Richard Linklater Reunited Jesse & Celine in This Strange Animated Film

There aren’t many filmmakers as closely associated with the rise of the independent cinema movement as Richard Linklater. Linklater’s low-budget comedies Slacker and Dazed and Confused proved that financial constraints didn’t matter if there were memorable characters and dialogue. Linklater hit one of the creative peaks of his career with his 1995 romance film Before Sunrise, which chronicles the relationship between the American writer Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and the French girl Celine (Julie Delpy). While they were characters that Linklater would eventually revisit in the film’s official sequels, Hawke and Delpy reprised their Before Sunrise roles in the strange animated film Waking Life.

Waking Life was Linklater’s first animated film, and utilized the unique process of “rotoscoping” live-action images onto a digitally created background. As a result, the film has a somewhat dreamlike logic that blurs the line between reality and imagination. It was a technique that Linklater would revisit later in his career with the science fiction thriller A Scanner Darkly and the fantastical coming-of-age dramedy Apollo 10 ½. However, Waking Life was an experimental project that allowed Linklater to continue the themes of Before Sunrise.

Waking Life

A man shuffles through a dream meeting various people and discussing the meanings and purposes of the universe.

Release Date

March 7, 2002

Director

Richard Linklater

Runtime

99 minutes

‘Waking Life’ Features Cameos by ‘Before Sunrise’s Jesse and Celine

One of Linklater’s greatest hallmarks as a filmmaker is his rejection of traditional narrative throughlines. Instead of conforming to a standard story structure, Linklater often opts to spend a few days in the lives of his characters, examining the mundanity of their existence. This is part of the reason that Before Sunrise is celebrated as one of the greatest romantic dramas ever made. Linklater isolates the film to an extended conversation between Jesse and Celine, showing them steadily falling in love as they learn more about each other. Linklater reiterated the format of Before Sunrise with Waking Life, which also focused on a series of loosely connected conversations.

Waking Life has perhaps even less structure than Before Sunrise. Wiley Wiggins stars as an unnamed protagonist who wanders through his subconscious as he considers issues of existentialism, free will, and futility. Even if the film takes place entirely within a dream, there are several cameos from both Linklater’s previous collaborators and non-actors, including Steven Soderbergh and Adam Goldberg. Celine and Jesse briefly appear as a happy couple discussing the nature of reality. Based on the mutual affection they show for each other, Waking Life suggests that they chose to spend their lives with one another after the ending of Before Sunrise.

The cameos in Waking Life allow Linklater to directly address the audience and call attention to the themes of consciousness and objectivity. While it may be hard to relate to a character like the protagonist, who the viewer has not bridged a strong emotional connection with, seeing familiar faces like Jesse and Celine makes it easier to stomach the film’s more esoteric qualities. The dialogue also sparks thanks to the excellent chemistry between Hawke and Delpy. Instead of feeling like a Socratic discussion, the scene feels like a genuine conversation between two lovers.

‘Waking Life’ Is a Thematic Parallel to ‘Before Sunrise’

The cameo isn’t entirely surprising, as Hawke has a history of popping up in Linklater films like Tape, The Newton Boys, Boyhood, and Fast Food Nation, among others. However, Linklater included the cameos in Waking Life to address film history. He stated that he saw his “own creations float back in with something to offer this movie,” as he felt that what Celine and Jesse were “saying is incredibly relevant to Waking Life.” However, Linklater didn’t necessarily intend for Waking Life to serve as a direct sequel to Before Sunrise. He said that “you don’t have to know them to know what’s happening in the film,” and that he “wasn’t too precious about it.”

The connection is successful, as both Before Sunrise and Waking Life emphasized conversation and debate. If Before Sunrise explored the beauty of conversation between two people as they realize they’re in love, Waking Life explored the interiority of thought by visualizing dreams and the subconscious. Both films aren’t harmed by their slow pacing, as they isolate an aspect of the human condition that the audience can relate to. It also added a touch of humor when the film risked being a little too artistic.

‘Waking Life’ Led to the ‘Before’ Trilogy

Although it was fun to see Hawke and Delpy reprise their roles, it’s unclear where Waking Life fits within the continuity of the Before trilogy. The film’s sequel, Before Sunset, takes place nine years afterward, where it’s revealed that Jesse and Celine have not seen each other since their initial meeting in France. This would suggest that the events of Waking Life are simply an imagined memory, possibly by the protagonist who saw Before Sunrise. Linklater doesn’t directly break the fourth wall, but he also didn’t show any signs that he was trying to build his cinematic universe.

Regardless of whether it was intended to be “real,” Waking Life laid the groundwork for the more mature version of Jesse and Celine that appear in Before Sunset. Their conversations in Before Sunrise are largely introductory, as they discuss simple philosophical topics to learn more about each other. However, the conversations that Jesse and Celine have in Before Sunset are more profound, as they begin truly assessing what it would look like to spend the rest of their lives with one another. 2013’s Before Midnight managed to turn the series into one of the greatest movie trilogies of all time, but Waking Life was the first indication that Jesse and Celine were characters that were worth revisiting.

Waking Life is available to rent on Amazon in the U.S.

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