Japanese train films/FOR MARKUS

[Mark Nornes]

Thanks!  I appreciate it very much.

Cheers,

Markus

On Jan 25, 2009, at 4:03 AM, David Blair wrote:

> hi Markus,
> being a bit of manchuria buff [trains] I kept these, so here's a cut  
> and paste,
> etc,
>
> ---------------------
>
>
> Here are some quick IMDb links for the ones I can think of off of  
> the top of my head:
>
> I Just Didn't Do It: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0794350/
> Hana and Alice: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407851/
> Railroad Man: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0206216/
> Cafe Lumiere: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0412596/
> The Taste of Tea: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0413893/
> Nobody Knows: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0408664/
>
> Long shots:
> A Gentle Breeze in the Village: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0997184/  
> (this is more of a train tracks movie than a train movie. They do  
> take the train to Tokyo at one point, though.)
>
> April Story: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0146271/ (The story begins  
> in a train station in Hokkaido)
>
> Suicide Club: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0312843/ (Some... scenes  
> take place on subway platforms)
>
> All About Lily Chou-Chou: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0297721/ (Some  
> important scenes take place on the subway, and in the train station)
>
>
> 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  /Steamboy/ (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 too 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. )
>
> Well, here are some of my favorites:
>
> Wartime Train: /Sanshiro Sugata/'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 /Brief  
> Encounter---/or am I confusing it with another film?)
>
> Postwar Golden Trains:  Nakahira's great shots of the train station  
> and platform and kiosks in /Crazed Fruit  /and Kurosawa's /High and  
> Low/ (that incredible action scene) and /Dodeskaden /(the phantasy  
> trains that we never see, almost the inverse of Kinugasa's trains  
> that we /do/)  are  beaten by the beautiful sentimentality of  
> Noriko, Tomi's watch, and Kyoko's view of the train as it leaves  
> Onomichi in /Tokyo Story/.
> New Wave Trains: /Violence at Noon /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--
>
> Or how about the tunnel with no train ... in Kawase's /Moe no  
> Suzaku ... /train as transport to a differently gendered world in / 
> Summer Vacation 1999/
> /
> /
> But now I've fallen for the question ... I must wrest my mind  
> back.    I look forward to other's responses.
>
> Jonathan M Hall
> UC Irvine
>
> Also, 2 major parts of Swing Girls take place on the train:
> http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0435434/
>
> What a nice thread! I would add that time-travel is also a form of  
> transportation, and there is a real boom in time travel (and the way  
> it is visualized) in the 80s. In addition to Pink Films, there were  
> quite a few sexually themed train films in V-Cinema in the 1990s;  
> the best known and most successfull is probably the "O-shiri wo  
> nademawashi-tzuzuketa otoko" series. Directed by Tomioka Tadafumi,  
> an early collaborator of Hiroki Ryuichi, this series certainly took  
> a lot of inspiration from the Pink chikan densha films. Mirroring  
> the boom time of V-Cinema, it had considerably higher budgets than  
> the Pink versions, was shot on film (at least in the first few  
> episodes), and was both less explicit and more character-oriented.  
> Also, in case these haven't been mentioned yet: There are shinkansen  
> scenes in Oshima's Violence at Noon, and Masumura's version of Ashi  
> ni Sawatta Onna features some key scenes on the train, if I remember  
> correctly. Also the beginning of Obayashi Nobuhiko's House has a  
> quite experimental version of a train ride. Kadokawa Haruki's Aijou  
> Monogatari has the heroine (played by Harada Tomoyo) dancing faux- 
> flashdance style on the train. Alex
> --
>
> *One of the alltime greatest train sequences in the history of  
> movies is the ransom-money drop from the Shinkansen in Kurosawa's  / 
> Tengoku to Jigoku  /("High & Low" ).*
> For a station scene, I love the tense scene near the end of  
> Kurosawa's /Nora Inu /("Stray Dog"), in which detective Mifune  
> Toshiro suspiciously eyes all the people in the waiting room of a  
> little suburban station, desperately trying to identify which one is  
> the killer.
> There are so many trains in Japanese movies one doesn't know where  
> to begin.  Others have already mentioned many train scenes.
> One rarely seen film that is full of trains is  /Tooi ippon no  
> michi  ("The Far Road") -- /actress Hidari Sachiko's 1977 debut film  
> as a director in a narrative about a stationmaster's family.
> Speaking of Hidari, I recall train scenes in her 1955 film for  
> Tasaka Tomotaka /Jochukko ("The Maid's Kid")/
> And then there's Ichikawa's 1957 /Mannin Densha  ("A Full-Up  
> Train") /and the unforgettable train scene at the beginning of the  
> various different film versions of Kawabata Yasunari's novel / 
> Yukiguni ("Snow Country"), /and the long journey in Yamada Yoji's / 
> Kazoku ("Family")./
> Just about every Japanese film with the word /"furusato" (hometown) / 
> in the title has a train journey in it and a nostalgic journey home.
> // Some other memorable Japanese train stations appear in Imamura  
> Shohei's 1955 /Nishi-Ginza Eki-mae  ("In Front of Nishiginza  
> Station") /and Toyoda Shiro's 1955 /Mugi-bue ("Grass Whistle") /
> Not exactly a station, but the final scenes of Shinoda Masahiro's  
> beautiful 1977 film /Hanare-goze Orin ("Banished Orin" or "Melody in  
> Gray") /show railroad track being laid in a steep mountain pass   
> (and I also recall several trains-in-the landscape scenes in that  
> film as Orin travels through Tsuruga and Ura-Nippon.
> There's also a powerful train scene at the end of Kobayashi's great  
> (but rarely seen) 1968 film /Nihon no seishun  ("Youth of Japan" / 
> or  /"Diary of a Tired Man")./
> // One odd sequence involving train stations is the party scene in  
> Kurosawa's 1993 film /Maada-dayo ("Not Yet"), /at which a drunken  
> partygoer takes it upon himself to recite the names of every train  
> station on the main train line from the north of Hokkaido to the  
> very south of Kagoshima.
> And don't forget Kurosawa's script /Runaway Train, /which was  
> finally made into a movie of the same name in 1985, directed by  
> Andrei Konchalovsky and starring Jon Voight.
> // It's hard to know where to stop listing train scenes in Japanese  
> films.  There are many, many, many more.....!
> Peter Grilli
>
> What a great article! I immediately thought of Galaxy Express 999  
> (Ginga tetsudo 999) and Night on the Galactic Railway, both  
> narratives centered on train travel.
>
> There is also a silent film that recently (within last 3-4 years?)  
> surfaced, Tokkyu sanbyakku ri (Nikkatsu Kyoto, 1928) with some  
> pretty good on-the-tracks action.  If you're really nostalgic for  
> old trains, Nijo station in Kyoto is the place to go--you'll feel  
> like you died and went to heaven, and you can also pick up some  
> great train documentaries (VHS when I got them but maybe now DVD  
> too) with titles like "Japan's Steam Locomotives" (footage from NHK  
> archives).
>
> Joanne Bernardi
>
>
>
>
> -- 
>
> ==================
>
> Waxweb {1993-present}:
> http://www.waxweb.org  [online feature + blog with short videos/press]
>
> The Telepathic Motion Picture of THE LOST TRIBES  {in 2008, finally}:
> http://www.telepathic-movie.org  [pre-release blog for feature, with  
> short videos]
> -------------------
>
> David Blair
> blair at telepathic-movie.org
>
>
>