a tedious collection of hours

-

Who needs a plot anyway? Who needs plans, our for things to end up how you want them to end up? (Or for a blog month's theme to outlast its novelty... twice.) Changing gears a little today with Before Sunrise.

Jesse's (Ethan Hawke) 24-hour reality show idea has, of course, been surpassed by YouTube and Twitter and Tumblr and Snapchat and Vine and Facebook and whatever else everybody's using...

It amazes me that with the setup of a thing like Boyhood anybody hoped for a plot. Linklater is kind of the anti-plot director. I mean, this Before trilogy, Dazed and Confused, Waking Life, SubUrbia; even Bernie which is based on a true story kinda meanders. Before Sunrise (and its two (so far) sequels) is quite deliberately plotless. It's just two characters wandering around Vienna, talking about anything and everything.

Good mid-90s fun. The epitome of such films actually got the title Walking and Talking. Unlike a lot of these films, Jesse and Celine (Julie Delpy) are not... bored with life. Celine seems to have a fairly good grasp on who she is, in fact. Funnily, after writing that, I read in Roger Ebert's review that he would call this movie, "a "Love Affair" for Generation X, except that Jesse and Celine stand outside their generation, and especially outside its boring insistence on being bored."

For the record, and because I just looked it up, Roger didn't seem to react too negatively to Walking and Talking. "How did I feel at the end of 'Walking and Talking'", he asks. He answers: "The earth didn't shake, and I didn't feel in the presence of great cinema, but I felt cheerful, as if I had gone through some fraught times with good friends and we had emerged intact." Sounds like an amazing cinematic experience to me. He continues, referencing two characters from that film: "And I found myself remembering Bill, the video clerk and Fangoria reader, and wondering how his book is coming along. He's writing the life of Colette." On the one hand, there lies the road to fan fiction--wondering where characters go after the credits roll (or the book ends)--but also, for me, that's entirely normal. That was definitely how I felt after watching Before Sunrise the first time. Nine years later, when Before Sunset came to theaters, I was eager to see it. Another nine years after that, Before Midnight and while I thought the middle of that one dragged a little, I loved its end. And, I loved that characters that weren't action heroes or genius detectives got sequels,, and those sequels actually added a lot to the overall experience.

 

 

 

 

 

(Pardon my silence, but I have realized this movie will probably be a three-day affair, and I'm tracking some stuff as it goes.

But, nevermind that (at least until, say, tomorrow).)

In the meantime, it is worth mentioning just how much of the conversation in this film keeps coming around to death, or at least mortality. Mortality as an excuse for love, I suppose. It is this film as microcosm for life; you have some time, you don't want to be lonely, so you find a friend or a lover or both (or a few of both), and you pass the time together. Still, you die (or get on the train/plane). (I think back on airports where I have said goodbye... Goodbye is a "little death," a darkness that may seem to last forever, until you get to live again.) In the interim, absent loneliness, you get to enjoy things a bit more.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

la fille que j'aimera sera comme bon vin

-
Image
Phil Connors doesn’t speak French. While it might be reasonable to assume Phil does learn to play piano beyond the two songs we hear him play since this is at the point he is actually trying to better himself and affect the world around him in a positive way, the French bit is much earlier. It also comes from a bit in Rubin’s original screenplay, not with Rita but with “Tess Harper—Jefferson County Poetry Society.” Basically, it’s a clear example of Phil doing the same thing he does with Nancy in the movie; he makes stuff up to get what he wants. This is only Day 10 . He hasn’t gotten to the depression that arguably makes him realize he’s an actual human being like everyone else around him… I just realized, this also means he’s probably lying when he says, “Small town people are more real, more down-to-earth.” Later, he might actually believe it. But, at this point, each line is just a move to win over Rita. Anyway, in the original screenplay, Phil meets Tess like he meets Mary in ...
Read more

i've seen it over a hundred times

-
Image
As I write this, it’s Day 2 for Phil Connors on the DVD and my daughters are in the kitchen making a cake to celebrate Day 100 for me... photo should be below. The movie Phil had seen over 100 times (or so he tells Laraine) was Heidi II . It’s a “family classic” according to the Alpine Theater’s marquee. But, as I’ve mentioned before, it doesn’t exist. Originally, the movie that Phil could see every day if he wanted to do so was It’s a Wonderful Life . Danny Rubin’s ego—and this is his suggestion, not mine—made him believe Groundhog Day “a timeless quality and had the potential to become a film that could work for audiences for a very long time.” So, he put another such film on the marquee. But, “even believing that Groundhog Day was a potential classic, [Rubin] never was thinking of comparing it to It’s a Wonderful Life “— (I’d say putting that title on the marquee was Rubin deliberately comparing the two, but maybe that’s just me.) . Rubin continues: “But the similarities bet...
Read more

the wretch, concentred all in self

-
So, Rita thinks Phil’s defining characteristic is his egocentrism. At the point in the story that she quotes Sir Walter Scott, it’s Day 4 for Phil (See the previous entry for a list of Phil’s days) and I wouldn’t argue that he isn’t egocentric. He’s still a jerk, taking advantage of his situation for fun. He’s manipulated Nancy for sex, has gone out on his costumed date to see Heidi II with the woman in the French maid costume. He’s just figured out the whole lack-of-consequences side of things with the help of Ralph and Gus. And, he’s sitting around loading up on, well, probably every dessert the Tip Top Café offers. His focus at this point is very much himself. But, a closer look at the lines Rita quotes got me to thinking, is Phil the man unsung by minstrels because he’s too self-centered? What Rita quotes is some lines from Canto VI of Sir Walter Scott’s “The Lay of the Last Minstrel.” The larger poem involves some clans at war with one another, but this particular section invol...
Read more