Before and after

BEFORE SUNRISE (1995)

IN OCTOBER 1989, 29-year-old Richard Linklater entered a toy shop in Philadelphia and met Amy Lehrhaupt serving behind the counter. The pair sparked and spent the evening walking and talking around the city — and then went their separate ways. The night inspired Before Sunrise (1995), starring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy as US slacker Jesse and French student Celine, who meet on a train bound for Paris, get off at Vienna and fall in love before our eyes. Marked by a unique collaboration between director and actors, who shaped the script through controlled improv, the film birthed the greatest romance in modern movies, spawning two unlikely sequels, Before Sunset (2004) and Before Midnight (2013), at neat nine-year intervals. As the three films bow on Criterion UK, Linklater, Hawke and Delpy reflect on what the director calls an “accidental trilogy”.

Rick has this great sensibility where he has never been in a gunfight or a helicopter crash or been involved in international espionage but feels like his life has been full of drama. Contemporary movies make you feel like your life is so boring. He said, “I want to make a movie that makes you feel like your own