The Best Adapted Screenplay category is the lesser exciting of the two screenplay categories because of the lack of competition within the group of nominees, as well as the lack of films to choose from this year in general. The clear frontrunner this year is John Ridley for 12 Years a Slave, a film about a free black man who got sold into slavery for twelve years of his life. This would be a deserved win for the film as it does stand out against the rest of the competition.

I believe the only film here that could potentially upset 12 Years a Slave is Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope for Philomena—which contains its own heart-wrenching story about a woman searching for her son. Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight may have wooed critics, but a nomination from the Academy is likely all the film will receive. The Wolf of Wall Street certainly portrays the wild (drug induced) ride of Jordan Belfort as a wealthy stockbroker who became a main target of the federal government. Though as exciting as it is to watch, the script benefited from the masterful hand of Martin Scorsese and his crew. The same can be said about Captain Phillips, the story is interesting but not necessarily exceptional.

Though it would be a complete long shot for several reasons, including the fact that it is a foreign language film that is rated NC-17, Blue is the Warmest Color deserved to be nominated for its comic book adaption about a woman’s self-discovery and passionate love for another woman. Blue is the Warmest Color is an admittedly simple story, but one that captures all the raw emotions and intimacy that surrounds a loving relationship. Not to mention that it was the best film of 2013.

Category Predictions

Best Adapted Screenplay Nominees

Richard Linklater, Julie Delpy, Ethan Hawke – Before Midnight (review)

Billy Ray – Captain Phillips (review)

Steve Coogan and Jeff Pope – Philomena (review)

John Ridley – 12 Years a Slave (review)

Terence Winter – The Wolf of Wall Street

Previous Category Analysis

Best Shorts
Best Supporting Actress
Best Supporting Actor
Best Original Screenplay

A special preview screening of Richard Linklater’s ambitious new project, Boyhood, has been added to the Sundance 2014 lineup.

The film, also known as the “12 Year Project”, is an unprecedented undertaking: for the past 12 years, Linklater has made one short film a year that follows a boy named Mason (played by Ellar Coltrane), along with his sister Samantha (Lorelei Linklater, the auteur’s daughter), as he navigates the rocky road from boyhood (age 6) to adulthood (age 18).

Coltrane, who began filming in 2000, ages with his character in real time, an idea that, if nothing else, will be visually unlike anything ever seen on film. Playing Coltrane and Linklater’s parents (and aging along with him during the shoot) are Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette. To watch Coltrane physically transform from a tiny tot into a young man within the running time of a feature film, “like timelapse photography of a human being”, as Hawke told The Playlist last year, is a uniquely compelling incentive to keep our eyes on Linklater’s latest.

ABOVE: Linklater in San Francisco, April 2013

This is the auteur’s second project to utilize the real-life passing of time as a storytelling device, following his Before series (whose latest entry, Before Midnight, was my favorite film of 2013), a trio of romance movies separated by 9 years each starring Hawke and Julie Delpy. That series celebrated its 18th birthday last year (a somewhat poetic coincidence). We chatted with Mr. Linklater about the series in an extended interivew last April at the San Francisco International Film Festival.

Linklater has a long-standing relationship with the festival, premiering several of his films there: Before Sunrise (1995), subUrbia 1997, Waking Life (2001), Tape (2001), and Before Midnight (2013).

Boyhood premieres Sunday, January 19th, rounding out the 121 feature-length film lineup. The 2014 Sundance Film Festival runs from January 16th-26th in Park City, Utah.

In Richard Linklater’s Before Sunset (1995), twentysomethings Jesse (Ethan Hawke), a gruffly charming American, and Celine (Julie Delpy), a French beauty with a wily intellect, meet on a train headed to Vienna. They talk…talk…talk the night away, fall in love, and vow to reunite back in Vienna six months later. Cut to nine years later, 2004’s Before Sunset. Jesse and Celine never met in Vienna, but find each other again, this time in Paris. Their adult lives have advanced—Jesse is now married with a son, Hank, and Celine is an environmental activist. Despite being tethered to their new life pursuits, they find their electric attraction is as strong as ever…

…which brings us to Before Midnight, jumping ahead in the story another nine years. The couple—now middle-aged, living in Paris, and with adorable twin daughters—is on holiday in Greece. They’re as loquacious as ever, but their once burning passion is buckling under the weight of mid-life anxiety. Jesse, now divorced, is desperately (guiltily) trying to maintain a meaningful relationship with Hank, who still lives in Chicago with his mom. Jesse proposes to Celine that they move to the states to be closer to the boy, and Celine mistakes this as an order, a blatant disruption of her own life plans. They engage in venomous, cutting verbal warfare over the hypothetical move (hinting at a larger issue of digression), and their contentious energy threatens their future as a family.

