Comprising train and track footage quickly shot just before a heavy winter's snowfall was melting, the multi-award-winning classic that emerged from the cutting-room compresses British Rail's dedication to blizzard-battling into a thrilling eight-minute montage cut to music. Tough-as-boots workers struggling to keep the line clear are counterpointed with passengers' buffet-car comforts.
UK
UK
Hard-rocking cinematic formalism from British Transport Films documenting the Big Freeze of 1963, available as part of the BFI National Archive. It is kind of incredible that, in the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the British government was happily funding films so in hock to Soviet montage theory - the flash-frames of the title scream Dziga Vertov - but that's how fun life could be before the Cold War gave way to the Culture Wars.
A real gem from the BFI National Archive, looking at the Big Freeze of 1963.
Could you imagine the Big Freeze happening now? Nowadays it seems like if there's just two inches of snow the establishment go into a frenzy, warning everyone to stay at home. People throw their arms up in a strop and wonder why they can't vote off bad weather like they can their least favourite Big Brother contestants, whilst the meedja give their doom laden forecasts over to the plight of gritters, occasionally enlightened by ho-ho-ho funny pictures of people in the snow.
One thing's for sure, the trains wouldn't be running.
Renationalise now. Vote Labour in June.
Rather like still having steam trains in the 1960s, this short utilises cinematic techniques from decades before and if not egregiously late to the party - it’s too thrillingly constructed for that - then its form points to the timidity of postwar British cinema where ‘experimentation’ was kept to such margins as transport films (you could persuasively argue that is was in television where Great Britain excelled and set the agenda not cinema).
This along with Rail in 1967 - which thematically at least marked a transition to electrification of the railways - point to Jones’s skill at rhythmic editing and juxtaposing clean lines with locomotion (literally) to create wonderfully kinetic montages of picture and sound (via frequent collaborator Oram of BBC Radiophonic Workshop fame).
Like the snow-cutting equipment on film this must have sliced a clean sheath through the interminable mediocrity of most supporting bills when first shown in cinemas and still has a bracing crispness about it.
This is how to edit mundane footage into something exciting.
Part of my effort to watch at least one short film per day. Here is the list I am currently working through, with a random number generator determining the film each day. I will take recommendations for everything that's 40 minutes max.
love the rhythmic editing to daphne oram's music edits and distortions... the snowy landscape, shoveling, movement with the fast past cuts in tune with the music emanates hypnotic energy and ecstasy... makes you want to dance.. always a nice treat to find films like these
Damn, what a perfectly framed and edited snapshot of a certain time and place. I know it sounds crazy, but I kinda love shoveling snow. It’s like chopping wood, kinda.
Nicely edited short film if you are a fan of trains (I don't give # or star ratings to shorts as they are not comparable to films).
Only about 8 minutes long, but lots of different trains moving across different terrain (with quite a bit of snow around). It is edited well enough to hold the viewer's attention and keep one from starting to think why I am watching this!
An interesting watch for those of you (such as myself) who not only have a soft spot for train travel but are inclined to actually choose taking a train even when a cheaper bus option is available.
The video for train fans: www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl4pJwcE7JI
Part of My exploration of silent films & visuals over sound, during April 2023
