Streetcar film comes full circle Still-relevant 1996 documentary focus of media arts event By Lauren Bishop • [email protected] • July 12, 2009 http://news.cincinnati.com/article/20090712/ENT/907120318/Streetcar+film+comes+full+circle In 1996, Wright State University Liz Blume of Xavier Community Building 2006's "A Lion in the House," Julia professor and Oscar-nominated Institute and Madeira City Manager Tom Reichert's Primetime Emmy Award- documentary filmmaker Jim Klein and Moeller will discuss urban and suburban winning documentary on young cancer archival researcher Martha Olson growth issues. patients in Cincinnati - explained why he produced the 55-minute documentary Where: Carnegie Visual and Performing wanted to explore the demise of "Taken for a Ride." Arts Center, 1028 Scott Blvd., Covington. streetcars and why the documentary is relevant today. Cost: Tuesday's screening costs $12 in Question: Why did you make the film? advance and $15 at the door. Tickets to the Wednesday screening are $8 in Answer: When I started on it, I was not advance and $10 at the door. Buy in someone who put a lot of focus on advance at www.cincyworldcinema.org environmental issues. I really got more or 859-781-8151. Also, Lookout Joe in interested in it as a cautionary tale about Mount Lookout, Shake It Records in the idea that you let the free market Northside, Sitwell's Coffee Emporium in make all the decisions for the society, Clifton and Coffee Emporium, and that will be the best. Downtown. Proceeds benefit Southern I was very interested in the corporate Ohio Filmmakers' Association and power story of it - General Motors at the Cincinnati World Cinema. time was the largest and most powerful corporation in the world - and its ability ===== Provided/Jim Klein to shape what our urban society looks The film's still-controversial premise The Pacific Electric Railway served the like. I didn't come up with the idea. I got was that General Motors bought up and Los Angeles basin through World War II. a phone call from my partner on the film, dismantled the nation's streetcar lines to In 1950, it abandoned most of its lines. (archival researcher) Martha Olson. She replace them with its diesel buses, while The "red cars" were junked, stacked and called me up with this tale about General auto industry and highway lobbyists left to rot. Motors destroying public transportation pushed through Congress the vast and streetcars in America. Up until that network of interstate highways that led to point, this had been sort of what I America's car-dependent culture. thought of as an urban myth. But Martha Fast-forward 13 years. General had a lot of the goods. She really had a Motors is just emerging from bankruptcy, lot of base materials on it and knew a lot and Cincinnati and other U.S. cities are of people who had done research and trying to bring back streetcars. And had original documents. there's more interest than ever in making Q: What did you learn while making the short films and documentaries like film? "Taken for a Ride," thanks to widely available, inexpensive digital media A: What I discovered in making the equipment and the ease of sharing video film is the type of transit you have on the Internet. impacts the type of city you have. A Jim Klein is a Wright State University That's why the Southern Ohio city that has more opportunity for its professor of motion studies and Filmmakers Association and Cincinnati citizens to travel around with each documentary filmmaker. His 1996 film, World Cinema are bringing "Taken for a other and for neighborhoods to be "Taken for a Ride," will be shown at the Ride" and a short film on urban sprawl, places where business takes place Carnegie Arts Center in Covington on "A Crack in the Pavement," to the rather than the car-oriented, mall- July 14-15 at a fundraiser for the Carnegie Visual and Performing Arts oriented type of society, I think is a lot Southern Ohio Filmmakers Association Center this week and asking the healthier and has a lot more long-term presented by Cincinnati World Cinema. documentary filmmakers who worked on potential. them to discuss their craft. Q: There was no one currently with If you go The event is the first fundraiser for the GM interviewed in the film. You did What: Screening of "Taken for a Ride," 9-year-old Southern Ohio Filmmakers talk to Barney Larrick, who dismantled Jim Klein and Martha Olson's Association, the region's networking transit systems for (GM-controlled) documentary about the death of organization for people involved in National City Lines. A lot of those streetcars, and "A Crack in the media arts. people who were at GM at the time Pavement," Andrea Torrice's short film "We encompass a pool of talented and are no longer around, but did you about urban sprawl, presented by experienced people who could be make an attempt to talk to anyone Southern Ohio Filmmakers Association invaluable, to give just one example, in with the company? and Cincinnati World Cinema. helping the many small arts groups who A: We certainly made an attempt to When: 7 p.m. Tuesday and are hungry to add digital media to their talk to General Motors at the time ... Wednesday. The Tuesday program will toolboxes," says SOFA board member and they really had no interest include a pre-show reception at 6 p.m. Margaret McGurk, a former Enquirer film whatsoever. (Barney Larrick) was the and a question-and-answer session with critic. only person who was actually part of the filmmakers afterward. After In a recent interview, Klein - whose the General Motors side of the thing Wednesday's screening, Andrea Torrice, recent credits include film editing on that we could find who was still alive. Q: Did National City Lines operate in A: It's just not true. Of the top 10 cities in done in the last 10, 15, 20 years that Cincinnati? the country, every single (trolley really hasn't happened in terms of public operation) that wasn't already publicly transportation taking care of it, funding it A: I'm pretty sure NCL was not in owned was bought by (General Motors- properly, expanding it in places where it Cincinnati.I'm thinking (the streetcar controlled) National City Lines. And the makes sense lines) there were one of hundreds of argument was made before all kinds of private companies that took NCL's lead Q: How do you get people to go back to public utility commissions to allow the to dismantle the lines, heavily worn out relying on public transportation? destruction of the rail for buses based on after WWII, buy buses with attractive GM A: Obviously there will be a need for these lines that had been purchased financing, sell the very valuable real cars in cities like Cincinnati. They're not actually by this General Motors- estate associated with running going to go away. But people might not controlled company, showing that this streetcars, and eventually dump the need to have two or three of them for a was the new wave and the new way. whole thing on the public. That was the single family. And in areas where there is standard pattern Every single city in Europe rebuilt their a density of population, and a good path, rail transportation lines after World War II I think that public transportation will be Q: After the film came out, GM wrote a and because of that, had much stronger extraordinarily valuable. The cities that letter to PBS and called it an "electronic transportation. have developed transit lines, like character assassination." Q: What was the reaction when this film Portland and Seattle and a lot of places A: Yes. I was very upset at the time. first came out? more on the West Coast, they have They sent this three-page letter, but it flourished. mainly said things like, it was a smear on A: It was very positively reviewed in newspapers across the country. It got Q: You're also leading a workshop on the hundreds of thousands of people Tuesday titled "The Art and Craft of Non- who worked for General Motors. They very strong press. The response to the (PBS) broadcast was amazing. I had fiction Film." What do you think about didn't come up with anything to attack as the current state of documentary films? inaccurate in the film. contact with transportation systems all over the country wanting copies of it to A: We're in a renaissance of Q: A September 2008 Automotive News show their legislators and to use in documentary right now. A decade ago, article on the death of streetcars quoted getting the word out about this. people were saying documentary might a GM spokesman as saying: "Trolley be dead. It's an exciting time with the systems went out of business on their Q: What are you hoping people who see new technologies and the inexpensive, own. It was a combination of high capital the film in Cincinnati take from it now? extraordinarily high quality, first digital costs and tracks and overhead lines, A: It's really like the very same concerns video and now high-definition video. And and as population began to shift around, and interests that I'm hoping people take with this new generation of makers, all it was very expensive. Cities moved to away that they would have a decade kinds of powerful, powerful work from buses on their own because they were ago.