Before Sunset
2004 film
Bill Simmons · Chris Ryan · Sean Fennessey · Mallory Rubin
Aired February 4, 2025
‹ All people
Before Sunset
Before Sunrise
Before Sunrise
Before Sunrise
Before Sunrise
Before Sunrise
Dazed and Confused
Dazed and Confused
Film credit
Richard Linklater
Also referred to as Linklater, Glenn Glader, link later
Stats
- Episodes featuring their films
- 3
- Movies in this archive
- 3
Rewatchables episodes featuring Richard Linklater’s films
Displaying all 3 episodes
Mentioned in discussions
In the discussion (1)
Approx. transcript time · 01:27:45Read transcript
- Delpy is the choice; an imagined fair distribution would give Linklater Sunrise, Delpy Sunset and Hawke Midnight. — Bill Simmons
What’s Aged the Best?
Chemistry; real time; restraint; Sunrise callbacks; mature small talk; New York near-miss; intimate details; bookstores
In the discussion (11)
Approx. transcript time · 00:53:48Read transcript
- The leads’ chemistry and incorporation of personal experiences are praised alongside Linklater’s sustained interest in time. — Mallory Rubin
- Real-time pacing, nine-year gaps and repeated time-travel imagery connect the trilogy with Boyhood and Merrily We Roll Along. — Mallory Rubin
- Not kissing creates extraordinary restraint: the goodbye hug and Nina Simone dance convey longing across physical distance. — Mallory Rubin
- Sunrise callbacks include the cemetery, mental photographs and Celine borrowing Jesse’s thirteen-year-old perspective. — Bill Simmons
- The Notre Dame conversation nearly anticipates the cathedral’s later fire, a sad retrospective coincidence. — Bill Simmons
- Serious work and world-affairs small talk captures early-thirties defenses against the conversation they actually need. — Bill Simmons
- Unknowingly sharing New York with someone important is a believable big-city experience. — Bill Simmons
- Being alone is distinguished from loneliness with a lover, prompting a Neil McCauley comparison. — Bill Simmons
- Celine’s wind-blown blouse and the tiny details of skin, ankles, facial lines and beard color reveal intimate attraction. — Bill Simmons
- The promise to endure unhappiness for every minute with a child, the middle-finger trick and the cat’s performance are appreciated. — Bill Simmons
- Bookstores and international book tours have become less prominent, though the scale of this particular tour is disputed. — Bill Simmons
In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 01:41:53Read transcript
- Richard Linklater is the first proposed winner, while Ethan Hawke is the initial alternative. — Bill Simmons
- The case for Linklater is that Hawke already had Reality Bites while this film creates the trilogy central to Linklater's identity.
- The Hawke-Linklater collaboration is compared with De Niro-Scorsese and Paul Newman-George Roy Hill partnerships. — Sean Fennessey
- The trilogy's crowd-pleasing, formally inventive scope supports the final Linklater choice. — Sean Fennessey
Podcast choices
Just One Oscar
Richard Linklater — direction or shared screenplay
In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 01:37:43Read transcript
- Linklater is the initial answer; directing versus a shared screenplay award is left open.
- The screenplay would recognize the shared authorship discussed by the hosts.
- The next two trilogy films are noted as later screenplay nominees. — Bill Simmons
Scorsese or Spielberg?
Scorsese
In the discussion (4)
Approx. transcript time · 01:29:22Read transcript
- Scorsese is the first answer based on After Hours and its single-night structure. — Sean Fennessey
- Spielberg is considered for the movie's sentimentality and spiritualism.
- The hosts would rather see Scorsese's version because Spielberg's version feels easier to predict. — Bill Simmons
- They acknowledge that substituting either director is difficult because this is quintessential Linklater. — Sean Fennessey
Half-Assed Internet Research
Lead characters’ books; real encounter; Cemetery of the Nameless; San Antonio draft; final train shot; Kath Bloom; Ulysses parallels
In the discussion (9)
Approx. transcript time · 01:18:23Read transcript
- Celine's book is attributed to an author transcribed as George Bastille or Gertr Batea, while Jesse reads Klaus Kinski's memoir All I Need Is Love. — Bill Simmons
- Linklater reportedly based the movie on a 1989 night walking around Philadelphia with a woman whose name is transcribed as Amy Lairthopped. — Bill Simmons
- The woman died in a motorcycle accident before the movie’s release, and Linklater did not learn of her death until 2010. — Bill Simmons
- The cemetery is identified as Vienna's Cemetery of the Nameless. — Bill Simmons
- An early version was set in San Antonio and centered on a film-obsessed man; River Walk is interjected as a joke. — Bill Simmons
- The final train shot had to be synchronized precisely and reportedly succeeded on the planned take. — Bill Simmons
- Kath Bloom's appearance helped produce renewed attention and later album releases. — Bill Simmons
- Before Sunrise and Ulysses both unfold on June 16 during a journey through one city. — Bill Simmons
- Jesse's real name James, graveyard visit, European wandering, and the Kath/Molly Bloom echo are presented as further Ulysses parallels. — Bill Simmons
What’s Aged the Best?
Train settings; Jesse’s conversational bits; Hawke–Linklater collaboration; actor co-writing; Vienna; French-girl archetype; aging-with-the-characters sequels; Cemetery of the Nameless; June 1994 setting; lines about loss and connection
In the discussion (10)
Approx. transcript time · 00:53:35Read transcript
- Train travel and Jesse's rehearsed conversational theories are praised as central pleasures.
- Jesse's childhood story is connected to the later Boyhood, making Hawke and Linklater's collaboration feel continuous. — Chris Ryan
- The European train-pass experience is recommended as an enduring form of travel. — Sean Fennessey
- Casting actors who can write and letting them shape the characters is described as a sophisticated filmmaking method. — Sean Fennessey
- Vienna in summer and the film's French-girl archetype remain appealing.
- Sequels that let characters age in real time are praised as a rare, still potent device. — Bill Simmons
- The Cemetery of the Nameless is praised as an evocative place and idea. — Chris Ryan
- The story's June 16–17, 1994 dates place the farewell on the day of the O. J. Simpson chase, World Cup opener, Knicks-Rockets Game 5, Rangers parade, and Arnold Palmer's final U.S. Open round. — Bill Simmons
- The line about realizing how little an ex thinks about you is singled out as painfully universal. — Bill Simmons
- The film's claim that magic lies in trying to understand another person is treated as its central wisdom. — Sean Fennessey
Most Rewatchable Scene
Listening booth (two choices); first train conversation (one choice)
In the discussion (16)
Approx. transcript time · 00:38:57Read transcript
- The opening argument between an older couple works as a thematic introduction to the series. — Bill Simmons
- The translation reveals that the couple are trading accusations about alcohol and marriage. — Bill Simmons
- Jesse's time-machine pitch persuading Celine to leave the train is praised as smart and funny. — Bill Simmons
- The hosts report that Delpy helped shape a pitch she believed would actually get Celine off the train. — Bill Simmons
- The long one-shot bus conversation about souls is praised both for Jesse's theory and the uninterrupted staging.
- The listening booth is selected as a winner because the wordless scene lets the actors' glances carry the attraction. — Bill Simmons
- Linklater reportedly withheld the song so Hawke and Delpy would hear it for the first time during the take. — Bill Simmons
- The Ferris wheel and amusement-park material, including the kiss, are nominated. — Bill Simmons
- The fortune teller and the question of love versus excelling at one thing are praised.
- The street poet and his poem are nominated as a sweet, effective encounter. — Bill Simmons
- The imaginary phone calls are praised as a charming device that should not work but does.
- Jesse talking the bartender into giving them a bottle of wine is nominated despite practical questions.
- Celine's idea that intimacy grows from knowing another person's habits is highlighted as idealistic wisdom. — Bill Simmons
- The goodbye, park sequence, trains, and empty locations revisited at dawn form another leading ending choice. — Bill Simmons
- The first train conversation is selected for its naturalistic progression from awkwardness to connection. — Sean Fennessey
- The cutaway that leaves sex unresolved, followed by the harpsichord window and imagined photograph, is a smaller final nominee. — Sean Fennessey
In the discussion (6)
Approx. transcript time · 00:35:27Read transcript
- The podcast explicitly states that Roger Ebert gave Before Sunrise three stars. — Bill Simmons
- Ebert calls the story a nicer, sweeter, gentler version of a scenario that has happened millions of times. — Bill Simmons
- Ebert frames the film as a Generation X love affair whose leads stand outside their generation's insistence on boredom. — Bill Simmons
- Ebert describes Julie Delpy as beautiful, warm, and matter-of-fact. — Bill Simmons
- Ebert says Linklater is interested in ordinary time, people crossing paths, conversation, and uncertain philosophies.
