Peter Tscherkassky's Train Again is showing exclusively on MUBI in most countries starting March 3, 2022 in the series Brief Encounters.
AGAIN A TRAIN
It all began with a wonderful piece of found footage—as is so often the case with my films. Train Again was inspired by a 5-minute roll of 35mm film that a friend had discovered at a flea market and thoughtfully passed my way. It consisted of commercial rushes for our state-owned railway, presenting ten to twelve takes of a train emerging from a tunnel in the distance, gradually approaching and finally reaching the camera which in turn pans with the train as it speeds past and disappears into the distance—at the opposite end of the frame.
Aside from the pan, the takes bear an unmistakable similarity to the Lumière brothers' L'Arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat: What begins as a long shot of a faraway train progresses through all phases of shot-proximity before culminating in a close-up—whereby in our modern-day takes, the camera's closeness to the tracks inscribes a tremendous dynamism into the footage at the moment of the train's passing.
The train rushes were filmed quite clumsily, some takes are a bit shaky while others break off midway—in a word, too funky not to want to do something with the material!
And so it became clear this would become my second train film after L'Arrivée (1998), as well as my third explicitly referencing the Lumières. The title Train Again dawned on me as an obvious choice, naturally also inspired by Kurt Kren's masterpiece 37 /78 Tree again. Following this train of thought (forgive the pun—I can't resist), it soon also struck me that 18 years had elapsed between Kurt's first tree film 3/60 Bäume im Herbst (3/60 Trees in Autumn) and his 37/78 Tree Again—the exact same interval between my L'Arrivée and the idea for Train Again; also, 3/60 Trees in Autumn was Kurt's third film, and L'Arrivée was the third of my darkroom films, made after Motion Picture and Manufracture. What could be more appropriate than to conceive Train Again as an homage to Kurt? Not only did I profoundly admire his work, I had the honor of doing the first in-depth interview with him1—shortly before he left his life in the US (1978–1989) and returned to his native country of Austria where we were good friends the last ten years of his 69-year life (1929-1998).
It is abundantly clear that the train has played a prominent role both as motif and structuring element throughout film history—in early cinema (keyword: phantom rides), in countless feature films, but also in the avant-garde: Consider Peter Kubelka's debut film Mosaik im Vertrauen (Mosaic in Confidence) from 1955, Stan Brakhage's The Wonder Ring from the same year, Robert Breer's Fuji or Ernie Gehr's Eureka! (both 1974), Ken Jacobs' The Georgetown Loop ( 1996), James Benning's RR (2007), and one of my all-time favorites, Bruce Baillie's Castro Street (1966)—to name only a few. Needless to say, the prospect of being permitted to latch on to this fascinating tradition with Train Again was highly alluring.
Quotations from film history play a role in nearly all my films, and Train Again would be no exception. However, this would not take the form of referencing a handful of the countless “train films.” Above all, I wanted to draw a parallel between the train and the material properties of analog film itself, as well as the machinery and mechanical elements enabling both train and film to be carried and conveyed—namely, rails, film strips, railroad ties, frame-lines, piston rods, drive shafts, projector, individual film frame, window, perforation, and including other corollaries, locomotive driver and projectionist, passengers and moviegoers, and so on. Meanwhile, I would replace the landscape passing by the train windows with a few references to early cinema and avant-garde film history that are important to me. This then became the initial approach from which I was able to slowly grow my film over the course of three working seasons—each October through June.
I have often emphasized in interviews and on stage that I see myself as a narrative filmmaker. This is to say, my films consist of a basic even if rudimentary structure that can be retold in a few sentences. With Train Again it is a little different. A chapter-like structure can be discovered in place of a marginal narrative. It is true a minimal narrative bracket is discernable at the beginning and end of the film, presented by the children who stand in for us—the audience. However, in the between screen time I wanted to create a contemporary version of cinéma pur; to enable a genuinely cinematic experience that leans into creative Fine Art techniques—specifically, those of classical modernism. While Cubism in particular served as a leitmotif, I had the iconoclastic methods of Jackson Pollock in my mind's eye when it came to dissolving my figurative pictorial world to the point of abstraction. But above all I wanted to create a deeply cinematic work, also in the sense of overwhelming perception, congenially accompanied and supported by the soundtrack composed by Dirk Schaefer who joined my side a fourth time around on Train Again. Whether our train reaches its ambitious destination is for the passengers to decide: All aboard!
1. “Kurt Kren Interview.” [German] blimp – Zeitschrift für Film (Graz), no. 10 (1988), pp. 4–10. Reprint in: “Die rekonstruierte Kinematographie. Zur Filmavantgarde in Österreich.” [German] In Avantgardefilm. Österreich 1950 bis heute, edited by Alexander Horwath, Lisl Ponger and Gottfried Schlemmer, pp. 125–136. Vienna: Wespennest, 1995.