The spat unfolds over the course of three acts, the first of which is a single awe-inspiringly long (17 minutes!) shot of the couple chatting on a leisurely drive through sun-baked Greece. Next is a bitterly revealing dinner with friends in which they discuss the nature, joys, and paradoxes of love. The grand finale, set in a seaside hotel room, is an ego-driven, vicious lovers’ quarrel that feels so real it’s scary. They’ve spent years with each other sharpening their skills as verbal pugilists, and now they’ve finally thrown the gloves off. It’s heartbreaking to see the two be so cruel. “I don’t think I love you anymore.” says Celine. The young, playful lovebirds on that train to Vienna feel like a distant, distant memory.

Delpy and Hawke work like a jazz duo, hitting every beat, every note with precision and impeccable timing (this is most impressive in the early 17-minute scene). Their speech patterns and conversational rhythm are startlingly true to life, and the crescendo of their final showdown is paced perfectly. The virtuosity on display is incredible. Linklater’s camera is deliberate and disciplined, filming space without occupying it. He captures the scenes efficiently, with a low shot-count (though he makes every shot count).

Before Midnight is unblemished and smooth-as-silk, flowing from one moment to the next like water. It’s a seamless experience. Linklater, Delpy, and Hawke explore the minutia of long-term commitment through characters with a history we’ve watched develop over years and years. On its own, the film may feel a little mean-spirited, but it works best when viewed in concert with its predecessors. The context of Jesse and Celine’s previous engagements is crucial to enjoyment. This is the definitive Gen-X love story.

The Before films aren’t showy, gimmicky or loud—they’re humble, honest, and true. They weren’t made for the wrong reasons—they didn’t make a ton of money and there are near decade-wide gaps in between them. They’re something of a film industry anomaly. The ballad of Jesse and Celine exists only because three artists wanted to tell a love story in their way, without compromises. Collectively, the films are an unprecedented, 18-year-long, certifiably brilliant work of art that’s a rare gem in the story of cinema. Before Midnight is the best installment in the series, but with luck, this won’t be the last we see of Jesse and Celine. See you in 2022!

In part 2 of our extended, in-depth interview with director Richard Linklater and star Julie Delpy talk about the third film in their Before romance saga, Before Midnight. We discuss the stresses of pulling off Before Midnight’s extra-long-takes, the evolution of the series, the significance of the sun and midnight in the films’ titles, the great Robert Bresson, and more.

Read Part 1 of our interview with Richard Linklater & Julie Delpy

WTI: There are some spectacular long shots in the film, like the early, nearly 17-minute-long shot of Julie and Ethan exchanging dialogue in a car. When you come up with these scenes, are you simply challenging yourself?

RL: Oh yeah, of course. [The three of us] have grown into it. The first movie had a couple lengthy scenes, like the one in the tram which was around seven minutes. In the car scene, I thought it would be great [as a signal to the audience] if we could just hang out in unimpeded cuts, just look freely at them. Just hanging with these people that you haven’t seen in nine years, like running into an old friend—that would be the best feel for the early part of the film.

JD: Just be with them in real time. Something happens in these long takes after we’ve rehearsed for, like, two weeks and learned our lines like crazy people—it’s like playing violin flawlessly. It’s this kind of training—you have to do it over and over and over. We do it by section, then we add [the sections together], then we do it as a whole. It’s a technique of work that’s really, really tedious. We have to learn [the scenes] with the [correct] timing. We even write our overlaps in dialog. We have to really plan in advance. When we finally do it, it has to feel totally flawless. You really have to feel like you’re witnessing these people so the ‘wall’ is not there anymore, you know? (To Richard) What is it called, the fourth wall?

RL: (laughs) Yeah, the third or fourth wall.

