30 years of Before Sunrise: retracing Céline and Jesse’s footsteps in Vienna
As Richard Linklater’s beloved indie romance turns 30, we tread the streets of Vienna to find the record shop, that bridge and other locations where Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy once walked.
Richard Linklater’s ‘Before trilogy’ is concerned with walking and talking. Following many years in the lives of Parisian Céline (Julie Delpy) and American Jesse (Ethan Hawke), the three films show the ups and downs of a relationship as well as how such relationships interact with the exploration of places on foot. While Before Sunset (2004) sees the couple reunited in Paris, and Before Midnight (2013) sees them explore the Peloponnese coast of Greece, their romance first sparked in Vienna in the original film, Before Sunrise (1995)
Before Sunrise, which premiered 30 years ago on 19 January 1995, follows Céline and Jesse’s chance encounter on a train travelling through Austria. Conversation soon develops and, as the train arrives in Vienna, Jesse proposes that Céline accompany him for a day in the city. The film follows their day of wandering around the Austrian capital, exploring its sites but also its more unusual areas and culture. As their conversation progresses, something more than a nice, if unplanned, city break unfolds for the two. Obvious feelings grow in between their words and wandering.
Building on a structure more commonly found in the films of Éric Rohmer, Linklater created both a beautiful portrait of a city and a very organic beginning to his love story. Here are five locations as they stand 30 years later.
The bridge
After the pair have decided to explore Vienna together, the first distinctive spot they walk by is the famed Zollamtssteg, a historic pair of crisscrossing iron bridges. There are various shots of it, including of the railway line below, which represents departure later in the film. This is also where the pair chat with the two actors about their play, the one they eventually never see.
The square
Taking in the sights of central Vienna eventually brings the pair to the beautiful public square Maria-Theresien-Platz. Marked by its neatly trimmed greenery and the beautiful buildings of the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Naturhistorisches Museum, the area is just as pristine as seen in the film.
Linklater films some of the sculptures of the square, including a more detailed shot of the fountains seen in the background of the previous shot. However, today they have been temporally removed.
The record store
Finding some common ground in music, the pair find themselves further west of the city in a record shop. The Alt & Neu Recordstore is an old gem for second-hand records and has been around for decades.
Appropriately, little has changed inside the shop. The layout is exactly as it was when Jesse and Céline browsed the records and chose to listen to Kath Bloom’s ‘Come Here’.
The listening booth where they enjoy the record is sadly gone, but the shop now celebrates its role in the film with a number of posters and photos highlighting the connection, including one where the listening booth once was.
The church
As the evening unfolds, the pair find a beautiful church, the Maria am Gestade. We first see them approaching it from the steps of Am Gestade. This view of the church was also seen in Carol Reed’s The Third Man (1949), one of a number of locations shared between the films (though Reed’s is more rubble-strewn).
They decide to go into the empty church after climbing the steps, showing the ornate gothic doorway.
The café
After their long day of wandering, the pair decamp to a café and sit outside in the dark. The café was Kleines Café, a real venue situated in Franziskanerplatz.
Linklater films various shots of the couple sat at the table, obviously becoming more and more enamoured with one another. This shot looks out from the café on to the back wall of the Provinzmuseum der Franziskaner.
A fortune teller is doing the rounds and spots the couple. This shot of her shows a better view of the café, which has surprisingly changed very little in the intervening years.
Street scenes
In one of the film’s more poignant scenes, we join the pair wandering along Spittelberggasse, not far from the record shop they visited earlier in the day.
After watching a dance by a street performer, they continue walking, turning off the street down Spittelberg passage.
Finally, the pair end up sitting on some crates in an alleyway between Gutenberggasse and Kirchberggasse. There’s something about this single moment and location, so innocuous compared with many of the film’s other locations, that feels deeply affecting. It is referenced again at the end of the film, when we see it in the early morning but without the characters present, demonstrating how much their presence – not to mention their undeniable affection for each other – lit up even the most modest of Vienna’s beautiful streets.
