My apologies for a title that sounds like a graduate thesis title. I don’t think the blog post will:
Watching “Before Midnight,” the extraordinary third film in a series about the evolving life of a couple, with each film separated by about nine years, reminded me that we can anticipate two even more extreme examples of movies that depict characters aging over time.
Celine and Jesse, the couple in “Before Sunrise,” “Before Sunset” and “Before Midnight,” has aged about 18 years by now but the director behind those movies, Linklater, and one of his stars, Ethan Hawke (who plays Jesse) have also occasionally referred to another project they are filming, in which they shoot one scene a year in the life of a different couple, played by Hawke and Patricia Arquette. When the film is released, we will see the actors aging over time, not because of off-putting make-up but because they really are aging.
Danish director Lars von Trier has been working on a similar effort for even longer: Each year on New Year’s Eve, he and actor Udo Kier shoot a scene for a movie they’ve been working on for a couple decades already. No word on when either project will see the light of day but, obviously, it will take time!
(“Before Midnight” is scheduled to open in the Twin Cities June 7.)