Ghost-Righting: The Spectral Ethics and Haunted Spouses of Richard Linklater’s Before Trilogy

Document Type

Article

Authors

Lilia KilburnFollow

Abstract

In recent years, analysts of cinematic ghosts have called for ways of “learning to live with ghosts”; in this paper, I argue that Richard Linklater’s Before trilogy—1995’s Before Sunrise, 2004’s Before Sunset, and 2012’s Before Midnight—models precisely such a process. I attend to the crucial role of ghosts in sparking and sustaining the romance at the heart of Before, and I argue that Linklater’s trilogy is not only ghost-written (relying formally on ghosts) and ghost-ridden (relying narratively on a preponderance of them) but a staging ground for ghost-righting, an active ghosting in the vein of Derrida’s spectral ethics. Issues considered include traditional narrative patterning of love and death; ghosts and (dis)embodiment in Western cinema; spectrality in the work of Jacques Derrida and Roland Barthes; questions of temporality, duration, and fear of death; romantic historiography; and the intimate politics of Before.

Recommended Citation

Kilburn, Lilia (2018) "Ghost-Righting: The Spectral Ethics and Haunted Spouses of Richard Linklater’s Before Trilogy," Criticism: Vol. 60: Iss. 1, Article 2.
Available at: https://digitalcommons.wayne.edu/criticism/vol60/iss1/2