[Gratitude for the Congratulatory Board] What the movie 'Before Sunrise' taught me—talking about English again, just a little
What the movie 'Before Sunrise' taught me
—English isn't about grammar, it's about breathing
Thanks to those who read my previous article, 'On a Street Corner in Dublin',
I received another congratulatory board on note.
To be honest,
I didn't intend to write about studying English in that article.
I was just working with the movie playing in the background,
and I simply wrote about the 'living English' that happened to catch my ear.
Even so, someone resonated with it.
For that, I would first like to express my quiet gratitude.
And there is one more movie that reminds me of the same thing.
The movie 'Before Sunrise'.
It's a movie I've loved for a long time.
A man and a woman who meet by chance on a train,
a movie where they just talk while walking through the streets of Vienna all night.
大事件は起きない。
ドラマチックな展開もほとんどない。They just keep talking.
But that conversation is good.
Especially Ethan Hawke.
He looks a bit like a grunge rocker,
a bit like a philosophical drifter,
and even though he seems a bit of a mess, he has a strangely sincere face.
I loved that presence of his so much.
The person opposite him is Julie Delpy.
She's smart, cynical, but sometimes kind.
The conversation between these two
isn't what you'd call 'proper English'.
They stop mid-sentence,
they rephrase things,
and there are many silences like 'um...'
But that's what makes it good.
I believe Jesse said something like this.
"Isn't everything we do in life a way to be loved a little more?"
Isn't everything we do in life,
in the end, just a way to be loved a little more?
Grammatically, it is very simple English.
But this line lingers strangely.
Why?
It's not because the phrasing is clever.
It's because it's the truth.
The English in this movie is
neither fluent
nor perfect.
They pause mid-sentence.
They rephrase.
They speak while thinking.
In other words, it is human English.
When I listen to it,
I think it's the same thing I used to feel in rock music.
An imperfect voice.
A slightly off-key note.
But that is where the real warmth lies.
English doesn't have to be correct.
It just has to be alive.
Watching 'Before Sunrise',
I am reminded of such an obvious thing.
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