Home again, home again, jiggety-jig. What is that from?
This is the movie that contains the line "I used to love trains."
It is uttered poignantly by the character played by Candy Clark.
I put all of the commenters in a hat and came up with Kevin Tipple.
If you email me your address, I will send along the book. Thanks for playing everyone. I know the line was obscure, but I wanted anyone who put something down to have a crack at it.
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I saw a new cut of this at the Detroit Film Theater last week and unlike my three companions, I didn't get much out of it. I understood the plot well enough, but it seemed repetitive and nonsensical at points. It seemed to be in love with its own sense of profundity. Long scenes with nothing happening prevail in this film.
After two hours, my mind wanders, my feet turn to cement. I liked the sound track more than the movie, I think.
Any fans of the movie out there? What makes it work for you? My companions felt it was poignant, sexy, and perfectly captured the seventies.
I missed it, I guess. But boy, there was a lot of naked bodies compared to films today. Anyone read the Tevis novel? I think it was set a decade earlier, which in a way makes more sense given the sixties paranoia.
19 comments:
I saw it many years ago. Don't remember a lot about it.
I love it but I love Bad Timing even more.
I read the Walter Tevis novel back in the Sixties. I can't imagine anyone other than David Bowie playing the alien role.
Bowie is very good. One major problem is--how did he think he was going to transport enough water back to his planet and how did he envison his family surviving all those years.
As mentioned I was not a fan, but then I've never been much of a Bowie fan either, though he was good in this.
Jeff M.
FIELD OF DREAMS starring Kevin Costner, one of three failed guesses, had this line, "I used to love travelling on the trains from town to town." Was I way off the mark! I hadn't heard of THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH until now. I like only some of David Bowie's music; let's see if I like him as a visiting alien. He looks the part, though.
Yesterday, listening to Paul Theroux, I heard a dozen train lines. Trains really capture our imagination.
Hey Patti,
Your last comment sounds like a new anthology. When do you open to submissions?
Stephen
They surely do. Indian Railways—the world's fourth largest rail network after those of USA, Russia and China—runs on over 64,000 km (nearly 40,000 miles) of track and passes through over 7,000 stations. A veritable city on wheels. Indians love their trains too.
Well, maybe a new flash fiction challenge at least. It would make a good anthology, come to think of it.
BLADE RUNNER has that other line as well.
MIDNIGHT SPECIALS edited by Bill Pronzini.
Today is the first time I've seen the variant on Jiggedy-Jig:
To market/To market/To buy a fat hog./Home again/Home again/Jiggedy-jog.
Ah. Hog v. Pig.
I loved it -- and all the cast. But not sure I could sit through an entire run-through on the big screen right about now without an altered state. Maybe better in bits now. It's weird and sometimes tedious, no mistake.
Man, I took the train idea far too literally as did most of the contestants. Way off base. An excellent Nicolas Roeg movie. Saw this when I was in my David Bowie obsessive phase so many decades ago. I tried to collect all his albums in a period of five years. Got quite a few and now - all lost in a horrible mix-up of a move from state to state. A tragedy to a collector like me.
Oh Candy Clark! She and Karen Black were two of the best indie actresses of the 1970s. You know, I saw Clark in some indie movie made only a few years ago playing the mother of a gay guy and she still has her acting chops all these decades later. She was a bright spot in an otherwise forgettable movie. Can't even tell you the title. But Candy Clark was there for sure.
Probably THE INFORMANT. She was able to convey such vulnerability and quirkiness without ever going over the line. Love her.
What happened to Candy Clark?
Jeff M.
She was in THE INFORMANT and ZODIAC in the last few years. Now playing mothers of course.
Candy Clark, yum. Karen Black, ugh.
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