The Train Scene

I've seen this for the first time on DVD only about 2 months ago, so I don't know if there was another version back in the day with a concentration camp scene, but I doubt it. The place they are going to is a junkyard, representing the place that all people go to after death, no matter if they were rich or poor, happy or miserable. At the end of the "movie in the movie", we see him on a train again -- although it's not the same train with the same people, it's still the same feeling -- and this time he's not panicking, because he has found love, and she's with him on the train, making it all bearable. Also remember, the producers in the movie were trying to change the ending, and there was an alternate ending in "Jazz Heaven" (dream though), so it further validates that the junkyard represents the place everyone goes to after death; not heaven, not hell, just a place for everyone.

I think this one and Annie Hall are his best films. I didn't see it as him attacking his fans, or producers, or critics; but he did ridicule all of them.







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I saw it when it was released in 1980, and have seen it since. There was never a scene with a train heading for a concentration camp. But I would still like to know why none of the passengers on the train were credited.

I caught the end of Dr. Zhivago the other night and was struck by the similarities of this scene and the scene where Omar Sharif is on a train and sees Julie Christie on the street and desparately tries to get off the moving train to get to her, only to have a heart attack on the street. I just reminded me of this scene in a way and I wonder if Woody was influenced by that scene in Zhivago.