Post-Truth in Before Midnight: No Confessions, No Denials
Ever since I first watched Before Sunrise in the mid-1990s, I’ve been enthralled with the existential and romantic journey of the characters of Jesse and Céline (portrayed by Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, respectively) in what has since become the Before Sunrise trilogy. Over the course of three films spaced at nine-year intervals, in a perhaps intentional parallel to the Dante’s La Vita Nuova, we get three brief glimpses into Jesse’s and Céline’s life, from their first meeting on a train in Europe in Before Sunrise, to their rediscovery of each other after a nine-year gap in Before Sunset, to the struggles they face as their relationship has matured and developed in Before Midnight.
One thing that has always stood out about Jesse’s and Céline’s relationship is their sheer honesty with each other, as though they naturally reveal each other’s inner natures and make unconcealment their very purpose and project and reason for being, their raison d’être, together. In Before Sunrise and Before Sunset, Jesse and Céline unmask each other, revealing their inner selves to each other in ways they seem unable to do with anyone else. Yet, the striking difference between the first two films in the Before Sunrise trilogy and the third film is that, in Before Midnight, Jesse and Céline have begun to put up walls and wear masks in ways they had not previously done with each other. After nine years of being an actual couple, the differences between Jesse and Céline, and their possible incompatibilities, have become more evident, and they both have their own reasons to be resentful of each other by that point in their relationship.
My favorite scene from Before Midnight is the scene of peak tension, the climax of the film, when things between Jesse and Céline are nearly at their breaking point because of the pent-up resentment for each other that both of them have been keeping buried inside themselves. Consider the following two snippets of dialogue between Jesse and Céline:
Céline: You know something? The way you write, people come up to me and think I make love to some wildcat Henry Miller type. Ha! You like to have sex the exact same way every time.
Jesse: Hmm. When you’ve got, you’ve got it.
Céline: Kissy, kissy. Tittie, tittie. Pussy. (Mocks snoring.)
Jesse: I’m a man of simple pleasures.
Céline: Yeah, very simple, and I’ve been meaning to tell you that lately. You’re no Henry Miller, on any level. And you know what? This room gives me the creeps. I was expecting something quaint like the real Greece.
Jesse: This place is pretty real.
Céline: What the hell are we doing here anyway? This is all too planned, like we’re supposed to have this great evening. There’s no room for spontaneity; it’s all gone from our lives. And this is stupid and it’s not working.
Jesse: Okay, obviously.
Céline: Yeah, and I curse Ariadni and that perv Stefanos for doing this. Okay, a couple’s massage? What the fuck is that? That sounds sleazy to me.
Jesse: We don’t have to do it! Okay? Come on, this place isn’t so bad. I like hotel rooms. I think they’re sexy.
Céline: I know you do, Mr. Book-Tour—Mr. Radisson-Hilton. And I know that time when you were doing that reading in Washington, when your cell phone supposedly broke that night. How convenient. Swear on our kids you didn’t fuck that lady from the bookstore, Emily. Swear to me you didn’t fuck that Emily girl. And I’m not jealous because I’m not the jealous type. But I just wanna know. Okay? Be a man and admit the truth.
Jesse: I am giving you my whole life, okay? I’ve got nothing larger to give. I’m not giving it to anybody else. if you’re looking for permission to disqualify me, I’m not gonna give it to you. Okay? I love you. And I am not in conflict about it. Okay? But if what you want is, like, a laundry list of all the things about you that piss me off, I could give it to you.
Céline: Yeah, I want to hear.
Jesse: Olay. Well, uh, let’s start at number one, okay? Number one, you’re fucking nuts. Alright? You are. Good luck finding somebody else to put up with your shit for more than, like, six months, okay? But I accept the whole package, the crazy and the brilliant, alright? I know you’re not gonna change, and I don’t want you to. It’s called accepting you for being you.
Céline: Yeah, okay. I asked you a question—if, while I was carrying that double stroller down the stairs and getting ass-raped in Pigalle, you fucked that little Emily Brontë girl.
Jesse: Look, I don’t know what Emily. What Emily? What are you even talking about?
Céline: The one that wrote the nice emails about Dostoyevsky. “Oh, Jesse, you’re so right. The Grand Commander is the deepest passage of all of Russian literature.”
Jesse: If you’re asking me if I’m committed to you, the girls, and the life we built together, the answer is a resounding yes.
Céline: So you did fuck her. Thank you very much.
Jesse: Do I ever ask you about the time you went to visit your old boyfriend after his mother died? No. You wanna know why? Because I know the way that your fucking French ass works, and I guarantee that you at least blew that guy. But I also know that you love me. Alright? And I’m okay with you being a complicated human being. I don’t wanna live a boring life whereto people own each other, where two people are institutionalized in a box that others created, because that is a bunch of stifling bullshit!
