Sometimes, I secretly think I'm the only person who has ever really seen the Richard Linklater film, "Before Sunrise," which stars Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy as young people who meet on vacation in Vienna. Yeah, I know that it's a beloved movie that millions of people have watched in the 18 years since it came out (and that even more are catching up with now that the sequel, "Before Midnight," is in theaters). But none of them saw quite the movie I did, much to Linklater's horror. Here's the story:
In early 1995, around the time "Before Sunrise" was premiering at the Sundance Film Festival, I did a phone interview with Linklater. Ahead of time, a publicist tried to set up a screening of the movie for me but couldn't get it together in time. So she sent me a videotape, instead, warning me not to tell Linklater that I had seen the movie on my TV instead of a movie screen. I agreed, although I said I wouldn't lie if he asked me.
Early in my interview with Linklater, I mentioned a particularly disturbing glimpse of something in one scene -- we can see the scarred wrists of the otherwise sunny Delpy character, revealing that she has very recently tried to kill herself. Linklater immediately got a little edgy and asked, "When did you see the movie?" I hedged a bit and, ultimately, had to admit I had seen it on tape. Linklater replied that he knew that because the scene I was talking about was no longer in the film and that, in fact, he didn't think there were any tapes still in existence that contained that scene.
It turned out he had played around with the idea of including that image of Delpy's wrists but decided it didn't fit the movie. He concluded our interview by advising me, "Hang onto (that tape). No one has seen that one - it could be valuable." (I have.)
I also interviewed Linklater about "Before Sunset" in 2004 and it turned out our conversation had stuck with him. Here's what he said:
"I remember my conversation with you. I still use that as an example why they shouldn't send out tapes of movies. Someone else at the studio recently sent out a video of my new movie, and it turned out to be in black and white, and there were some lines I had trimmed out, but they were still in this version, and I got pissed all over again. It totally reminded me of that situation with you."
Intriguingly, although Linklater had thought about that tape I saw in the intervening years, he hadn't spent a minute thinking about his decision to eliminate the scars. Which is weird because, whenever my mind turns to the three "Before" movies, all of which I love, I can't stop thinking about those scars -- and about the movie nobody else but me saw.
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