movies and art in general. I was meeting Rick [Linklater] at a really important time in my life and meeting Julie who was this intense and passionate woman. It gave me the confidence to go out and publish my first novel, The Hottest State, which I probably wouldn't have done if it hadn't been for that film."
When it came to shooting the scene on the ferris wheel, where Celine and Jesse first kiss, Delpy complained that Hawke "kisses like an adolescent." In an interview with Time magazine, the actor remembered it as "one of my worst experiences on a film set." But Delpy's remark was worked into the screenplay and became a memorable line in a later scene.
The trailer has three clips in it that do not appear in the movie. There is a shot of Jesse and Celine in a tramcar (:50), and two shots of them at the amusement park firing toy rifles and throwing balls (1:01 and 1:03).
Both Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy contributed to the writing although their work is uncredited.
The two actors in the play about a cow really were two actors in a play about a cow.
Isn't it odd that Jesse and Celine don't formally introduce themselves until after they exit the train?
The Ferris wheel in which Jesse and Celine share their first kiss is called the Wiener Reisenrad, one of the most famous symbols of Vienna. It was constructed in 1897 and has appeared in several other movies including The Third Man, Scorpio and The Living Daylights.
Strangely, throughout the entire scene the Ferris wheel doesn’t move at all.
The Kleines Café (where the scene with the palm reader takes place) happens to be owned by the angry husband who appears on the train at the beginning of the film.
After Jesse playfully kicks Celine, she says "Ow!" and then "Riducule" which is French for ridiculous.
In the scene where Jesse and Celine play pinball, director Richard Linklater makes a cameo. He is briefly seen playing fussball (table football).
Jesse promises the bartender to send him the money for the red wine, yet he never gets the bar’s address from him.
Isn't it amazing how many people Jesse and Celine run into who just happen to speak English?
Movie Mistake: When Jesse is talking with Celine on the train and says "I had a friend in Madrid", he's got his hands clasped in front of him. Then the camera cuts to Celine, and in this shot his hand is suddenly outstretched and holding a salt shaker.
We don't see Jesse and Celine make love in the park, but the morning after scene makes it pretty clear that they did. Celine is wearing her black dress but not the white shirt that was underneath it. Of course, the only way she could have removed it is if she had taken off the dress as well. Also, Celine looks quite vulnerable during the dance to the harpsichord, another indicator that they made love.
Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy never had any doubt that Jesse and Celine would keep their December 16^th reunion date. Of course, they would change their minds years later when they decided to do a sequel.
Jesse and Celine appear in the 2001 animated movie Waking Life in a four-minute scene in which the two are lying in bed together and talking about reincarnation and other topics similar to what was talked about in Before Sunrise. Given that the movie is about lucid dreaming and that Before Sunset reveals that the two don't see each other again until 9 years after the first film, this scene is considered to have never taken place. One possible interpretation is that this is Jesse's dream. In Before Sunset, Jesse says that he had dreams over the years in which he was lying in bed beside Celine.
In the third movie of the trilogy, Before Midnight, Celine says that she let Jesse win when they were playing pinball.
In the park during the evening, Jesse says that Celine would eventually tire of him if they were always together. The next morning, Celine tells him he's wrong. Before Midnight reveals that Jesse was correct.