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Flirting with Linklater’s Flirts

by Margaret Meehan

Movie still from Before Sunrise. A young man looks at a young woman nervously, both standing in a record listening booth.

Romance movies tend to rush the divulging conversations shared in a growing intimacy, what follows initial quick glances and the accidental touching of hands that snap back. Filmmakers only have a couple hours, ninety or so pages of script, to tell us the whole story. After the meet-cute, the volume of conversation dims as the music picks up (“You Make My Dreams Come True”). Maybe a montage cues, they walk through record stores laughing (at what, we'll never know), they dance and drunkenly stumble into bed together.

When I saw Before Sunrise, I was glad to finally watch the nitty-gritty of flirtation. The film’s love-birds meet on a train across Europe; Céline (Julie Delpy) reads a novella of sexual fetishes and Jesse (Ethan Hawke) flips through a memoir titled All I Need is Love. Both in the mood, apparently. They trade glances, Jesse leans across the aisle and asks if Céline knows what the nearby couple is fighting about. She isn’t sure, but did he know that as couples get older they lose their ability to hear each other? 

So begins the meandering conversations of the Before trilogy: sunrise before sunset before midnight. When the train reaches Jesse’s stop, Vienna, they both want to keep talking, so Céline gets off with him. They spend the afternoon and evening wandering around the city flirting, storytelling… unlike the couple on the train, they are engrossed listeners, eyes sparkling with novelty. They share their current preoccupations: Céline ruminates on her fear of death, how to love; Jesse on writing, fidelity. They are overwhelmingly endearing, earnest, and it’s easy to fall for the philosophical flâneurs. I did on first watch, third-wheeling their date.

"They are overwhelmingly endearing, earnest, and it’s easy to fall for the philosophical flâneurs. I did on first watch, third-wheeling their date."

As their connection grows, Jesse and Céline reference the fighting couple from the train as an anchor, a reminder of love’s thorns. They agree to never become like that, so the only option is to not meet again, “...no delusions.” If they were to continue, one day they inevitably would not be able to hear one another either. They feel the heavy weight of the idea that life “…is just this series of momentary connections” but they are willing to accept their separate paths. If art is purposiveness without purpose, so, they hope, goes their romance. Curiosity without a goal. Anyway, Céline assures, if you have a meaningful experience with someone else, they are with you forever in a way. Yet, like a ninety-page script, a flirtation is a partial reveal of what else is there beneath a neat presentation. Could they leave it at that one night?

Before Sunrise had finally depicted the sweet dialogue of falling on screen, and I adored it. But on repeated viewings, some of the charm had worn off, and I resigned myself to the impossibility of repeating the exact magic of a first date, of hearing the story for the first time. Flirting can be a wearying pedagogy, a self-reflexive crafting of our unique story, telling this is who I am. Like when Céline reveals her concern that she is perceived as overly intellectual; seems a bit self-satisfied, no? Regardless, the flame between the film and I had simply dimmed. I’d watched the subsequent features, peeked into their futures, and I knew where the relationship was going. Flirting with the film, like between the wandering couple, is about maintaining the tension between having and not-having.

Movie still from Before Sunset. A woman embraces a man in a courtyard.

Céline and Jesse’s delusion to have no delusions doesn’t last, and they meet again. Thinking of love’s temporal pull, Saint Augustine wrote that there is no moment still enough to fully rest in: each moment both holds you together and pulls you apart. The song you sing is held together by the notes you’ve sung before and anticipation of the ones to come, each receding as soon as it is revealed. So it is for the night spent together in Vienna, the anticipation for the end comes quickly, and the couple doesn’t want to let each other go, flirting is not quite enough. In pursuing, love or otherwise, we inevitably stretch across time.

"In pursuing, love or otherwise, we inevitably stretch across time."

Fittingly, the following two films stretch over 20-ish years, providing first a window into the day they unite again in Paris, and then their marriage. Céline says, in the first film, “...if there’s some magic in this world, it must be in the attempt of understanding someone else, sharing something, even if it’s impossible to succeed.” They take the risk of love, of not only carrying forward a compacted version of each other as told in a long walk around Vienna.

And so, do they inevitably become the couple on their first train? Mark Twain said that a great place to end a story is with a marriage; seduction is over, the tension is released, no more flirting. Céline and Jesse wonder over love’s finitude. The most recent addition, Before Midnight, gives a window into the 40-something’s married life.

Movie still from Before Midnight. The back of a couple sitting by the water, watching the sunset disappear over the horizon.

Jesse and Céline are in Greece, and Jesse has become an occasionally insufferable famous writer. They have a huge fight, Céline admits love lost, she’s tired of Jesse’s predictability. Their resolution comes by role-playing their first meeting and faking a clean slate. Jesse says, “I’d love to buy you a drink, maybe talk to you, get to know you a little bit.” At first, Céline refuses to play along, but with a deep sigh agrees. They detach from their reality, and temporarily forget about the second story beneath all flirtation, about their having, their history, their children.

They agree, for a moment even, to pretend. My heart strings pull a bit. Regarding flirting, Joni Mitchell asks, “Are you gonna let me go there by myself?” No no, I’ll play along; watching is agreeing to a contract as well, suspending time. The trilogy ends on Jesse and Céline’s resolution, even if it’s a temporary one. Years before, Nina Simone’s “Just in Time” ends their encounter in Before Sunset, delightfully happy to be together at last. More than flirting, the song admits a vulnerability and a receptivity in romance, which both stretches us into a newly planned future and back, a rewriting, just as film performs a sculpting in time. Not me wiping my eyes, charmed again. 

