30 Days of Screenplays, Day 18: “Before Midnight”
Why read 30 screenplays in 30 days?
Why read 30 screenplays in 30 days?
Because whether you are a novice just starting to learn the craft of screenwriting or someone who has been writing for many years, you should be reading scripts.
There is a certain type of knowledge and understanding about screenwriting you can only get from reading scripts, giving you an innate sense of pace, feel, tone, style, how to approach writing scenes, how create flow, and so forth.
We did 30 Days of Screenplays in 2013 and you can access each of those posts and discussions here. This time, we’re trying something different: I invited thirty Go Into The Story followers to read one script each and provide a guest post about it.
Today’s guest columnist: Colleen Costello.
Title: Before Midnight. You may read the screenplay here.
Year: 2012
Writers: Richard Linklater, Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy
IMDB Rating: 8.0
IMDB 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.
Tagline: None listed; I improvised….
Every day people are faced with challenges until just Before Midnight.
Analysis: I knew this was no ordinary script once the rather long yet engaging opening conversation started during a car ride. I’d been following Jesse and Celine since they’d met in Vienna nearly twenty years ago in Before Sunrise, then reconnected in Paris in Before Sunset. They’d had some of the most unexpected, intelligent, emotional and funny discussions I’ve seen on film between two people in various stages of love.
Before Midnight is a romantic drama that is compelling and complex without being complicated. Near the end of a summer holiday, Jesse and Celine’s conversations escalate in just a few incredible scenes leading up to a real breaking point; is love, happiness and success sustainable over time? Their lives are very different now. Celine may have changed more than Jesse. Past pain and new possibilities stir major conflict. Have they started to resent each other because of the course their individual lives have taken?
The gradual revelation of Jesse and Celine’s feelings at present requires them to contemplate fate, expectations, chance, choices, sacrifices. We discover how they see themselves, each other and the relationship; an eruption of frustration, anger, blame and doubt spews forth. Jesse and Celine are forced to examine these raw feelings, quite unexpectedly, in a hotel room that becomes a pressure cooker.
They have to go back to the start of love, how their love had grown and why it meant so much in order to realize that they do still love each other and belong together. In the final exterior scene, Jesse approaches Celine as if they’ve never met and starts an impromptu “meet-cute” that recalls Before Sunrise, but now, means so much more to them.
Most Memorable Dialogue:
(They may believe it is worth it after all)
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: “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 smart”
What Did I Learn About Screenwriting From This Script: Once this film begins, I knew it was a script that broke the rules. Writers are encouraged to break a rule sometimes, but in general, stick to the format and write your best. Before Midnight is almost all dialogue, virtually no exposition, few beats. It’s about as bare bones as you’ll ever see. Each of the three films had great locations that were backdrops ceding to the actors. Not much “ white” on this script…it can be done, but it’s rare.
Thanks, Colleen! To show our gratitude for your guest post, here’s a dash of creative juju for you. Whoosh!
To see all of this year’s 30 Days of Screenplays: Vol. 2, go here.