This is not a critical analysis nor a retrospective. I will not be deconstructing a film nor peeling back the layers of a single performance. This is an appreciation, a love letter of sorts. It is the indelible Julie Delpy’s birthday, and these words about her are for her, a tribute.
Julie Delpy seems like a woman with whom anyone can fall in love with. By love, I mean the romantic, where-have-you-been-my-whole-life kind of love. And by anyone, I mean any human being who has ever breathed on this planet. (Let it be said, I am a happily married man. Though I’d be flattered, Julie, it just can’t be.)
For me, as with countless others, it all began with Celine. The Before trilogy’s female protagonist – the other and quite better half to Ethan Hawke’s Jesse – ushered a dynamic cinematic force into my life. Celine was mysterious, strong, sophisticated, and elusive. She was beautiful and magnetic, a whirlwind of femininity. Even though I saw the first two films many years after their release, Celine’s grip was still strong. I had never experienced a character quite like her. And so, I made room in my heart for Julie Delpy.
But what really was it about Celine that captivated me so? Though not fully autobiographical, it is clear that Delpy imbued this iconic character with many of her own qualities, which is even more obvious now that Delpy has produced more work, much of it from her own voice. Where certain political views and personality tics may not match up, the raw honesty and genuine love of life which Celine embraces is very clearly true of her portrayer as well. The appeal of Celine is not solely based on the character but is founded mainly in the woman behind her.
I love Celine because I love Julie Delpy.
In the cinematic world of manufactured images, this French blonde has dared to bring her self to the screen, from Celine onward. She is a subversive feminine force in a male-dominated field. Yet she is not prey. Julie Delpy is an actress. A writer. A director. A composer. A feminist. And a mother. Her interviews are always candid and personal, once arriving to a meeting with poo (her cat’s or her son’s, who knows) on her sock or recounting the time when, while filming Before Midnight, she called Linklater and Hawke “fucking chauvinists” (all in good fun, of course). And in a talk last year with Violet Grey, she was asked, “When do you feel the most beautiful?” Delpy responded, “It’s usually when I feel my face is clean, my hair is pulled back, I’m wearing things that are comfortable. It’s when I feel that I’m without artifice. It’s more a question of feeling clean and neat.”
Delpy’s whole career has been a navigation of life without artifice as she has pressed into what it is to be truly feminine, and in doing so, what it is to be human. She is on the surface, and I mean that in the most endearing way. There is nothing hidden. What you see is what you get.
From Celine, to now turning 45, Delpy continues to press cinematic culture – and therein culture itself – to places where the artifice must be torn down. She is not the young 20-year old in Vienna anymore, she is the middle-aged mom, making films about middle-aged life, all with poop on her sock, but she does it with the same vitality for life, the same ageless beauty and grace as young Celine. Delpy’s is now a more lived-in, experienced, navigation. In her age, she transcends her message: she announces that it can be done. A life lived without artifice is not mere youthful disillusionment.
This letter is not to praise Julie Delpy as the honest and brash “Cool Girl” who, in not giving a shit, ends up being what every man wants. No, this is to thank a woman who, in her journey to destroy artifice through her art, has helped me destroy my own fake walls, and has challenged the way I view my masculinity. She has challenged the way I think of beauty and aging, love and femininity.
Ultimately, Delpy reminds me of my wife Heather who is a strong and graceful, magnetic and beautiful woman. She gave birth to our first son Everett in March and in the subsequent months has become a maternal goddess. The experience has been like seeing and knowing her – and all of womankind – with renewed vision. I am not worthy; I bow in awe and wonder.
Happy birthday, Julie Delpy.
by Colin Stacy
A Film History Magazine 