(Céline leaves the hotel room and slams the door behind her, then opens the door and comes back inside.)
Céline: You know what’s going on here? It’s simple. I don’t think I love you anymore.
(Céline leaves once again.)
Naturally, Jesse and Céline reconcile by the end of the film shortly thereafter. Interestingly enough, though, they never return to the subject of their respective infidelities—no confessions, no denials. We never learn if Jesse did, in fact, fuck Emily from the bookstore, and we never learn if Céline did, in fact, at least give her old boyfriend a blowjob. Does it even matter? Perhaps we simply reach a point in life that is beyond the truth or falsity of past events, “Beyond Good and Evil” as Friedrich Nietzsche might have said.
Before Midnight thus represents a different kind of transparency for Jesse and Céline than they had in the first two films. The truth to be found in Jesse and Céline’s life together isn’t now a matter of pulling back the veils to reveal the truth of all things. The truth of their lives and their love for each other lies in the very fact of its concealment, that they love each other so much that it simply doesn’t matter anymore who fucked whom when or why or how.
By the end of the film Jesse and Céline haven’t bared their souls and revealed all truths to each other, no grand confessions, apologies, or professions of past or future fidelity. Instead they simply agree to have the greatest night of sex in their lives, as foretold by a hypothetical letter from future 82-year-old Céline to her younger self:
(Jesse joins Céline sitting down at a cafe table outside the hotel.)
Jesse: Miss?
Céline: I don’t wanna talk right now.
Jesse: Are you here by yourself? Are you waiting for somebody?
Céline: Yeah. I’m by myself and happy to be. I’m an angry person and I hurt my kids, my work, and everyone I love.
Jesse: Well, just my type.
Céline: Okay, I’m not in the mood. I came here to be alone.
Jesse: Listen, I’ve just been checking you out from across the cafe, and I don’t want to make you uncomfortable, but you are, by far, the best-looking woman in this place.
Céline: Thank you very much.
Jesse: Yeah, you know, it’s just, I’d love to buy you a drink, maybe talk to you, get to know you a little bit. You know? Are you here one business? I mean, are you here on business? (Jesse pauses.) Okay, I see. You have a boyfriend?
Céline: Not anymore.
Jesse: Jeez, sorry to hear that. God, you wanna talk about it?
Céline: No, I don’t talk to strangers.
Jesse: Well, that’s the thing, I’m not a stranger. No, no, no, we’ve met before.
Céline: Oh.
Jesse: Summer, ‘94.
Céline: You’re mistaking me for someone else.
Jesse: No. We even fell in love.
Céline: Really?
Jesse: Mm-hm.
Céline: Hmm. I vaguely remember someone sweet and romantic, who made me feel like I wasn’t alone anymore, someone who had respect for who I was.
Jesse: That’s me. I’m that guy.
Céline: I don’t think so.
Jesse: Oh. See, I know something about tonight that you don’t know.
Céline: Really? What is that?
Jesse: Something important. You see, I know because I’ve actually already lived through this night.
Céline: How?
Jesse: I’m a time traveler.
Céline: Okay.
Jesse: No, I have a time machine up in my room, and I—I’ve come to save you just like I said I would.
Céline: Save me from what?
Jesse: To save you from being blinded by the little bullshit of life.
Céline: It’s not bullshit.
Jesse: I assure you, that guy you vaguely remember, the sweet romantic one you met on a train? This is me.
Céline: That’s you?
Jesse: Yeah.
Céline: Guess I didn't recognize you.
Jesse: Hm.
Céline: You look like shit.
(Jesse laughs.)
Jesse: Well, what can I say? I mean, it’s tough out there in time and space. You, on the other hand, are even more beautiful than I remember.
Céline: Bullshit. Jesse, this is not a game. You get all cute, you get in my panties, and next thing I know I’m buying peanut butter in Chicago. You’re not gonna make it better by some little pickup line.
Jesse: I’m not trying to pick you up. No, no, you misunderstand me. No, no, no, I’m only here as a messenger. I’ve just traveled all the way from the future. I was just with your 82-year-old self, who gave me a letter to read to you. So here I am.
Céline: I’m still alive in my 80s?
Jesse: Oh, yeah.
Céline: Mm-hm. How’s my French ass?
Jesse: Nice!
Céline: Okay.
Jesse: Really nice.
Céline: Mmm, I don’t care about the way I look.
Jesse: Let’s just say there’s more of you to love.
Céline: Okay, great.
Jesse: Okay, do you want me to read it to you?
Céline: Do I have a choice?
Jesse: Oh, sure, I mean, if you’re not interested in what you had to say—
Céline: No, no, no. Read it.
Jesse: Okay. Alright. Well, here it is: “Dear Céline, I am writing to you from the other side of the woods. This letter is lighting a candle that will—”
Céline: Okay, stop it. I would never write this. Too flowery. “Other side of the woods”? What fucking woods? What are you talking about?
