<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Brian, prompting this kind of imagination is unforgivable because there is no station at which to arrive: forgive me, but it's in-terminal-able! Now, having jumped through the obvious truck-yaro films, I'm thinking about bus films--and, my!!, there have been some great ones: (Yume no ginga, again Ishii Sogo, Aoyama Shinji's Eureka, Yamda Yoji's The Yellow Handkerchief of Happiness--- should Takakura Ken "stay on the bus, forget about us ..." Car films ... films with pedal boats ... scooter films .... (Obitani's Stupid Gencahri Girl series must figure somewhere....) Roller Coasters ... (Janken Musume? Family Game ...) But where does this take us? Is there a moratorium in sight? I swear off my imagination.<div><br></div><div>Jonathan<br><div><br></div><div><br><div><div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br><div><div>On 11 Sep 2008, at 19:14, Jonathan M Hall wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite">Trains and train stations in Japanese films? I can't believe the question is straightforward. Is Brian trying to seduce us into watching Otomo's <i>Steamboy</i> (sigh!) or perhaps inaugurate the longest-running thread in KineJapan's dear history? (Asking us about which Japanese films figure Japanese characters would have been just <span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline;">too</span> obvious ... okay, I'm exaggerating here.) But then again, it's such a fun question for another one like me who grew up with a freight train running right down the main street of my small American hometown twice a day. (It was fun to watch during the daytime--and at night, as a little boy, I'd listen wistfully, awfully--as in awe-filled--from my bed to the rumble that shook our little city. )<div><br></div><div>Well, here are some of my favorites:</div><div><br></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline;">Wartime Train</span>: <i>Sanshiro Sugata</i>'s final scene--Sugata's subordination to moral order is matched by his containment within a train---and doesn't he even remove a piece of soot from his beloved's eye ... (now this was one year before David Lean's <i>Brief Encounter---</i>or am I confusing it with another film?)</div><div><br></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline;">Postwar Golden Trains:</span> Nakahira's great shots of the train station and platform and kiosks in <i>Crazed Fruit </i>and Kurosawa's <i>High and Low</i> (that incredible action scene) and <i>Dodeskaden </i>(the phantasy trains that we never see, almost the inverse of Kinugasa's trains that we <i>do</i>) are beaten by the beautiful sentimentality of Noriko, Tomi's watch, and Kyoko's view of the train as it leaves Onomichi in <i>Tokyo Story</i>. </div><div><br></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="text-decoration: underline;">New Wave Trains</span>: <i>Violence at Noon </i>gives us all kinds of trains: from the shinkansen--even fear of a murderer on a train--to the wild pans on a more local train as Shino and Matsuko (Koyama Akiko) head to a failed double-suicide--</div><div><br></div><div>Or how about the tunnel with no train ... in Kawase's <i>Moe no Suzaku ... </i>train as transport to a differently gendered world in <i>Summer Vacation 1999</i></div><div><i><br></i></div><div>But now I've fallen for the question ... I must wrest my mind back. I look forward to other's responses.</div><div><br></div><div>Jonathan M Hall</div><div>UC Irvine</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br><div><br></div><div><br><div><div>On 11 Sep 2008, at 18:27, Brian Ruh wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Since reading this article [1] in the Japan Times, I've been thinking about Japanese trains. (I love things like subway cars and trains. I think it stems from growing up in a place where there wasn't anything like that.) Can anyone recommend any good Japanese films that prominently feature trains, stations, etc.? (When I try a Google search on the subject, I'm inundated with results for Densha Otoko.)</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Any time period or genre would be great. (I particularly like the train scenes in Shinkai Makoto's "5 Centimeters Per Second" even though they're animated.) Thanks in advance!</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">[1] <a href="http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20080909jk.html">http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20080909jk.html</a></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Best,</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Brian</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Brian's Essential Reading:<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><a href="http://www.oshiibook.com">http://www.oshiibook.com</a></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div> </blockquote></div><br></div></div></blockquote></div><br></div></div></div></div></div></body></html>