TECHNES Encyclopedia Database

This same principle of doubling can be found in the work of Ken Jacobs, in The Georgetown Loop (1996) and Disorient Express (1996). In each case, Jacobs applies the same principle: taking two short films in the Paper Prints collection of the Library of Congress of images taken from a train (The Georgetown Loop, Billy Bitzer, 1903; A Trip Down Mount Tamalpais, Miles Brothers, 1906) he printed them mirrored side by side on 35 mm film stock in cinemascope and carried out a number of permutations (changing the direction of the movement, reversing the image, etc.). Through this simple act of doubling in a mirror image, these two “phantom rides” brought back to life in many respects the elation of early cinema’s thrill rides and, more generally, the role of both cinema and the train in the radical transformation of our perception of the landscape, speed and space.