Jesse: May I please continue?
Céline: Okay.
Jesse: I am sending you this young man. Yes, young. And he will be your escort. God knows he has many problems and has struggled his whole life, connecting and being present, even with those he loves the most. And for that he is deeply sorry. But you are his only hope. Céline, my advice to you is this: You’re entering the best years of your life. Looking back from where I sit now, these middle years are only a little bit more difficult than when you were 12 and Mathieu and Vanessa danced all night to The Bee Gees’ How Deep Is Your Love.” I don’t know anything about that. Anyway. “Céline, you will be fine. Your girls will grow up to become examples and icons of feminism.”
Céline: Nice one.
Jesse: Yeah, well, anyway, you know what I just noticed? That there’s a postscript at the bottom—looks kind of important. Maybe I should skip over some of this—kind of boring.
Céline: Yeah, skip away, please, skip away.
Jesse: You sure?
Céline: Yeah.
Jesse: Yeah, okay.
Céline: Boring stuff.
Jesse: Yeah, okay, yeah, it’s like, blah, blah, blah, financial tips, some horoscope stuff. Okay, here it is: “P.S. By the way, the best—” Oh. “By the way, the best sex of my life happened one night in the southern Peloponnese. Don’t miss it. My whole sexual being went to a new, groundbreaking level.”
Céline: Groundbreaking, great.
Jesse: yeah, I don’t know what that means.
Céline: 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. What, that you don’t love me anymore? I figured you didn’t mean it, but if you did, then, uh—oh, fuck it. You know something? You’re just like the little girls and everybody else. You wanna live inside some fairy tale. Alright? I’m just trying to make things better here, alright? I tell you that I love you unconditionally, and I tell you that you’re beautiful. I tell you that your ass looks great when you’re 80. Huh? I’m trying to make you laugh.
Céline: Okay.
Jesse: Alright? I put up with plenty of your shit. And if you think I’m just some dog who’s just gonna keep coming back, then you’re wrong. But if you want true love, then 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 bling, alright, and I give up.
(Jesse sighs.)
Jesse: Oh, God.
(Céline sighs.)
Céline: So what about this time machine?
Jesse: What do you mean?
Céline: How does it work?
Jesse: Well, it’s complicated.
Céline: Am I gonna have to get naked to operate it? I mean….
Jesse: Uh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s actually—it’s been a real issue, you know? I mean, I don’t—Clothes, they just don’t travel well through the whole space-time continuum. It’s….
(Céline looks at Jesse adoringly and speaks in breathy voice.)
Céline: Wow, you’re so smart.
(Jesse laughs.)
Jesse: Oh, jeez.
Céline: Space-time?
Jesse: Continuum.
Céline: Con-tin-u-um.
Jesse: Yeah, yeah. You know, there’s something that I’ve been thinking about, about your letter.
Céline: Yeah?
Jesse: You know, you, uh—you mentioned the Southern Peloponnese?
(Céline nods.)
Jesse: Yeah, yeah, and uh—we’re in the southern Peloponnese.
Céline: Mm-hm.
Jesse: Yeah, and do you think it could be tonight that you’re still talking about in your 80s?
Céline: Well, it must have been one hell of a night we’re about to have.
Is it possible to get to a point in life, or in a relationship, where the truth of the matter just doesn’t matter anymore? The Before Sunrise trilogy is a truly postmodern film series, not because of its narrative structure, which is surprisingly traditional, even Aristiotelian, but because of its post-truth worldview—the view that what we want and what we choose are more important than the truth of things, even things that are seemingly germane to the relationship in question and the issue at hand.
Philosophers and historians tend to emphasize the importance of truth at all costs, except perhaps utilitarians who are willing to make a faustian deal to bury the truth at times for the sake of the greater good. Perhaps Jesse and Céline are merely utilitarians at heart in that sense, overlooking who wronged whom and who fucked whom for the sake of their own overall happiness and their communal wellbeing as a couple. But perhaps this wisdom merely comes with age, something that only an older Jesse and Céline and not their younger selves could ever see, namely that being happy is as much a choice as it is a consequence of the present states of affairs—any kind of affairs, even the kind we commonly associate with infidelity.
Just as Jesse and Céline don’t truly want or need the answers from each other that they already know, whether about the Emily girl or about Céline’s old boyfriend, they still choose each other and proceed to fuck their problems away together into the night like the true lovers they are, presumably giving each other the greatest sex of their lives that one night in the southern Peloponnese as foretold in Jesse’s letter, a true testament to our human ability to write our own destinies and to write the stories of our own lives with the literary drama and the climaxes—dramatic, sexual or otherwise—that they truly deserve.
Where to Watch Before Midnight:
The Before Sunrise Trilogy:
