Trains: Long Distance Passages

“On the occasion of the publication of NYC film scholar and critic Genevieve Yue’s book Trains—part of Fordham Press’s Cutaways series, each entry a journey through the history of cinema guided by a single motif or formal device—Metrograph presents a two-part series curated by Yue on the criss-crossing fates of two of the 20th-century’s foundational technologies, continuing in November with Long Distance Passages, an exploration of long-distance train rides on-screen.

“Long distance trains take us out of the everyday, to romance, adventure, or the possibilities of a new life that awaits beyond the unfurling horizon. The cross-country or cross-continental journey can offer relief for the desperate, as with the Depression-era teens of Wild Boys of the Road (1933). It can take a passenger to fantasy, or escape from it, sometimes within the same trip: Julie and Anthony’s extravagant trip to Venice in The Souvenir (2019) foretells their coming troubles, while Laura’s relationship with her seat-mate Lyoha shifts with the rattling car in Compartment No. 6 (2021), which was largely shot on a moving train. Other times, the appeal is the duration of the ride itself—for Arindam, the tarnished movie star of Nayak (The Hero) (1966), the longer, the better. Sometimes it’s just a job, and a difficult one at that, as the engineers of Unstoppable (2010) or Emperor of the North (1973) would undoubtedly attest. Uncertainty is often the lure, and in these films, it is the only constant.” —Series curator Genevieve Yue”