WTI: Yeah, one of those. (laughs)

JD: When you do those long takes, as an actor, 90% of the time, it’s really stressful. But, sometimes, you get into that moment where you just…fly.

WTI: Like a band.

RL: Yeah! You’re just in a groove, and that’s what we’re going for.

JD: You actually don’t even remember what you’ve done. Usually with the good takes, it’s like you’ve lost yourself entirely. That takes training and training and training to get there.

RL: No one will ever know how much work goes into that. As we got closer to production, there’s this segue from writing to [Ethan and Julie] having so much dialog.

JD: That’s the horrible part! The horrible part starts!

RL: Then, Ethan and Julie’s faces drop, and they’re like “Aw, fuck! We’ve done it again!” We’d be taking a ride somewhere [before production], and we’d rehearse [in the car].

JD: We’d run lines with each other, with other people. We got the kids involved. [Richard’s] daughter ran lines with Ethan! It becomes a group project.

WTI: Robert Bresson would famously have his actors run their lines over and over, doing countless takes until their performances were just drained of any emotion, totally detached. They were just going through the motions at that point. How do you avoid losing that energy with the amount of times you two had to rehearse these long scenes?

RL: Bresson’s my favorite filmmaker, and yet, he’s 180 degrees different [from me] in sense of drama.

JD: It’s different, because [Bresson] was using non-actors most of the time, so it was probably easier for him to get this kind of [vacant] performance from them, detached from passion. [Ethan and I] are actors—we’re putting our intentions into [the performances]. It’s not just the lines, you know what I mean? We wanted to be realistic, [capturing how] Celine—who is very different from me as a person—would react. How angry she would get…I wouldn’t get angry like Celine gets angry. I’m very different, but how do I get to that realistic reaction in character, you know? How do I become her?

RL: We leave enough energy. We’re always working on it, even up to the night before we’re shooting. As much as we write together, workshop together, and rehearse, there’s still something to be discovered on the day. Even in the car scene, there was a line Ethan said in earlier takes that we dropped. I was still critiquing [the scene, asking] how it could get better. The process never stops. The goal is to be able to have exhausted everything we have [in making the scene], knowing we’ve fully explored it and we’re done.

WTI: One of the big differences between Before Midnight and the first two films is that the new element of other actors involved in scenes in addition to Julie and Ethan.

RL: We thought it was necessary to see them in social environments even though they’re on holiday with friends. You reveal a lot about your relationship and yourself vis-á-vis other people.

JD: Oh! You can say ‘vis-á-vie’ in English?

RL: Yeah!

JD: It’s a French term! (laughs) You stole from the French again! ‘Vis-á-vis’! ‘Filet mignon’!

RL: (laughs) Yeah, so [showing them interacting with others] was important to us, but it was different bringing in other people into our process.

JD: It was really essential. When you see the scenes [with the other couples], they reveal so much about Celine and Jesse, but the [other couples] also mirror them. You see a couple their age, a couple older, a couple younger, and an [old man] who has lost his spouse. Celine says “I guess one of us will see what that’s like”. It’s going to be Celine or Jesse…or Julie or Ethan who goes first! (laughs) That’s way too depressing!

WTI: What did you guys say with Before Midnight about romance that you couldn’t say in the first films?

JD: That the pumpkin will turn back into a pumpkin! (laughs) Reality kicks in!

RL: It’s a much more reality-based film. We’re seeing them at an entirely different station in life. They’ve committed to one another, even though they’re not married. It’s so different. I think it’s a portrait of when you follow your passion and go for what you’re compelled to go for…life doesn’t always give you a free pass. There’s going to be a cost there.

WTI: Can you speak a little about the theme of the titles? The sun, midnight…

RL: If you think about it, the first two films are these naturally occurring events—sunrises and sunsets. Midnight jumps to time—that’s a human construct. Where they find themselves is something they’ve decided consciously. The attraction of two people is a naturally occurring, biological thing—the commitment and where they find themselves now, that’s [constructed by them].

WTI: Now, can you talk a bit about Jesse’s son in the films. When you referenced him in the second movie, at the time, were you thinking that it would be a cool thing to explore if you ever did make a third film?

JD: Oh! The offspring!

RL: Not really. We were thinking it would be interesting to start with ‘the price’. The one thing that is the fallout of [Jesse and Celine’s decision in Before Sunset]. The setup at the end of the second film is to think that they will be together. But, when you follow your passion in this world, you do affect others. There’s a price to be paid in this world. We start Sunset with that price right off the bat.

WTI: You see Jesse playing with his wedding ring at the end of Sunset…

RL: (laughs) It’s rare that you see a film that promotes adultery, to rig it so that the audience is rooting for the big taboo in our culture. They’re saying “It’s meant to be!”, but technically…they’re cheating. It’s code for a dishonorable person.

JD: Adulterers are usually the bad guys [in movies], but in reality, there are no good guys or bad guys. It’s not as simple as it seems.

RL: Jesse’s first wife probably isn’t so bad! (laughs)

JD: [I call her] a “fucking alcoholic cunt”! (laughs) ‘Cunt’ is a very pleasurable word to say!

RL: In the next film, Celine will be at [the son’s] graduation or something, and she’ll be really sweet to the mom. (laughs)

WTI: Are there any thoughts of a fourth film in your heads?

JD: We wrote and shut down the film a year ago. I always say it takes me nine years to recover, because it’s so intense. We dig so deep. If we felt it was forced, we wouldn’t do it. Actually, we questioned [Midnight]

RL: We’re on official hiatus for 5-6 years. If this ends up being the last one, we’re fine with that. If it’s a trilogy, I’m super proud. We felt the same way after Sunset and Sunrise, too. We don’t have to do it. [We only will] if there’s something to say.

JD: We always joke around. ‘Before They Go Crazy’ ‘Before I’m Too Saggy to be Filmed Naked’ (laughs)

WTI: Everything about Before Midnight is deliberate—from the dialog, to the camera placement, to the editing. Was there anything that happened during shooting that was unexpected?

RL: I broke my ankle! (laughs) But that’s off-screen. No surprises, really. [The film] is so constructed, so labor intensive. It’s a construct—nothing’s really left to chance. It’s not from a ‘control-freak’ angle—it’s making it work.

JD: [Before shooting], we don’t know if we’re going to be able to pull it off. As an actress, I’m never sure if we’re going to be able to do scenes in one take—I’m not sure if we’re going to be able to do it ever. The goal is to get those takes, and we question whether we’ll be able to do it as actors. If [the scene] doesn’t sound natural, it’s not working. It’s [Richard’s] job to make us go there, and it’s our job to go there. That’s the challenge of this film for me—“Am I going to be able to do it?”

RL: If there were any surprises, they were that Julie and Ethan were able to pull of the scene! (laughs) When we’re doing our Amour remake years from now, we’ll be going “Cut! Cut! Cut!”

JD: For me, it’s a surprise every time. “Oh shit! We did that take!” Actually, people who have to learn a lot of lines are less likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease. Public speakers, actors.

WTI: Is that right?

JD: Yeah! It rewires your brain every time you do it.

RL: I see a lot of plays, and you see these 86-year-old actors [doing really well] in a fucking play!

WTI: When you look back over the last 18 years of this project, what are you most proud of?

RL: Proud? I’m thankful. I’m thankful for the relationships that Julie, Ethan and I [developed]. It’s 19 years coming up—Sunrise was the summer of ’94—and the band’s still together.

JD: We’re lucky that we have this in our lives, and we’re lucky that it feeds [our other projects as well].

RL: We’ve only toured three times. (laughs)

JD: Luckily, we have that 9-year break. We don’t see each other very much during that time. We love to see each other when we can—it’s great—but it’s always just by chance. We’re all so busy.

RL: We’re big supporters of each others’ work. I think Ethan and Julie are great artists. It’s always been fun to follow them, to see them grow up. I met them when they were very young.

Before Midnight opens in theaters Friday, May 24th. Stay tuned for our full review.

In 1995’s, we met Jesse and Celine (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, respectively) on a train in Vienna and watched them fall in love as they explored the city in Before Sunrise. Nine years later (in real-world time and in theirs), we revisited them in Paris as they reconnected and rekindled their romance in 2004’s Before Sunset. Now in 2013, we check in on their lives yet again in Before Midnight, Richard Linklater’s third installment of his unprecedented romance saga which we saw at SFIFF. Now in their early 40’s and with twin girls, the couple are on holiday in Greece with friends. With their romantic spark smothered by the stresses of reality and their divergent life ambitions, they wrestles with each other over the control of their family’s destiny.

