One use of trains is to connect conceptually very disconnected spaces. A
very nice use of such imagery occurs in the early scenes of Alphaville
as Lemmy Caution is moving in his Ford Galaxie across 'intergalatic
space' (driving into Paris from the suburbs). There is a long lingering
shot of a ribbon of the lights of a distant train followed by the camera
across the screen. Almost makes the notion that space travel is
occurring plausible and creates a space that sets up a later allusion to
Pascal as he says that in making the dark journey he felt the he was
facing the abyss (something like that). But maybe the greatest train
(streetcar) journey in film is the transitional scene between country
and city in Murnau's Sunrise. Another favorite use of a train journey
connecting two worlds would be in Ulmer's The Black Cat as the honeymoon
couple accompany Lugosi into the dark world of Marmourus, site of a WWI
slaughter and the moderne gothic mansion built over its mansion.
There are also a lot of good uses of trains in avant-garde films: Bruce
Baille's Castro Street, the Brakhage / Cornell Wondering, and Ernie
Gehr's Eureka come to mind. I have a short article on trains and film in
a Ken Jacobs film performance:
http://home.earthlink.net/~jmatturr/jacobs.html
j
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