A train ticket, a dying empire, and one filmmaker refusing to look away from beauty.
In October 2008, Jon Jost is standing with his camera in the waiting area of a train station in the USA, filming the other travelers: a mother with a child, the cleaning service, businesspeople on the phone, the conductor who falls in love and says goodbye to his wife. Finally he gets on the train himself and points the camera out of the window at the passing towns, the landscape and the clouds in the evening sky. A benevolent look at America - in the middle of the global economic crisis.
Direction
Jost's 40+ years of independent filmmaking distilled to pure gesture.
Cinematography
Handheld poetry of fluorescent waiting rooms and golden hour escapes.
Director
Jon Jost
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Shot during the 2008 crash, this became Jost's accidental elegy for Obama's 'hope' moment — already mourning what was slipping away.
Jost — blacklisted from Hollywood since the 70s — self-distributes everything. This played more film festivals than theatres, by design.
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