the railway man (film)- discussion

[NightatLaira]

My comments: nice to see a railway enthusiast as the hero of a film.

Loads of continuity errors, and historical errors:

Berwick with OHL when it is supposed to be 1980

A dubious rake of IC mk1s, BR blue and blood and custard old BR carriages being moved by a West Coast railways 47 in what is supposed to be the 70s / post war period? I'm not sure...

Numerous other technical errors and historical inaccuracies .

The footbridge at Perth or Carlisle makes an appearance as 'Carstairs'. Waverley is I think substituted for Perth in one scene.

I could go on...

But if you ignore the historical inaccuracies quite a good film! Interestingly - they do use the real 'bridge over the River Kwai' and that is what it really looks like.

Anyone else seen it?

 

[Butts]

My comments: nice to see a railway enthusiast as the hero of a film.

Loads of continuity errors, and historical errors:

Berwick with OHL when it is supposed to be 1980

A dubious rake of IC mk1s, BR blue and blood and custard old BR carriages being moved by a West Coast railways 47 in what is supposed to be the 70s / post war period? I'm not sure...

Numerous other technical errors and historical inaccuracies .

The footbridge at Perth or Carlisle makes an appearance as 'Carstairs'. Waverley is I think substituted for Perth in one scene.

I could go on...

But if you ignore the historical inaccuracies quite a good film! Interestingly - they do use the real 'bridge over the River Kwai' and that is what it really looks like.

Anyone else seen it?

As the holder of a Cineworld Pass I shall be going to see this film soon.

There are constant complaints on here about various "rail related inaccuracies" in various Movies.

As has often been stated most filmgoers couldn't give a toss as they probably will not even notice such errors.

It does make me wonder if other forums on different topics have similar whining - ie the furniture used or the like.

People just go and enjoy the experience

 

[YorkshireBear]

It does make me wonder if other forums on different topics have similar whining - ie the furniture used or the like.

People just go and enjoy the experience

Oh this does happen. All the time. Same with Cars too that's a popular one. Or war films with different types of armory.

 

[Butts]

Oh this does happen. All the time. Same with Cars too that's a popular one. Or war films with different types of armory.

Or "Saving Mr Banks" which does not feature chain smoker Walt Disney enjoying his fix....

Or "Captain America" which includes the only non-smoking American Army Unit in WWII

 

[grid56126]

Went to see it with my good lady. She blubbed from half way through to the end, I blubbed for about the last ten minutes, a number of other men were seen to have to cough quite a bit toward the end and also rub their eyes saying they were tired as the lights came on.

I went to see this film for it's purpose and could not give one ounce of bother as to what trains were used, what locations were used and what if any continuity errors existed. When anyone can come up with a film budget to eradicate such minor things that 99% of film goers don't notice, expect to pay a few more quid! Can you imagine what the cost would be to have perfect continuity with exact period stock at the exact locations the actors are supposed to be at? Take Waverley as an example. What would the budget be to remove the overheads?

Fantastic film made all the better by the fact that it is based on real life and you get to see the real people in picture form at the end.

Poignant.

 

[D1009]

Take Waverley as an example. What would the budget be to remove the overheads?.

Probably not much given the technical wizardry available to film makers these days, but I know what you mean.

 

[Andrewlong]

I was slightly irritated by the use of a class 37 on the recent Great Train Robbery programme drama rather than a 40 and the use of a heritage railway without OHLE as a stand in for the WCML but BBC presumably has a budget.

You average viewer probably wouldn't notice!

 

[DarloRich]

I was slightly irritated by the use of a class 37 on the recent Great Train Robbery programme drama rather than a 40 and the use of a heritage railway without OHLE as a stand in for the WCML but BBC presumably has a budget.

You average viewer probably wouldn't notice!

I could be wrong but I am not convinced the WCML was wired at that time of the robbery seeing as the electrics didn't start running to Euston until c. late 1965.

Do you know how many cinema goers will have spotted railway related errors in the discussed film - 0

Do you know how many of them would care EVEN after you told them - 0

Why - because it doesn't detract from the event which is designed to fill in around 2 hours of someones time and offer a pleasant evening out.

And yes, go on any forum and you will find filming inaccuracies discussed. Guess what. No real people care.

(I do understand that it is frustrating when something you are interested in is incorrectly presented on the screen but to most people it simply inst an issue. As long as the film makes can plausibly suggest that what they are presenting is an approximate recreation of the time, events and items from a particular period they will be happy.)

 

[Monty]

When you consider how many basic continuity errors that appear in the latest releases, you really can't be surprised that aesthetic errors are also shown in period films. End of the day the 37 and 40 share the same basic shape and some how I doubt the audience while be checking the bogies to see if it's a 1Co-Co1 or a Co-Co.

