The Cinematic Power of Trains and Railroads

Marcin Giżycki

Abstract

Trains are a fantastic theme to be used in film - the founding fathers of cinema, brothers Lumiere, certainly thought so. Since their Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat Station (L ’Arrivee d’un train en gare de La Ciotat), hundred of films dealing with locomotives, tracks and passengers were made. The train became a powerful metaphor for speed, power, but also uncertainty and the situation with no way out. Abel Gance’s monumental The wheel (La roue /1923/) to this day remains the king of “train movies”. Jean Cocteau and Fernand Leger believed that the history of cinema can be divided into the period before Gance’s film, and what happened after. Avant-garde filmmakers such as Alexander Laszlo, Mikhail Chekhanovski, and Jean Mitry made experimental films inspired by the images of a speeding locomotive from The Wheel and the film music composed for the film by Arthur Honegger. However the trains are for the cinema something more than visually attractive machines, connotatively rich carriers of ideas. We are dealing here with two related domains of movement. The film tape unwinds like a railroad track seen from the cabin of the train driver. Each film is, essentially, a train journey from point A to point B.