Dear Temple Travelers,

I’d like to introduce myself. I’m Paul Swann, a Professor of Film and Media Arts in Temple University’s Center for the Arts. I will have the pleasure of being on the tour of , Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand next spring. While teaching at Temple University-Japan, my family and I were lucky enough to travel extensively in Asia, and visited many of the places on this tour. I teach in the media studies area, and for my talks on our tour, will draw on a course I teach called Imaginary Cities . Imaginary Cities uses cinema to enable students to travel virtually. In fact, travel, not narrative, dominated early (pre-1905) film. Many of the very first films dating back to the 1890s were “phantom rides” taking audiences to parts of the world they would never visit in reality. For example, Gabriel Veyre shot this rickshaw ride in 1897 in Laos while working for the Lumiere company: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5XlKaii0OE There were thousands of these films. Phantom rides literally took people places, turning viewers into “armchair conquistadors”. Many of them were shot from moving vehicles, most often trains, thus beginning a long relationship between cinema and train travel.

Who has not had the experience of going somewhere for the first time and finding it very familiar? Maybe you’d been there in a movie. Our impressions of other countries have often been culturally constructed – just as our overseas neighbors, for good or ill, glean much of what they think they know about us from movies and other media. Of course, if a film is made in a studio back lot, drawing on stereotypes and second hand misconceptions of other parts of the world, then it may have precious little to do with the actual world. What do we learn about Bali from 1952’s The Road to Bali (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE0sUbrWobE ) – not a foot of which was shot on location? Or how much Thai history do we learn from the musical The King and I ( 1956). On the other hand, a setting can become a plug, intentional or otherwise, for a particular place. How many have followed ’s footsteps to Ubud after reading Eat, Pray, Love or perhaps seeing in the eponymous film (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjay5vgIwt4 )? And of course, Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations television series has already sampled the region!

In my talks I’ll relate our visits to Bali, Bangkok, Singapore and the Bridge on the River Kwai to their portrayal in both travel and fiction films. We’ll also explore the intriguing connection between train travel and cinema, beginning with the time more than a hundred years ago when many people’s first experience of motion pictures was to watch them in an imitation railway passenger car that would remain motionless as a panorama of images around the "passengers" simulated the experience of a train journey!

I am including some reading and screening suggestions. I look forward to meeting you all and sharing this adventure with you.

Cordially,

Paul Swann Professor, Film and Media Arts Division of Theater, Film and Media Arts

July 15, 2014

Suggest Readings:

Jeffrey Ruoff (editor) Virtual Voyages: Cinema and Travel, Durham : Duke University Press, 2006. Professor Ruoff is a Temple alum. This anthology has many fascinating essays on the travel film.

Jennifer Peterson, Education in the School of Dreams: Travelogues and Early Nonfiction Film Durham ; London : Duke University Press, 2013. A new and very smart discussion of travelogues and other nonfiction films exhibited between 1907 and 1915.

Frederik Gustafsson, Trains and the Cinema , http://fredrikonfilm.blogspot.com/2014/01/trains- and-cinema.html . This blog gives a short overview of the intertwined histories of cinema and train travel.

Suggested Screenings:

Here are some readily available films you might want to view before the tour:

The Darjeeling Limited (Wes Anderson, 2007)

The Bridge on the River Kwai (David Lean, 1957) based on the eponymous novel by Pierre Boulle (1952). Winner of seven Academy Awards. It was actually shot in Sri Lanka.

Phantom Ride and Early Train Films https://mubi.com/lists/phantom-ride-early-train-films . Here you can see a medley of early phantom ride and train films. You can sign up for a free trial to view these films.