Riding the Rails
Riding the Rails offers a visionary perspective on the presumed romanticism of the road and cautionary legacy of the Great Depression. The filmmakers relay the experiences and painful recollections of these now-elderly survivors of the rails. Forced to travel more by economic necessity than the spirit of adventure, the film's subjects dispel romantic myths of a hobo existence and its corresponding veneer of freedom. Riding the Rails recounts the hoboes' trade secrets for survival and accounts of dank miseries, loneliness, imprisonment, death, and dispossession. Sixty years later, the filmmakers transport their subjects back to the tracks, where the surging impact of sound and movement resuscitates memories of a shattered adolescence and devastating rite of passage.
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Cast
15 people
Lexy Lovell Director · Michael Uys Director Sam Henriques Cinematographer
United States release January 1, 1997
Languages
Original language
English
Release dates
United States · January 1, 1997
Theatrical
Iceland
January 18, 1999 · Reykjavik Film Festival
India
March 1, 1998 · Bombay International Film Festival
Some details come from TheTVDB.