Independent film legend and director of Before Midnight, Richard Linklater (Dazed and Confused, Bernie), and star Julie Delpy (2 Days in New York, 2 Days in Paris) spoke with Way Too Indie in an in-depth, extended interview. In part 1, they discuss the current state of independent film, working with Godard, growing up with the three films, the prospect of a fourth, and more.

Read Part 2 of our interview with Richard Linklater & Julie Delpy

(Before I could ask my first question, Delpy and Linklater took the reins, jumping into a conversation about eating food during production.)

Julie Delpy: We eat, and we enjoy food.

Richard Linklater: The [food on] the first shoot (of Before Sunrise) was alright.

JD: Paris was ok, but not great. It was ok, though. Greece is the top, food-wise. [This is] all we talk about! (laughs).

RL: Food has never played a part in any of the movies. [Maybe] in the next movie (laughs).

JD: [Jesse and Celine] won’t even try to have sex anymore. They’ll just eat!

WayTooIndie: That would be fantastic! Just them eating together, getting old.

JD: They wouldn’t fight, because they’re fed and happy!

WTI: I want to talk about the film industry today. At the San Francisco International Film Festival, Steven Soderbergh made a ‘State of the Industry’ address.

RL: Who better to ask than the guy who quit!

WTI: Exactly (laughs). He explained his departure from the film industry, and basically said that none of the studios are taking risks and are relying solely on the tentpole film business model, stifling creativity. Let me ask you two—what is the state of independent film?

JD: All of my films are financed in Europe, and [Before Midnight] was half financed in Europe.

RL: Clearly, the risks to take are in the indie realm, but it’s been that way for a long time. I think it’s a good time to be a filmmaker. Technology and distribution are getting better. There are new formats. I think it’s a good time…

JD: …to make indie film! I remember working with Jean-Luc Godard in 1987 on History of Cinema. He was filming in video, and I was like, “Ahh! You’re filming in video, that’s horrible!” He said, “It’s the future of real filmmakers, because it’s going to be cheaper. Those huge films that cost $200 million [and even] tiny films will be shot on video. I was like, “What is he talking about? He’s crazy!” But, Godard is a genius, and his mind is in the future.

RL: He sees forward and backward! (laughs) He’s our professor.

JD: I think he might have invented a time machine. At the time, I was like “Oh, video is horrible!” But he was right! [All the way back in] 1986.

Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke in Before Sunrise (1995)

RL: I think studios have figured it out. I’ve been lucky enough to have films made at the studio level. Dazed and Confused was a studio film. Universal made that film.

JD: There are good people in some studios, and some terrible people that end up being studio heads. I meet studio people sometimes—they never hire me in the end (laughs), but I meet some that mean well, at least. Then, I meet some that are just businessmen who have no clue what a movie is and they don’t give a shit. You [see] everything in this business.

RL: Again, studios have figured it out—what they do and, most importantly, what they don’t do. Then, it’s just up to the rest of the world to fill in that gap. I like that that’s at least on the table. A lot of time is wasted over years just trying to get films made in the studio system. It’s a different league. Once you accept that and forget about it, there’s nothing really to complain about.

JD: [Studios] don’t really want to dig deep into human nature [in their films], you know? [They don’t make those] kinds of films. I went to a meeting recently for a studio film, and the guy who got the [directing] job was a commercial director who came in with a reel of, like, five [other] films he put together. It was so dumb! [He] put in a bit of Juno, a bit of this, a bit of that, and said “This is what I’m going to do!” Any retard can do that! But that’s what the studio went for. Okay, fine. That’s what the movie is going to be—a combination of those five films. A formula. That’s fair. But that’s why [Richard] and I raise money a certain way.

RL: Everybody is kinda on their own.

JD: Europe has a lot of potential in terms of financing real independent films.

RL: We started off [on this project] studio funded, believe it or not. Before Sunrise had a $7 million budget, but we went through Castle Rock and Columbia back in ’94. We were a ‘trickle-down’ studio funded film. Now, we’re off-the-grid independent, but what’s the difference?

