Riding the Rails

Riding the Rails

1997
1h 12m
5.7

5.7/10

10 votes • View on IMDb
Overview

Riding the Rails offers a visionary perspective on the presumed romanticism of the road and cautionary legacy of the Great Depression. The filmmakers relay the experiences and painful recollections of these now-elderly survivors of the rails. Forced to travel more by economic necessity than the spirit of adventure, the film's subjects dispel romantic myths of a hobo existence and its corresponding veneer of freedom. Riding the Rails recounts the hoboes' trade secrets for survival and accounts of dank miseries, loneliness, imprisonment, death, and dispossession. Sixty years later, the filmmakers transport their subjects back to the tracks, where the surging impact of sound and movement resuscitates memories of a shattered adolescence and devastating rite of passage.

Status: Released

Language: EN

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Production Information

Quick Facts

Release Date January 1, 1997
Status Released
Language EN
IMDb ID tt0120017

Cast

Richard Thomas
Richard Thomas

Narrator

Key Crew

Lexy Lovell
Director
Michael Uys
Director