A Belle-Epoque adventure
For the novel ‘The Hours Before,’ the trailer needed to convey some of the magnificence but also decadence of the Belle Epoque (in years, from about 1870 through to 1914). Translated, belle epoque means ‘the beautiful era.’ It found expression in fashion and design through much of Europe during the closing decades of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th. And in America it corresponded to he period known as the Gilded Age. (both these terms were applied retrospectively, by the way, after the era had finished).
The settings in the video are grand and effervescent, therefore, but also there has to be a darker undercurrent - which can be found in the art of the time and especially in the work of Viennese painter Gustav Klimt who flourished around the turn of the century. For the music, meanwhile, I wanted a dramatic and Romantic sound from a little earlier in the period, so the music of Tschikovsky from his ballet suite Swan Lake, written in 1875/6, was ideal.
The settings in the video are grand and effervescent, therefore, but also there has to be a darker undercurrent - which can be found in the art of the time and especially in the work of Viennese painter Gustav Klimt who flourished around the turn of the century. For the music, meanwhile, I wanted a dramatic and Romantic sound from a little earlier in the period, so the music of Tschikovsky from his ballet suite Swan Lake, written in 1875/6, was ideal.
