Tokyo subway tunnel as zoetrope - all the info

[Jason Gray]

In a non-academic way, one thing I can say is that the
first time (and really only the first time) I saw these
images light up in the dark of the tunnel, the feeling was
maybe as close as one could get in this day and age to
being conscious of watching a moving image instead of just
focusing on the content. In 2004 we are subconsciously
learned and prepared for moving images coming at us from
every direction, but as we're not expecting to see a
moving image in that "venue" (the tunnel), when it hits,
you're very conscious of the delivery first and the
content second (I still can't remember what products they
advertise). Sort of a strange reversal of the amazed
audience over a hundred years ago that saw Lumiere's film
of the train pullin' 'in...

That NYC subway film sound interesting. I assume it's
public domain?

To bring it back to Japanese cinema, are there are films,
narrative or documentary that focus or use as a backdrop
Tokyo's transformation from a streetcar city to a subway
one? I could be wrong, but wasn't the Ginza line the first
underground line?

Jason


> This is a perfect description of the early film tour
> of the New York 
> subway system. (Sorry, I can't remember the name,
> which is long but 
> descriptive.)  It's one of the most beautiful films
> of the early 
> cinema. They mounted a bank of strong lights on one
> train and shot from 
> the other, with all those pillars between them. The
> shadows of the 
> pillars sweep across the frame while the trains move
> smoothly through 
> the underground tunnels. A must see film.
> 
> I thought about this early film when I first saw the
> Ginza zoetrope 
> (maybe its linearity makes it more like the
> Kinematoscope and links it 
> with cinema in stronger ways), and I couldn't help
> but be struck by 
> this new=old imagery that offered a new experience
> of the underground 
> city and half the train's who missed the show
> because they were 
> absorbed in their keitai.
> 
> Markus
>