The Fantascope
This is where we post and discuss film clips that
show how cinema creates everyday memories
of dead objects and sometimes even
fabricates desires to use them.
show how cinema creates everyday memories
of dead objects and sometimes even
fabricates desires to use them.
Panorama of Ealing from a Moving Tram (1901)
Panorama of Ealing taken from a Moving Tram (1901) moves along the Uxbridge Road: an arterial road that connected the urban streets of London's Shepherd's Bush to Middlesex's semi-rural surroundings. This "phantom ride" marked the opening of London's first tramway on 10 July 1901, and combined the arrival of both the tram and the cinematograph to Ealing. The ranks of trams and cinematographs imposed an urban rhythm upon the suburb's streets, regimented by the clanging of the tram conductor and the speed of the shutter. The tram, however, has long since passed. And as we watch the shop awnings pass and swerving cyclists go by, aboard our mode of cinematic transport a nostalgic force grips the viewer. A ride aboard this cinematic tram is a means of conveyance into the world of memory and imagination. Nostalgia rides the cinematic tram through a vanished London. Contemporary Londoners must thus find solace in the trams that move through the imagined streets of film.
--Karolina Kendall Bush
Here are some tram film links
Nocturna Artificialia (Brothers Quay, UK, 1979)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6Uaww0yon4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1SmMpQeVZs&feature=related
The Elephant Will Never Forget (John Krish, UK, 1953)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7lK2tDglXQ
Toonerville Trolley-Trolley Ahoy (1936)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRg6IGbI0Sc
The Trolley Song from Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincent Minnelli, USA, 1944)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UJLIrT_ALs
And you can listen here to "Trams of Old London" by Robyn Hitchcock:
http://listen.grooveshark.com/#/song/Trams_Of_Old_London/1720765