'Hollywood' (I use the term broadly to include domestic film and television making) has to do the best with what it has and sometimes there have to be compromises. For example Ridley Scott's Black Hawk Down was originally not going to feature Blackhawk helicopters at all and UH-1Hs were planned to be used instead. At the last minute the US Army agree to assist in the film making and the actual MH-60Ls from the 160th SOAR were used.

 

[timbo58]

Looking forward to seeing this as a military historian too.
It's not the original Bridge (although it's the original location no doubt?) as the original was a bamboo built one as trestles as the famous 60's film, it was destroyed twice by the RAF during the war( not by saboteurs at all!) and replaced afterwards at least once!

 

[trainosaurus]

I haven't seen the film yet but notice that no-one has mentioned how it stands up next to the book? Has anybody that has seen the film read the book?

 

[sprinterguy]

There are constant complaints on here about various "rail related inaccuracies" in various Movies.

As has often been stated most filmgoers couldn't give a toss as they probably will not even notice such errors.

I am frequently bemused (and sometimes amused) by the impassioned wails of "inaccuracy" on this forum that frequently accompany the most trivial of oversights and errors when Britain's railways are televised, but in this instance I do find it a bit ironic that a film called "The Railway Man" featuring as it does a self-proclaimed railway enthusiast as it's central character has perpetrated such wholesale inaccuracies in it's portrayal of British railways circa 1980.

Not that this in any way detracted from my enjoyment of the film, though, or caused me any concern. In both the book and the film the trains are largely a secondary or incidental subject in a far more moving story of human suffering and reconciliation, and I would not have enjoyed either as much if it had been otherwise. I was more perturbed (answering trainosaurus' query above) by the quite dramatic deviation in places from Lomax's autobiographical account detailed in his book, particularly with regard to the reconciliation with his Japanese former-tormentor, many years afterwards, which in my opinion was needlessly "sensationalised" in the film. I enjoyed the film as a stand-alone entity, but having read the book I personally would have preferred a closer synergy between the two.

 

[TheKnightWho]

Went to see it with my good lady. She blubbed from half way through to the end, I blubbed for about the last ten minutes, a number of other men were seen to have to cough quite a bit toward the end and also rub their eyes saying they were tired as the lights came on.

I went to see this film for it's purpose and could not give one ounce of bother as to what trains were used, what locations were used and what if any continuity errors existed. When anyone can come up with a film budget to eradicate such minor things that 99% of film goers don't notice, expect to pay a few more quid! Can you imagine what the cost would be to have perfect continuity with exact period stock at the exact locations the actors are supposed to be at? Take Waverley as an example. What would the budget be to remove the overheads?

Fantastic film made all the better by the fact that it is based on real life and you get to see the real people in picture form at the end.

Poignant.

Exactly. I'd've liked to have seen the director try and get hold of a HST in BR Blue for all of a single scene that lasts about 30 seconds in Edinburgh with no other modern stock around, for example...

I suppose an 87 + Mk 2 rake shouldn't have been too difficult to manage for the WCML scenes though, which were also considerably longer (a whole 5 minutes!).

 

[Tibbs]

I haven't seen the film yet but notice that no-one has mentioned how it stands up next to the book? Has anybody that has seen the film read the book?

It won't be as good, they never are.

I've given up comparing them. I think the closest I've seen have been To Kill a Mockingbird and LA Confidential. Both brilliant films, but not a patch on the books.

I think it's because my imagination doesn't have limits on budgets, available technology or execs who dictate what they think will resonate well with that all important 32-44 female demographic focus group...

 

[ianhr]

It won't be as good, they never are.

I've given up comparing them. I think the closest I've seen have been To Kill a Mockingbird and LA Confidential. Both brilliant films, but not a patch on the books.
:

I think I generally agree, but the original 1939 Hitchcock "Thirty-Nine Steps" is actually much better than the book....it has a more ingenious ending among other things, and I reckon the railway scenes are now a genuine period piece...steam over the Forth Bridge in LNER days etc.

Having said that I long ago decided that reading a book and watching a film are quite different experiences and should be treated as such, without expecting too close a correspondence. "Brighton Rock" is a brilliant read, the 1947 film is very poor but the recent re-make moving the story to the 1960's is an excellent film while deviating considerably from the book....it is impossible to re-create 1930's Brighton using the same locations today...with the exception of the Pavilion!

Must see the Railway Man tho....I appreciate all the positive comments. I did not realise that the central character was a railway enthusiast.

 

[Butts]

I have been to see the Film this afternoon and it was much better than American Hustle which I saw in the morning.

