Script To Screen: “Before Midnight”
The final scene in the 2013 movie Before Midnight, written by Richard Linklater & Julie Delpy & Ethan Hawke, characters by Richard Linklater & Kim Krizan.
Plot Summary: We meet Jesse and Celine nine years on in Greece. Almost two decades have passed since their first meeting on that train bound for Vienna.
If you have seen the movie and want to compare the script to the movie scene, click More. If you have not seen the movie, go right now to your VOD or buy the DVD. It’s definitely worth watching. But don’t click More because you don’t want to spoil the ending.
Jesse scoots his chair closer to her.JESSE
Yeah. Okay.
(looks around, lowers
his voice)
Yeah, it's like financial tips,
horoscopes, boring stuff. Okay, here
it is... P.S. By the way, the best
sex of my life happened one night in
the SouthernPeloponnese. Don't
miss it. My whole sexual being went
to a new, ground-breaking level.CELINE
Ground-breaking. Great.JESSE
Yeah, I don't know what that means.CELINE
Okay, Jesse, can you stop this stupid
game? We're not in one of your
stories. Okay? Did you hear what I
said to you back in the room? Did
you hear me?JESSE
Yes, I heard you - that you don't
love me anymore. I figured you didn't
mean it but if you did, then fuck
it. You know something? You're
just like the little girls and
everybody else - you want to live in
some fairy tale. I'm just trying to
make things better here. I tell you
I love you unconditionally, I tell
you that you're beautiful, I tell
you that your ass looks great when
you're 80. I'm trying to make you
laugh. I put up with plenty of your
shit, and if you think I'm just some
dog who's gonna keep coming back
then, you're wrong. But if you want
true love - this is it. This is real
life. It's not perfect, but it's real.
And if you can't see it, then you're
blind, alright? I give up.Jesse crumples up the napkin/letter he was reading from and
tosses it on the table. What follows is a lengthy silent
sequence where they just sort of stare at each other,
seemingly going through everything past and present.CELINE
So what about this time machine?JESSE
What do you mean?CELINE
How does it work?JESSE
Well... it's complicated.CELINE
Am I going to have to get naked to
operate it?Jesse's mood shifts, and the camera starts to slowly pull
away from them as they continue talking.JESSE
Yeah, actually. Yeah, it's been a
real issue, you know, clothes don't
travel well through the whole space-
time continuum.CELINE
(bimbo voice)
Wow. You're so smart.JESSE
Oh, Jesus.CELINE
Space-time...?JESSE
Continuum.CELINE
'Continuum.'JESSE
Yeah.CELINE
Wow.JESSE
You know, there's something I have
been thinking about, about your
letter. You mention something about
the southern Peloponesse? We're in
the southern Peloponesse.CELINE
Yeah?JESSE
Do you think it could be tonight
that you're still talking about in
your 80s?CELINE
Well, it must have been one hell of
a night we're about to have.The camera has now pulled far away and the conversation has
become inaudible. We leave them as just another couple
sitting and talking at a table on a beautiful night on the
coast of Greece.FADE OUT
The scene from the movie:
Many people think that Delpy and Hawke improvise most of their lines of dialogue. This excerpt squashes that idea in a big way. In fact, they work out the dialogue down to the word beforehand in the script. And you have to love this moment — What follows is a lengthy silent sequence where they just sort of stare at each other, seemingly going through everything past and present — in the film version.
Such a wonderful trilogy of films.
One of the single best things you can do to learn the craft of screenwriting is to read the script while watching the movie. After all a screenplay is a blueprint to make a movie and it’s that magic of what happens between printed page and final print that can inform how you approach writing scenes. That is the purpose of Script to Screen, a weekly series on GITS where we analyze a memorable movie scene and the script pages that inspired it.
Comment Archive