Blog #4

Trains, Trains, Trains!

Spurred on by the short film Toccata for Toy Trains by Charles and Ray Eames we viewed in class a few weeks ago, I thought I'd blog about this, even though I have been sitting on a blog about Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera for some time now...

But pondering the content of my blog, images of the Eames' film, flashes from Berlin, Symphony of a City, and even the character of Bobby Baccalieri from The Sopranos would not be swayed from my minds eye.

So what's with trains? (Especially toy trains, in the case of the Eames, and Bobby.)

I am not, by any stretch of the imagination interested in trains. (Of course, perhaps ironically, I am interested in the interest other people show...) But I have noticed that in Berlin, Manhatta, Man with a Movie Camera and Wise Blood trains feature in a seemingly omnipresent kind of way. In both Berlin and Wise Blood, the train is the space in which or the perspective from which the rest of the work is established. For example, in Berlin, we approach the city from the train.



In Billy Stevenson's seminar, we talked about the railway as being an "organising motif", which had great effect on the daily life of the individual, as Berlin shows. Furthermore, Ruttman's use of the camera in such a way alludes to the 'phantom film', where the camera was attached to a moving object. Here, Wikipedia helps. According to the entry on 'History of rail transport', George Stephenson's Locomotion was built for the railway between Stockton and Darlington in the north-east of England, in 1825. According Wiki's 'Movie Camera' entry, motion picture cameras were first designed in 1888. We may therefore assume that these two technologies developed relatively side by side, and this may account for the prevalent representation of trains even in films in the late 1920s, like Berlin. This fascination reaches somewhat of a apogee in Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera as we see the 'Man' attempt to take footage of the underside of the train as it steams past.

It seems that both the train and the motion picture camera marked important progressions in late nineteenth century technology. The train, a man-made horse I suppose (well, we do measure in horsepower...), a mechanical, moving power house embodied the impact of modernism on daily, working life. On the other hand, the motion picture camera greatly changed the transmission of culture - in its early days for example, the cinema was also where news was broadcast to the masses. These two developments of the late nineteenth century therefore embody the introduction of technology for the masses.

But toy trains - really?

Bobby Baccalieri, to those who haven't seen The Sopranos, is a mobster who is big on toy trains. He owns the most immaculate, and biggest toy train set I've ever seen (until I saw the Eames' film, that is). He is also the oldest person I've seen into toy trains - I thought most people grew out of them at least before they left childhood. But oh, was I wrong. Apparently Walt Disney was into them big time as well, as this clip shows:



(Don't worry, the audio isn't supposed to match up, which is something I'll talk about in my next blog.)

No matter how far into the clip you get (if you watch it) you'll see grown men feature predominantly (especially when they all climb onto the larger toy train and go for a ride...). While at first I was kind of perplexed, I think I've come to the conclusion that trains where, holistically, such a bigger part of life back then. I don't want that to sound as if I'm oversimplifying the past, but 'back then' your dad, or your uncle or you grandfather would have 'worked on the railways', and had the station master around to tea, and... it was a real part of life. My great-grandfather apparently had the train timetables and train stations and station masters for all the stations from Sydney to Bathurst memorised, and would take my grandmother and her siblings on trips to no where in particular, just for the train ride. It was a passion you could cultivate in the time before TV, before the immediate distractions we now interact with on a moment to moment basis, rather than the previous day-to-day.

But this brings me back to Bobby. And in a way, to the Eames. In Bobby's final scene in The Sopranos shots of a large toy train set are cut into shots of Bobby's murder in a spectacular scene. I must admit that when I watched the Eames' film this was the first thing that came to mind:



I haven't been able to find a video of the Eames' film to compare, but many of the shots of the above scene allude to the Eames' film, such as the shots of the train as it passes the crossing, and the close up of the figurines. It's such a stylised scene, juxtaposing a traditionally childhood hobby with a violent, shocking assault. Like masturbating clowns...





As a post-script to previous discussions, I had a thought today of what Cornell would think of T.V. promos. Perhaps we mentioned it in class when talking about fan-vids, but I saw a Law and Order promo recently, which made me think of it. A lot of the time the images from the most recent episode are edited together to create a new narrative which may only slightly resemble the actual plot of the actual episode. How many times have people been drawn in by a promo for a show on TV which doesn't turn out to be anything like what the promo implies. I have. Many times.
Secondly, what would Cornell think of things like this??



I can understand being proud of you kids... but putting their pictures in the public domain where cinematic modernism students can find it and post it on their blog of an example of what could make Cornell turn in his proverbial grave??? I think it may even be weirder than a fan vid. Any takers?