If only I could meet someone like Nicole Kidman on one of my East Coast excursions :cry:

As a non-railway expert I was surprised that their initial encounter was in a First Class Smoking Carriage that appeared to have no ashtrays.

The scenes in the Royal British Legion Club allegedly in 1980 showed a lone cigarette burning in an ashtray but hardly anyone actually smoking.

The Kwai shots didn't depict any of the guards or prisoners smoking - highly unlikely.

So that's just the "smoking inaccuracies" never mind any others

Notwithstanding the above it was an excellent film, all about forgiveness and reconciliation.

As a child I encountered many men who had a pathological hatred of the Japanese or anything produced there. This was reinforced by stereotypical images in "Commando Books" and other similar publications.

 

[Genocide]

I haven't seen the film yet but notice that no-one has mentioned how it stands up next to the book? Has anybody that has seen the film read the book?

The book is one of the most horrifying I've ever read. I very much doubt that it could be translated.

Rather a strange adaptation as the book is now the best part of 20 years old and wasn't really a big seller at the time. It obviously struck a chord with someone other than me though.

 

[TheKnightWho]

The book is one of the most horrifying I've ever read. I very much doubt that it could be translated.

Rather a strange adaptation as the book is now the best part of 20 years old and wasn't really a big seller at the time. It obviously struck a chord with someone other than me though.

I think they started work on it after the two main people involved (Eric Lomax and Takashi Nagase) died in 2012 and 2011 respectively.

 

[Genocide]

I think they started work on it after the two main people involved (Eric Lomax and Takashi Nagase) died in 2012 and 2011 respectively.

Thank you - that perhaps explains a little bit. I'd assumed that Eric Lomax must be dead as the book was published in 1995.

I'm not sure I want to see the film - I described the book as horrifying but it's also extremely moving. I read a lot and it's probably one of the greatest books I've ever read.

Perhaps I should. Book-v-film is nothing compared with the reconciliation described in the book.

 

[grantham8]

The film is a very good interpretation . It goes back and forth with the present(1980) and the past . It does depict what we now call post traumatic stress which of cause was not recognised in the 1940s. Well written and acted . Well worth seeing .

The book was far more explicit and horrific in its detail and Lomax suffered far more than depicted in the film . I think that he almost died not just at the hands of the Kempetai but also in Changi jail later on .

Ignore the railway errors as they have no bearing on the film ---Go see the film and read the book which may be available on kindle.

 

[eastend43]

Just seen the film today. The train inaccuracies didn't bother me too much - they didn't seem completely right to me but nothing that detracted from my enjoyment of this excellent film. I found the view out the window from Crewe to Carstairs a little puzzling but not too worrisome.

It was the inconsistency about locations that got me - he was meant to live in Berwick-upon-Tweed but the house they showed him living in was clearly in North Berwick (40 miles away) and the British Legion was in Cockenzie.

I completely understand the argument that it is impossible to completely re-create historical trains or stations, but why couldn't they find a house in Berwick-upon-Tweed or just put a dummy sign outside the British Legion to say it was Berwick (or just not show the Cockenzie sign)?

And I am not sure that Colin Firth really passed as a 61 year old!

Anyway, it's just a film, and I am now looking forward to reading the book.

 

[181]

I saw it the other day. It's a good film, and I mostly agree with eastend43 about the rail aspects -- after all there were plenty of Mk 1s around at the time even if not on WCML expresses (and to me some of the views from train windows did look like the right general area). I would however have thought that in a film about a railway enthusiast, they ought to have stretched the budget to include a few pots of blue and grey paint so that it looked like the right era. This isn't just for enthusiasts -- anyone who travelled on trains in the early 1980s will know that they were mostly blue and grey.

Does anyone know anything about the steam locomotive that appears briefly (apparently in steam, but not moving) at one point? A quick look on the Internet indicates that there are some operational preserved locomotives in Thailand, but also that there are some resembling the one in the film in Queensland, where according to the credits some of the filming was done.

The Cockenzie sign confused me too, but if it hadn't been for that, the location inconsistencies probably wouldn't have been all that noticeable -- most viewers won't be familiar with either Berwick.

I take the point that others have made about not expecting a film to reproduce faithfully what's in the book, although I prefer consistency even for fictional books if it's a book I like. But when both are based on real events, film-makers (and of course book authors) should have some responsibility to the truth, or make it clear to what extent they've changed things (this film at least says that it's 'based on a true story' rather than claiming complete accuracy; and minor changes are not unreasonable to make a film work better). I feel a need to read the book now to get closer to what really happened.

Incidentally the previous film in which I remember seeing a train was 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy', which had a brief shot of what looked like a genuine Hungarian locomotive of the right era at what at least gave a good impression of being the real Budapest Keleti. I don't know whether the livery was correct, though!