Before Sunrise

Do you have any idea

what they were arguing about?

Do you speak English?

Yeah.

No. I'm sorry,

my German is not very good.

Have you heard that

as couples age...

...they lose their ability

to hear each other?

No.

Supposedly, men lose their ability

to hear high-pitched sounds...

...and women lose hearing

in the low end.

I guess they nullify each other.

I guess. Nature's way of allowing

couples to grow old together...

...without killing each other.

What are you reading?

Oh, yeah.

How about you?

I was thinking about going

to the lounge car.

- Would you like to come with me?

- Yeah.

Okay.

How do you speak such good English?

I went to school for a summer

in Los Angeles.

- It's fine here?

- Yeah, this is good.

And I spent some time in London.

- Wow.

- How do you speak such good English?

Me? I'm American.

- You're American? Are you sure?

- Yeah.

No, I'm joking.

I knew you were American.

And you don't speak

any other language, right?

Yeah, yeah.

I get it, I get it.

I'm the crude, dumb,

vulgar American...

...who doesn't speak other languages,

who has no culture. But I tried.

I took French in high school.

When I first got to Paris...

...I stood in line

at the metro station.

I was practicing.

Whatever.

And I get up there,

and I look at this woman...

...and my mind goes blank. And I say,

"I need a ticket to get to... "

So anyway...

So where are you headed?

Well, back to Paris.

- My classes start next week.

- You're still in school? Where?

La Sorbonne. You know?

Sure.

You're coming from Budapest?

- I was visiting my grandmother.

- Oh. How is she?

She's okay.

- She's all right?

- She's fine.

- How about you? Where are you going?

- I'm going to Vienna.

Vienna?

What's there?

No idea.

I'm flying out of there tomorrow.

You're on holiday?

I don't really know what I'm on.

You know?

I've just been traveling around,

riding trains for two or three weeks.

You were visiting friends

or just on your own?

I had a friend in Madrid, but...

- Madrid, that's nice.

- I got a Eurail pass...

...is what I did.

That's great.

So has this trip around Europe

been good for you?

Yeah, sure. It's been...

It sucked.

What?

It's had its...

I'll tell you, sitting for weeks on end

looking out the window...

...has actually been kind of great.

What do you mean?

Well, you know, for instance...

...you have ideas that you

ordinarily wouldn't have.

- What kind of ideas?

- Want to hear one?

- Tell me.

- All right.

I have this idea, okay,

for a television show.

Some friends of mine

are cable-access producers.

Do you know what that is?

Anybody can produce a show real cheap,

and they have to put it on.

I have this idea for a show that lasts

What you do is you get...

...365 people from cities

all over the world...

...to do these 24-hour documents

of real time.

Capturing life as it's lived.

You know, it would start with a guy

waking up in the morning...

...and taking the long shower...

...eating a little breakfast,

making a little coffee...

...reading the paper...

Wait. All those mundane,

boring things...

...everybody has to do every day

of their f***ing life?

I was going to say,

"The poetry of day-to-day life. "

You say it your way.

I'll say it my way.

- Think of it like this...

- Who's gonna watch?

Think about it like this. Why is it

that a dog sleeping in the sun...

...is so beautiful?

It is. It's beautiful.

But a guy taking money

from a bank machine...

...looks like a complete moron?

So it's like a National Geographic

program, but on people.

Yeah.

What do you think?

Yeah, I can see it.

Like, 24 boring hours... Sorry...

...and a three-minute sex scene

where he falls asleep right after.

Yeah, and that would

be a great episode.

People would talk about that episode.

You and your friends could

do one in Paris if you wanted.

I don't know. The key, the thing

that haunts me is the distribution.

Getting these tapes from town to town

so it would play continuously.

Because it would have to play all

the time, or it just wouldn't work.

Thank you.

Thanks.

You know what?

Not service oriented.

Just an observation about Europe.

My parents never really

spoke of the possibility...

...of my falling in love or

getting married or having children.

Even as a little girl...

...they wanted me to think as

a future career as a, you know...

...interior designer or lawyer

or something like that.

I'd say to my dad,

"I want to be a writer. "

And he'd say, "Journalist. "

I'd say I wanted to have a refuge for

stray cats. He'd say, "Veterinarian. "

I'd say I wanted to be an actress.

He'd say, "TV newscaster. "

It was this constant conversion

of my fanciful ambition into these...

...practical moneymaking ventures.

I had a good bullshit detector

when I was a kid.

I always knew

when they were lying to me.

By high school, I was dead set...

...on listening to what everybody

thought I should do with my life...

...and doing the opposite.

Nobody was ever mean about it.

I just could never get very excited...

...about other people's ambitions

for my life.

But you know what?

If your parents never...

...fully contradict you about anything

and are nice and supportive...

Right.

...it makes it even harder

to officially complain.

Even when they're wrong,

it's this passive-aggressive sh*t.

You know what I mean?

I hate it.

I really hate it.

Well, you know, despite all that

kind of bullshit...

...that comes along with it...

...I remember childhood as...

...this magical time.

I do. I remember when my mother

first told me about death.

My great-grandmother had died, and my

family had visited them in Florida.

I was about 3, 31/2 years old.

Anyway, I was in

the back yard playing...

...and my sister had just taught me

how to take the garden hose...

...and do it in such a way that...

...it sprayed into the sun

and would make a rainbow.

And so I was doing that...

...and through the mist,

I could see my grandmother.

And she was just standing there,

smiling at me.

And I held it there for a long time...

...and I looked at her.

And then finally, I let go

of the nozzle, you know?

And then I dropped the hose...

...and she disappeared.

And so I run back inside

and tell my parents.

And they sit me down

and give me this big rap on how...

...when people die, you never see

them again, and how I'd imagined it.

But I knew what I'd seen.

I was glad I saw that.

I've never seen anything

like that since. But I don't know.

It just kind of let me know

how ambiguous everything was.

Even death.

You're lucky you can have

this attitude toward death.

I think I'm afraid of death

I swear. I mean, that's why

I'm in a train right now.

I could've flown to Paris,

but I'm scared.

- Oh, come on.

- I can't help it.

I know the statistics say,

"Na, na, na, it's safer. " Whatever.

When I'm in a plane,

I can see the explosion.

I can see me falling

through the clouds.

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