Romance movies tend to rush the divulging conversations shared in a growing intimacy, what follows initial quick glances and the accidental touching of hands that snap back. Filmmakers only have a couple hours, ninety or so pages of script, to tell us the whole story. After the meet-cute, the volume of conversation dims as the music picks up (“You Make My Dreams Come True”). Maybe a montage cues, they walk through record stores laughing (at what, we'll never know), they dance and drunkenly stumble into bed together.

When I saw Before Sunrise, I was glad to finally watch the nitty-gritty of flirtation. The film’s love-birds meet on a train across Europe; Céline (Julie Delpy) reads a novella of sexual fetishes and Jesse (Ethan Hawke) flips through a memoir titled All I Need is Love. Both in the mood, apparently. They trade glances, Jesse leans across the aisle and asks if Céline knows what the nearby couple is fighting about. She isn’t sure, but did he know that as couples get older they lose their ability to hear each other? 

So begins the meandering conversations of the Before trilogy: sunrise before sunset before midnight. When the train reaches Jesse’s stop, Vienna, they both want to keep talking, so Céline gets off with him. They spend the afternoon and evening wandering around the city flirting, storytelling… unlike the couple on the train, they are engrossed listeners, eyes sparkling with novelty. They share their current preoccupations: Céline ruminates on her fear of death, how to love; Jesse on writing, fidelity. They are overwhelmingly endearing, earnest, and it’s easy to fall for the philosophical flâneurs. I did on first watch, third-wheeling their date.

"They are overwhelmingly endearing, earnest, and it’s easy to fall for the philosophical flâneurs. I did on first watch, third-wheeling their date."

As their connection grows, Jesse and Céline reference the fighting couple from the train as an anchor, a reminder of love’s thorns. They agree to never become like that, so the only option is to not meet again, “...no delusions.” If they were to continue, one day they inevitably would not be able to hear one another either. They feel the heavy weight of the idea that life “…is just this series of momentary connections” but they are willing to accept their separate paths. If art is purposiveness without purpose, so, they hope, goes their romance. Curiosity without a goal. Anyway, Céline assures, if you have a meaningful experience with someone else, they are with you forever in a way. Yet, like a ninety-page script, a flirtation is a partial reveal of what else is there beneath a neat presentation. Could they leave it at that one night?

Before Sunrise had finally depicted the sweet dialogue of falling on screen, and I adored it. But on repeated viewings, some of the charm had worn off, and I resigned myself to the impossibility of repeating the exact magic of a first date, of hearing the story for the first time. Flirting can be a wearying pedagogy, a self-reflexive crafting of our unique story, telling this is who I am. Like when Céline reveals her concern that she is perceived as overly intellectual; seems a bit self-satisfied, no? Regardless, the flame between the film and I had simply dimmed. I’d watched the subsequent features, peeked into their futures, and I knew where the relationship was going. Flirting with the film, like between the wandering couple, is about maintaining the tension between having and not-having.

Movie still from Before Sunset. A woman embraces a man in a courtyard.

Céline and Jesse’s delusion to have no delusions doesn’t last, and they meet again. Thinking of love’s temporal pull, Saint Augustine wrote that there is no moment still enough to fully rest in: each moment both holds you together and pulls you apart. The song you sing is held together by the notes you’ve sung before and anticipation of the ones to come, each receding as soon as it is revealed. So it is for the night spent together in Vienna, the anticipation for the end comes quickly, and the couple doesn’t want to let each other go, flirting is not quite enough. In pursuing, love or otherwise, we inevitably stretch across time.

"In pursuing, love or otherwise, we inevitably stretch across time."

Fittingly, the following two films stretch over 20-ish years, providing first a window into the day they unite again in Paris, and then their marriage. Céline says, in the first film, “...if there’s some magic in this world, it must be in the attempt of understanding someone else, sharing something, even if it’s impossible to succeed.” They take the risk of love, of not only carrying forward a compacted version of each other as told in a long walk around Vienna.

And so, do they inevitably become the couple on their first train? Mark Twain said that a great place to end a story is with a marriage; seduction is over, the tension is released, no more flirting. Céline and Jesse wonder over love’s finitude. The most recent addition, Before Midnight, gives a window into the 40-something’s married life.

Movie still from Before Midnight. The back of a couple sitting by the water, watching the sunset disappear over the horizon.

Jesse and Céline are in Greece, and Jesse has become an occasionally insufferable famous writer. They have a huge fight, Céline admits love lost, she’s tired of Jesse’s predictability. Their resolution comes by role-playing their first meeting and faking a clean slate. Jesse says, “I’d love to buy you a drink, maybe talk to you, get to know you a little bit.” At first, Céline refuses to play along, but with a deep sigh agrees. They detach from their reality, and temporarily forget about the second story beneath all flirtation, about their having, their history, their children.

They agree, for a moment even, to pretend. My heart strings pull a bit. Regarding flirting, Joni Mitchell asks, “Are you gonna let me go there by myself?” No no, I’ll play along; watching is agreeing to a contract as well, suspending time. The trilogy ends on Jesse and Céline’s resolution, even if it’s a temporary one. Years before, Nina Simone’s “Just in Time” ends their encounter in Before Sunset, delightfully happy to be together at last. More than flirting, the song admits a vulnerability and a receptivity in romance, which both stretches us into a newly planned future and back, a rewriting, just as film performs a sculpting in time. Not me wiping my eyes, charmed again.