Movie Script: Before Sunset (Scene: Boat -- Afternoon)

On the boat

Jesse makes his call while Celine walks to the back of the boat. Eventually thay stand on the back of the boat, the wind blowing, as Notre Dame looms in the background.

Jesse: Notre Dame... check that out! I heard a story once that when the Germans were occupying Paris and they had to retreat back, they wired Notre Dame to blow up and they had to leave one guy in charge of hitting the switch. But the guy, the soldier, just waited, sitting there, and he couldn't do it! You know, he just sat there, knocked out by how beautiful the place was. And then, when the allied troops eventually came in, they found all the explosives and the switch just lying there. And they found the same thing at Saicre Coeur, the Eiffel Tower and two other places, I think. I always liked that story.  

Celine: Yeah, that's a great story. But you have to think that one day Notre Dame will be gone. There used to be another Cathedral there. 

Jesse: Right where Notre Dame is? 

Celine: Yeah. Everything passes. People, buildings... You know what, I've never done this. I forget about how beautiful Paris is... Sometimes when you live in a city you don't even look at it anymore. 

Jesse: Yeah. I think my book was like building something. So I wouldn't forget the details of the time we spent together. Like a reminder that once we really did meet, this was real... this happened.

Celine: You know I'm happy you are saying that, I mean I always feel like a freak because I'm never able to move on like... (snap her fingers) ...this! You know. People just have an affair or even entire relationships. They break up and they forget! They move on like they would have changed a brand of Cereals! I feel I was never able to forget anyone I've been with. Because each person have their own specific qualities. You can never replace anyone. What is lost is lost. Each relationship, when it ends, really damages me. I never really recover. That's why I'm very careful with getting involved because it hurts me too much... or even getting laid, I actually don't do that. I will miss of the person the most mundane things. Like I'm obsessed with little things. Maybe I'm crazy... When I was a little girl, my mom told me that I was always late to school. One day she followed me to see why. I was looking at chestnuts falling from the trees and rolling on the sidewalk, or ants crossing the road, the way a leaf casts a shadow on a tree trunk. Little things. I think it's the same with people. I see in them little details, so specific to each of them, that move me, that I miss, and will always miss. You can never replace anyone because everyone is made of such beautiful specific details.

---Pause---

Celine: You know, like I remember the way your beard had a bit of red in it and the way the sun was making it glow in the morning right before you left. I missed that. S**t, I'm really crazy!

Jesse: Now I know for sure why I wrote that stupid book - so that you might actually show up at a reading in Paris and I'd walk over to you and ask, "Hey, where the f**k were you?"

Celine laughs.

Celine: Honestly, did you think I'd be here today?

Jesse: I'm not kidding - I think I wrote it to try to find you somehow. 

Celine: I know it's not true but that's sweet of you to say it.

Jesse: I think it is true. What do you think the chances were of us ever meeting again?

Celine: After that December, I'd say almost zero. But we're not real, anyway, right? We're just characters in that old lady's dream. She's on her deathbed and she is fantasizing about her youth. So, of course we have to meet again!

Jesse then speaks in a voice that is both louder and more frustrated and desperate that we've seen.

Jesse: Oh, God! Why weren't you there in Vienna?!

Celine: I told you why!

Jesse: I know, I mean, I wish you would've been! Things might have been so much different in our lives.

Celine: Do you think so?

Jesse: Yes, I actually do...

Celine: Maybe not, maybe we would have hated each other, eventually. 

Jesse: Come on, like we are hating each other right now?

Celine: No, maybe we're only good at brief encounters, walking around in European cities in a warm climate!

Jesse: Ahhh, why didn't we exchange numbers and stuff?

Celine: We were young and stupid?

Jesse: Are we still?

"Because each person have their own specific qualities. You can never replace anyone.""You can never replace anyone because everyone is made of such beautiful specific details."