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The 'Before' Trilogy
Series: BFI Film Classics
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Brief Description
In Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise (1995), two young lovers, the American Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and the Frenchwoman Celine (Julie Delpy), meet on a train travelling across Europe and spend a magical night together in Vienna before parting at dawn. Filmed in nine-year intervals, the film’s sequels...
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The 'Before' Trilogy
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See moreA study of Richard Linklater's Before Trilogy, in the BFI Film Classics series.
A study of Richard Linklater's Before Trilogy, in the BFI Film Classics series.
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Description
In Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise (1995), two young lovers, the American Jesse (Ethan Hawke) and the Frenchwoman Celine (Julie Delpy), meet on a train travelling across Europe and spend a magical night together in Vienna before parting at dawn. Filmed in nine-year intervals, the film’s sequels Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013) forge an unexpected trilogy brimming with longing, second chances, and resentments as the couple meet again and build a relationship.
Lucas Hilderbrand reflects on the experience of falling in love with, living with, and having one’s own life shaped by the Before trilogy. Tracing the story of the films’ production, he considers the contribution of the leading actors, particularly Delpy, to their screenplays. He offers a close reading of each of the Before films, considering the extent to which they operate beyond the generic norms of romantic comedy or melodrama, incorporating aspects of realism and emotional authenticity through their location shooting, long takes, and near-real time temporality.
Treating the films as time capsules of their respective historical moments, Hilderbrand considers how evolving politics and technologies impact or interrupt the characters’ intimacy, while placing the trilogy in conversation with other films. All the while, he pays attention to the trilogy’s subjective impact on viewers across its eighteen-year timespan – and its continuing afterglow.
Series: BFI Film Classics
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Book Details
INFORMATION
ISBN: 9781839028021
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Format: Paperback / softback
Date Published: 13 November 2025
Country: United Kingdom
Imprint: BFI Publishing
Illustration: 60 colour illus
Audience: Tertiary education
DIMENSIONS
Spine width: 12.0mm
Width: 134.0mm
Height: 188.0mm
Weight: 200g
Pages: 112
About the Author
Lucas Hilderbrand is Professor of Film and Media Studies at the University of California, Irvine, USA. He is the author of The Bars Are Ours: Histories and Cultures of Gay Bars in America, 1960 and After (2023), Paris Is Burning (2013), and Inherent Vice: Bootleg Histories of Videotape and Copyright (2009).
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