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COPYRIGHT 2007 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
Movie Listings
The Film File
Can you have a thriving movie culture in a country without enough trains? The decline of the American railroad neatly parallels that of the Hollywood studio system, and something about the train traveller and the moviegoer catches the eye: both are required to sit with their fellow-men, and to start their journey at a particular time, not of their own choosing. Both are left alone, yet their privacy--tinged with dreaminess--is of a very public kind. Set a movie on a train and you get the best of both worlds, for your audience will feel an instant kinship with the souls packed together onscreen. Preston Sturges knew this, as did the Billy Wilder of "Some Like It Hot"; these days, however, the thrill of the ride has shrivelled to a dull metropolitan commute.
So, if you are a movie director with a taste for the railroad but the misfortune to be living now, where do you turn? If you are Wes Anderson, you go to India. He could have picked Japan, I suppose, but his characters have to hop onto a rear carriage, like robbers in a Western, and you can't really do that with a bullet train. In the opening scene of his new film, "The Darjeeling Limited," we see an unnamed businessman in a porkpie hat (Bill Murray) rushing for an Indian train, and failing to catch it, while a younger...
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