Before Sunset | 2004
- DIRECTOR |
- Richard Linklater
- PARIS filming locations
- ▶ Shakespeare and Company, 37 rue de la Bucherie (Jesse is publicising his book)
- ▶ rue Saint Julien le Pauvre (Jesse and Celine begin their stroll around Paris)
- ▶ rue Galande (walking past the cinema, south of the Seine)
- ▶ rue des Jardins St-Paul (continuing, now north of the River)
- ▶ rue Charlemagne & rue Eginhard (Celine talks about her environmental work)
- ▶ Le Pure Café, 14 rue Jean Macé (they stop off in the cafe and talk of New York)
- ▶ avenue Daumesnil (the entrance to the elevated walkway)
- ▶ Coulée verte René-Dumont (Promenade Plantée) (the elevated linear park above the city)
- ▶ Quai de la Tournelle (Jesse and Celine take the bateau mouche)
- ▶ Quai Henri IV (Jesse and Celine leave the boat and take a car)
- ▶ Court de l’Étoile d’Or, rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine (Celine's courtyard apartment)
Richard Linklater revisits the characters from Before Sunrise, nine years on, as they meet up again in Paris. Where the previous film ended with a montage of its locations, this one reverses the process with a montage of the places that will be seen in the film.
▶ Jesse (Ethan Hawke) is publicising his book, This Time, about the night-long romance in Vienna at Shakespeare and Company, 37 rue de la Bucherie, between Petit Pont and Pont au Double (metro: St Michel), on the Left Bank of the Seine opposite Notre Dame (just a little east of the hotel from A Bout de Souffle). The bookshop crops up again in another Parisian romance, Woody Allen’s Midnight In Paris. ⏏
▶ When Celine (Julie Delpy) turns up, they go for a walk but, despite the feel that the couple are simply being followed around the streets by a documentary crew, as in the previous film, the geography is deceptively tricky. ⏏
▶ From the riverfront, they walk southwest on rue Saint Julien le Pauvre through the studenty area north of the Sorbonne, and turn left into rue Galande, passing the Studio Galande cinema (a good place to catch an interactive showing of The Rocky Horror Picture Show – the cinema’s website helpfully catalogues the props you’ll need). So far so good. ⏏
▶ But in a single cut, they’re suddenly not only walking in the opposite direction, but they’ve leapt across the Seine and the Ile St Louis to rue des Jardins St-Paul toward the Marais district of the 4th arrondissement, at rue de l'Ave Maria (metro: Pont Marie). ⏏
Incidentally, the covered passages on the right will take you into a series of quiet, interconnected courtyards known as Saint-Paul Village, housing dozens of classy antique stores.
▶ Heading north toward the rear of Église-St-Paul-St-Louis, the couple turns right into rue Charlemagne as Celine tells of her environmental work, and then through the tiny passageway of rue Eginhard to rue Saint-Paul. ⏏
▶ Another cut, virtually mid-sentence, finds them way to the east, in the 11th arrondissement, approaching a bar. It’s Le Pure Café, 14 rue Jean Macé at Impasse Franchemont (metro: Charonne) where, as they chat, they realise they were both in New York at the same time.
▶ After this leaping about, it’s not too far south to avenue Daumesnil and the raised garden path to which Celine takes Jesse. ⏏
▶ This is the Coulée verte René-Dumont (Promenade Plantée), a peaceful 4.5 km linear park constructed atop the old Viaduc des Arts, running from Place de la Bastille to Bois de Vincennes. Celine and Jesse enter by the staircase on Avenue Daumesnil at Voie AA/12, in the 12th arrondissement (metro: Reuilly Diderot).
Suddenly and conveniently, the pair arrive back on the Left Bank again, not too far from the Shakespeare bookshop where they started out. ⏏
▶ This time they’re just behind Notre Dame at Quai de la Tournelle, where they take the bateau mouche. You might recognise this as the spot where Jason Bourne gets his head down in the car when he first arrives in Paris in The Bourne Identity.
▶ With a car waiting at the next stop, Quai Henri IV on the Right Bank, Jesse offers to take Celine to her apartment and she helpfully gives her address as ' 18 passage des Petites-Ecuries'. Don’t be fooled. This is actually a complete fib. ⏏
▶ Celine’s courtyard apartment is on Court de l’Étoile d’Or on the north side of rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine, between Passage du Chantier and Cour des Trois Frères Although the other passages here contain shops and are usually open to the public, this particular one guards its privacy – gated and usually closed (metro: Ledru-Rollin). ⏏