- Ebert’s age of 53 prompts discussion of whether an older critic would grasp this Gen X romance; it is said to work for older viewers now. — Sean Fennessey
In the discussion (5)
Approx. transcript time · 01:10:16Read transcript
- The choices offered are Linklater, McConaughey or Martha Washington, who took a big win; Don Dawson is floated and dismissed, since within the story Wooderson won, the way Chevy Chase won Fletch with his name atop the poster and Harrison Ford won Indiana Jones.
- The case for Linklater is that this launched a 25-year career and made him a two-track filmmaker rather than just an experimental director emerging from the indie scene.
- The case against McConaughey is that his career cratered in the early 2000s into bad Wooderson-impersonation rom-coms, as one host's 2001 movie-quotes column had jabbed, before the McConaissance.
- Linklater is one of the nine most important directors since 1990; this is the first Linklater Rewatchables, and the Before films have been discussed, imagined as the hosts and their wives crying through the five-hour trilogy.
- Linklater is the answer: every film he makes is interesting even when not his best, he has had a great career, and this is a masterpiece that Tarantino has had in his ten best films; alongside Pulp Fiction it emerges from that era as the standalone masterpiece and is the definition of a rewatchable.
Podcast choices
- Speaker not identified
- Richard Linklater
Probably Unanswerable Questions
What was Lee High School's 1976 football record? Did Randy Floyd play? Who did Randy Floyd take to the senior prom? Why didn't Jason London have a bigger career? How good was that Aerosmith concert?
In the discussion (7)
Approx. transcript time · 01:05:19Read transcript
- Lee High School's 1976 record is guessed at 9-3 or 10-3: not going to state, but in the mix after making the tournament in the last week; the program was big enough for a real football coach with coordinators and a player personnel liaison pushing the oath, but not Friday Night Lights-level national emergency stakes.
- Randy Floyd is believed to have played, since he came back; his senior prom date was probably Joey Lauren Adams, unless they broke up over Jodie making a move, though monogamy was fluid and Jodie irresistible; Joey Lauren Adams was so drunk the night she and Parker Posey fell down together that she may never have gotten that information.
- Why Jason London did not have a bigger career: he is a cipher, fine in an important part but not someone you leave wanting to see more of; being great in a high school movie does not translate to playing people in their 20s or 30s, since those parts let you play a type with your own personality without being an antihero, so many John Hughes and Dazed actors never had huge careers.
- A counter: one host's wife loves Randy Pink Floyd, character and actor alike, says she is not alone and did not understand why he lacked a bigger career, and the host adds a call for justice for Pink; in the movie he was a game manager like Ryan Tannehill, never asked to do too much though he is the thread to everyone, after earlier comparisons to Fran Tarkenton and Johnny Manziel.
- Hypotheticals of a better actor as Pink: Mark Wahlberg as a Texas quarterback would have given Randy Pink Floyd an edge in the woods; Leo, in the perfect age range, would have been great but would have overpowered the movie and made it about Pink, and part of the film's perfection is that so many of its actors never went on to sully it with later fame; still, it is argued that it is a better movie with Leo in it and they win if Leo is in it.
- How good was that Aerosmith concert: 1976 was two months after Rocks came out and the band was headed to the Cotton Bowl, so it would have been awesome; research confirmed Aerosmith played Texas three times that year, so Linklater must have checked, and the Back in the Saddle era explains the obsession with tickets.
- 1976 was a top-four music year with many artists at the music version of Apex Mountain, and concerts mattered because they were the only way to see anything; much popular music, like Stevie Wonder and funk, is absent because the setting is Texas; the cars probably had 8-tracks rather than cassettes, which is what the imagined ZZ Top record would have played on.
Apex Mountain
No affirmative selection
In the discussion (3)
Approx. transcript time · 00:55:25Read transcript
- Arguably nobody here is at Apex Mountain unless you say Linklater, but the second Before Sunrise film is considered his peak instead.
- Jason O. Smith is offered as obviously peaking here, as are Michelle Burke, Sean Andrews, Rory Cochran and Wiley Wiggins, but these are not famous people and anyone never seen again does not really count, since Apex Mountain is usually for bigger names.
- It is obviously not McConaughey's peak; Dina Martin, who plays Siobhan (as transcribed), peaked in Swingers, where she is so good a host still has a crush on her.
Displaying discussions 1 - 12 of 15 in total
