On 4 and 5 December 2010 a guest of the American film collector Dennis Nyback in Hamburg, two of his wonderful 16mm programs present. On the evening of 4 he is in Metropolis under a "Hobo Special" newsreels, show archives, cartoons and short films, which show that the hobo life is about more than a U.S. version of the Black driving. On the afternoon of 5 he presents in B-Movie under Bizarre Cinema series, the program "Subversive animation, cartoons the 30s and 40s, which were then censored due to its very open approach to sex and drugs and prohibited (more info about the series can be found below). The Wayward Cloud spoke with Dennis Nyback of Hobos, movie collection, and what both have to do with each other.
The Wayward Cloud: Why should the legacy of freight hopping be remembered?
Nyback Dennis: It was an event that took place in time and place and if people want to understand that place and time, America before the Interstate Highway System, it helps to look at many parts of it. Freight train riding was a part of the subversive aspects of that time. So many of the freight riders, say prior to 1940, were probably resisting progress. They didn't want to join the Twentieth Century. Right now there is a movement in America to turn back the clock to what they see as simpler times. Much of that manifests itself as Anti-Intellectualism . Understanding freight train riding helps you understand America.
Have you been hopping trains yourself?
My main freight train hopping trip was when I was a 22 year old college student at the University of Washington in Seattle during the Spring and Summer of of 1976. Prior to that I had taken some short trips on freight trains. Since then I have traveled on standard rail trains, mostly in Europe, or in the United States on the West Coast and East Coast. I chose to ride freights for reasons I probably didn’t realize at the time. My father was in the merchant marine and away from home during much of my childhood. I spent summers on our family farm with my grandmother and my dad’s brother. The brother, my uncle Reino, told me stories about his riding freight trains in the 1930s. Reino died when I was in high school. I think I rode freight trains as a way to understand and connect with my father and my uncle. I was also generally disillusioned with the Seventies and had immersed myself in the culture of the 1930s. When I started on the trip in 1976 I wore an outfit made up from clothes I found in the attic of our farm. It was also the Bi-centennial year for the United States and I thought seeing the USA from a freight train door would be the proper thing to do.
Dennis Nyback: „This is a beautiful shot. I just sat like that myself on a few trains.“
What does being a hobo mean to you?
Being a hobo means traveling without a destination and not having a regular job. It is sort of opting out of most respectable ways of living. Riding freights differs from other ways of traveling in that you don’t have complete control of where you are going. It is traveling for the sake of traveling, instead of traveling for the sake of going someplace. A hobo generally will have a destination, but the train he gets on can take him someplace else. It is sort of a existentialism way of traveling.
Any idea why there are no hobos in Europe, only in America?
I’d guess there are at least two reasons I can think of. America is a vast place with no border control between States. I took freights that traveled through several States before reaching their terminus. Europe has too many borders to cross. Things being closer together also changes things. A person with no money could conceivably walk or ride a bicycle through much of Europe. In America between the West Coast and the industrial East is thousands of kilometers of space, including mountains and deserts. The other reason might be more important, and is matter of attitude. Even into the Twentieth Century America had a frontier that daring people could freely move about in with almost no control over them. Americans, whether it is true or not, still believe in that sort of frontiersman idea of personal freedom.
Do you see any connections between film collecting and hoboism?
I started buying films, before Video, because I wanted to look at history. I suppose I rode freights the same reason. Modern life is very fast. You can’t see much when you’re in a hurry. Freight train riding was a way to slow down and look at things. I was trying to see things in America I knew would be destroyed in my lifetime.
When did you start to collect films?
I started buying films in the late Seventies. At the beginning it was mainly short films in 16mm. Even after Video those films were generally not available in any other form. I now have films in every gauge except 28mm and 70mm. I recently got a collection of 17.5mm feature films . They are all sound films from Europe from the 1930s. Now I need to find a 17.5mm sound projector to watch them.
The last 15 years, in which you were regularly travelling through Europe with your 16mm-films, saw the rise of digital cinema. Did this development in any way change the way you think about your work and the necessity for showing celluloid?
I have witnessed the decline of 16mm as a viable form. I still prefer to show films on 16mm. Part of that is just for aesthetic reasons. I also have read that the human brain processes film and digital in different ways. Film is a photograph. Digital is scrambled and put back together. I think it is good for your brain to watch a 16mm film everyone once in while hundreds of hours of dog between various digital viewing.
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"Hobo Special" in be a small festival of logistical disobedience, in which not only black drivers have their joy - Metropolis cinema .
04.12.2010, 21.15 Clock: "Hobo, You Can not Ride That Train"
Dennis Nyback presents short films and archive footage, showing the world of hobos, tramps of the American railroad. On display next to a brief history on the American freight trains and newsreels from the Depression era of the cartoon The Hobo Gadget Band (1939), a source of inspiration for O Brother, Where Art Thou by the Coen brothers, a short comedy from 1920 and the two Soundies The Lonesome Road (1943 ) with Al Donahue and his Orchestra and Boxcar Rhapsody (1942) with Borrah Minevitch & His Harmonica Rascals. In Hobo, At the End of the Line (1977) look like famous Train Hopper Fry Pan Jack Fisk, Bodie Wagner and trade unionists, folk singer and poet Utah Phillips back on the history of the Hobos. Rounding is Dennis Nyback the program with their own memories on trains, on which he has jumped, of which he was thrown down.
