Runaway Train, Never Going Back...Maybe

Though I am a little late (okay, a LOT late), I wanted to include my feedback on the movie Mystery Train in our blog. One of the questions in our study guide for Mystery Train is whether or not the central image, the train, is working symbolically. I read a few critic's analyses of the movie and their view that the train is nothing more than yet another element tying the three stories together. On the contrary, I believe that it holds much greater significance than that. Trains have historically been viewed as gateways, runaways, and means of escape. In the Old West, trains were viewed as the gateways to the West, a means of a new start and hopefully better prospects. In silent movies, an out-of-control train narrowly misses running over a damsel in distress tied with rope to the tracks. Nineties music such as the popular lyrics from Soul Asylum's "Runaway Train" even depicted trains as an analogy of helplessness and a desire for escape. The train that appears in each of the three stories in Mystery Train is no different. In the "Far From Yokohama" scene, the young Japanese man and woman take a train into Memphis on a voyage of discovery and exploration. Later that same night, the young man stands at the window in an almost melancholy stupor watching the train next to the hotel running along the tracks. In the "A Ghost" scene, the young woman who boards with the stranded Italian woman mirrors this by staring at the same train from a different vantage point. Her situation is entirely different though. She is attempting an escape from her boyfriend. In the "Lost in Space" scene, her boyfriend and his companions are attempting an escape after shooting a store clerk when the train again comes into the picture. In the final scene, the train is taking the young Japanese couple back towards home and takes the young woman from "A Ghost" further away in her escape. In each of the three scenes, the train may be a background fixture instead of in the forefront; however, this does not diminish the impact that it has on the audience. It delivers an insight into what is driving and motiviating each of the characters, what has utlimately brought them to this point and what will eventually set them free. The young Japanese couple is driven by discovery and exploration into the West. The young lady in "The Ghost" is driven by a need to escape a life that is suffocating her, making her a virtual ghost in her world. The young men in "Lost in Space" are out of control, running away and out of touch with reality. In each of these scenes, the human characteristics they portray parallel the traits given to trains throughout creative history, thus making the train a very symbollic fixture in the movie.