WTI: I was fortunate enough to have grown up with the Before films. I saw the first one when I was about 11.

JD: Wow!

WTI: Years from now, when people look back on this series of films, they’ll experience them in a different way. They’ll pop in Before Sunrise, watch it, then pop in Before Sunset and watch you (Julie) and Ethan (Hawke) age nine years in a matter of seconds. That’s amazing in its own way, but can you talk about the special experience of growing up with the films?

RL: You’re living with the films, aging with the films. That’s the intention. That’s what we’re doing, obviously. Those who are chronologically aligned with the films—that’s a special thing.

JD: [There’s] no aging make-up there. It’s not really acting, you know. There aren’t fake noses or fake wrinkles. It’s the real deal.

Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy in Before Sunset (2004)

WTI: In Before Sunset, you have that scene with Ethan where you mention the line that developed in between his eyes after nine years. You can’t do that in any other type of project.

RL: The lack of vanity with Ethan and Julie is important. In the films—we’re all three of us doing this—we’re taking where we are at that moment and whatever life has thrown at us in the past nine years [and] using that as the clay for what we’re sculpting.

WTI: You’ve talked before about how at the end of filming Before Sunrise, you had no intention to make a sequel. Same for Before Midnight—no plans for it after Before Sunset wrapped.

RL: Oh yeah, that’s for sure.

WTI: How long after wrapping the films do the gears start turning in your heads for making the next one?

JD: About five years. We joke around about it.

RL: Yeah, we joke about it because we know Jesse and Celine are still sort of…out there. We also know, as of right now, we have no ideas worthy of making another sequel seriously. [We] have to live the years.

WTI: When the three of you were joking with each other in the five years following Before Sunset about making a sequel, was there a specific story element or idea that you came up with that was the key to you saying “Yeah, we need to make another one.”

RL: We had some general themes. We knew what we couldn’t do again, and we knew where we had to go, but how we got there—we had the luxury of a couple years where we threw out ideas [at each other], developing what we thought would work. It’s rare that you get the chance to hold onto an idea for months, develop it, and be able to change it, take it somewhere else.

JD: Also, we’re really the deciders [in the process]. There’s no one to tell us what to do. [The time we had] was a luxury we wouldn’t have in the studio system. Doing this third film and going into a place that’s forbidden territory for a studio film—it’s a relationship, they’ve been together for a long time, they fight for 25 minutes [straight], it’s talking all the time, there’s no plot, no FBI or anything like that. It’s forbidden territory, and it’s great that we have the luxury to go there. Richard figures that all out!

Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke in Before Midnight (2013)

RL: Before Sunrise was a studio film on a super indie budget. The second one was handled by an indie division of a studio. For this one, we were selling it at Sundance trying to get a distributor, completely off-the-grid. It kind of explains how the studio system has changed. My friends who are in the studio system really like the Before films! They just know the studios aren’t going to make them. The studios don’t [pass on these films] because they don’t like them—it’s just not what they do. It doesn’t pay the bills. I love the studio system, in a way. It’s kinda pure.

JD: At least they’re clear, you know? Sometimes, studios that are trying to make ‘indie films’ that aren’t actually indie bothers me more.

RL: Yeah, I hate that middle ground. It’s almost more annoying. They give you an indie budget, and yet, they expect $100, $200 million dollars. ‘Indie films’ are still cast with big names. I was able to do movies without any name actors. Dazed and Confused is another example of how things have changed. An indie distributor today wouldn’t do Dazed, much less a big studio, because there aren’t a lot of name actors in it.

JD: They’re names now! Now, you’d have to pay $50 million for that cast!

Don’t miss Part two of our extended interview, in which Linklater and Delpy discuss the stresses of pulling off Before Midnight‘s extra-long-takes, the evolution of the series, the significance of the sun and midnight in the films’ titles, the great Robert Bresson, and more.

Way Too Indie was on the red carpet of the San Francisco International Film Festival to capture photos of Amy Acker and Alexis Denisof from Much Ado About Nothing as well as legendary award winners such as Harrison Ford, George Lucus, and Philip Kaufman. We also have some more exclusive photos from private interviews with Michael Cera, Sebastian Silva, Richard Linklater, and Julie Delpy.