A train of the North Pole (OT: Emperor of the North )
USA 1973, directed by Robert Aldrich, 116 minutes, with Lee Marvin, Ernest Borgnine, Keith Carradine
After artwork by Jack London Hobo-classics The Road (dt: A benteurer of the rail track), Robert Aldrich the eternal struggle of the Tramps against the railway employees as a mythological excessive, brute-duel between men. Lee Marvin as A is no. 1 the dominant king of all tricks Depression-Hobos, while Ernest Borgnine it as a murderous Bremser Shack has made a life's work to let anyone jump on his train No. 19. A thrilling fight to the death begins when A No. One decides to take the No. 19 to Portland - on the one hand Trickstertum and wit, violence on the other wrenches, sledge hammers and naked. ..
4:12, 19 Clock / 5.12, 19 clock
This land is my land (OT: Bound for Glory )
USA 1976, directed by Hal Ashby, 147 minutes, with David Carradine, Melinda Dillon
Based on the autobiography of Woody Guthrie describes Hal Ashby's film four years in the life of the famous folk singer and Hobos. It tells of the four years as the Depression was at its height and Guthrie traveled by train from camp to camp to live with the migrant workers who live there and Okies and sing. Ashby was also a precise and scathing portrait of a torn country, and thanks to the spectacular Cinemascope images of cinematographer Haskell Wexler, a tribute to the wide open spaces and rooms of America. Also on the first Steadicam sequence in film history.
3.12., 19.15 Clock / 5.12., 21.15 clock
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Cinema Bizarre in November and December in B-Movie :
21. November, 15.30 Clock: The killer of Vienna
Italy / Spain 1970, directed by Sergio Martino, 98 min, 35mm, DF, with George Hilton, Edwige Fenech
The neglected in her marriage, feeling Julie an affair begins with the Beau George. Shortly after, she is blackmailed, and her friend Carol is killed by a masked man with a razor. Is Julie's sadistic ex-lover of Jean Strangler of Vienna? Sergio Martino's first Giallo is one of the best that the genre has to offer. An erotic thriller that captivated throughout!
text and introductions: Mike Schimana
28th November, 15.30 Clock: Hell's Angels on Wheels
USA 1967, Director: Richard Rush, 95 min, 35mm, with Jack Nicholson, Sabrina Scharf
One of the better biker movies from the 60s. Jack Nicholson is to see it as a gas station attendant with the beautiful name of a poet who joins the Hell's Angels on a trip across the States. Trouble is it, when a poet to the Head Girl by Angel Adam Roarke ranmacht. Directed by cult director Richard Rush ( Psych-Out ), the camera moved none other than Laszlo Kovacs, who later drew responsible for Easy Rider, but also for so'n nonsense like Miss Congeniality .
Text and Introduction: Michael Ranze
Mickey's Whoopee Party Sunday, 12.05, 15.30 clock. "Subversive Animation
Dennis Nyback performs a program curious and amusing animated films that did require history, but have now largely forgotten. The 16mm has salvaged treasures that Nyback from its archive, including censored, banned and still disturbing cartoons as Dizzy Red Riding Hood (1931) by Max and Dave Fleischer, in the Betty Boop ranlässt sharp as the wolf, Little Red Riding Hood , The Screwdriver (1941) with Woody Woodpecker as an anarchist ("F * ck the Po'leece!") and Mickey's Whoopee Party (1932) over a sprawling banquet, which participate in the end even the cops. Also included inebriated Dwarfs, psychotropic milkmen, a rebellious Snow White and a trip through the polymorphous-perverse world under a manhole cover.
Sunday, 12.12, 15.30 clock. Gorgo
GB 1961, 78 min, directed by Eugène Lourié, Bill Travers, William Sylvester, Vincent Winter
Gorgon is a 20-foot-tall dinosaur that appears unexpectedly in the sea, is captured and looks forward to an unpleasant future as a circus attraction in London. But it turns out: It's just a baby - and his angry Mom is already very close. The army is in position, but what good is already against an actor in a rubber suit, through the London Toy and tramples it emits eerie screams?
Text and Introduction: Hans-Arthur Marsiske
Sunday, 19.12, 15.30 clock. Rolling Thunder
USA 1977, 95 min, 35mm, DF, directed by John Flynn, William Devane, Tommy Lee Jones
One year after Taxi Driver Paul Schrader wrote the book on this forgotten gem of the Vietnam returnee-on-revenge genre, one of Tarantino's favorite films. William Devane, the man with the disturbing car salesman grin from Marathon Man and Family grave , shines as an ex-major with steel claws, which searches for the killers of his family. At his side: the almost wrinkle-free Tommy Lee Jones.
text and introduction by Volker Hummel
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