TRACKS (1975; w/d Henry Jaglom)

Sgt Jack Falen (Fallen), late of Vietnam (ahem), asks "underground" fellow train (of thot)-traveler Gene (psychic agent accompanying him on life-journey) "Do you think about your childhood at all?" (opening line invocation à la 1st/previous Jaglom Safe Place’s "Remember": 1, looking for answers in early consciousness/history; 2, self-contained mind in sleep w/ only past as reference; 3, otherwise finite experience w/ nowhere to go but bkwd – true course of train), pulled out of chronology (typical Jaglom opening device: key to future in past revisited now); back-tracks (cf 1989 film of that title directed by Falen/Dennis Hopper) to Jack overseeing loading of flag-draped casket (America itself; cf DH Easy Rider – co-edited by Jaglom – ’s similar "We blew it" indictment of same) onto freight car ("baggage" he carrying burden of country-gone-wrong awa own body) to tune of "Praise the Lord + Pass the Ammunition" (steady flow of nostalgic WWII songs ghostly reminder of both Good War [vs…] + country’s inherent capacity for violence), coffin overtaking his img some kinda foreboding.

Nixon declares Peace w/ Honor (voiceover unattributed to radio, TV: unreliable superego – war hardly over) as Falen makes 1st of several excursions thru train (narrow, tho diverse + populous, mind/"train of thot"; also, Reichian black metal tube leading out of life) bearing: group of guys spouting baseball statistics (orderly, logical consciousness, doing violence to fem opposite twd ending); hip Mark picking up Chloe (whose friend Stephanie Falen "strikes out" with); psychology-of-chess-studying Emile (bridge btwn inner/spiritual + outer/logistical; Jaglom’s brother + film’s co-producer Michael Emil) + "real" estate agent Gene (obsessive "land/earth" talk "earthiness" + reality; trying to sell Falen land [grave] facing him up to reality of death ["The chicken is dead"]); uniformed Luis (soulful, earnest darker-self whose cousin also brought home on train); and unnamed black poker-dealing Korean vet (all-the-way-dark self, who harangues him about loss of life – his 21 to Falen’s 1).

Unnamed vamp (no credit even at end: ambiguous ½-way btwn macho guys + feminine Chloe + Stephanie) asks "conductor" about Falen (inner fem making effort at contact via intermediary) + later hooks up w/ him when he frustrated by Steph (vamp similar conductor enabling later communion), while Jack + Mark discuss getting chicks (Mark his intermediary to wmn/femininity/life [or otherwise]), soundtrack "These Foolish Things" serenading Steph cut short when Falen switches off cassette (alone in compartment: she his fantasy, tape player à la Safe Place's vintage-tune jukebox [Jack that film’s similarly dislocated Noah/Susan character + her violent brother Mitch]); Falen tells Mark how "friend in baggage" killed (w/ him in foxhole aka unconscious, "he" psychic entity film trying – vainly – to transcend: romance of innocent America; also, twin separated from in subterranean womb: fem otherself left behind with/in mother) + Mark scopes out 2 wmn at bar (remedy for trauma reuniting w/t feminine other).

Changes into nerdy civvies (he so subconscious, dsn’t fit in outside world) for dinner date w/ Stephanie, co-ed on Easter break (film spanning time from burial to resurrection, vacation from intellectual activity à la dream) who reminds him of girl he once saw (Steph dream-representative) w/ hammer + sickle (both Commie + Grim Reaper; both his undoing, he macho male America) accompanied by guy "not on train" (dsn't see self: denial, à la Mark’s later accusation of "fake" aboard); invites her to his room (desire to integrate fem quality into self), where he tells her he "hasn’t seen anyone like her since he was 16" (separation from anima on becoming adult, she his regressive femininity, or recollection of gentler self in past) + kisses too intrusively (voracious: unconscious’s desire to absorb + integrate consciousness), so she shows "how I like 2B kissed" (gently, mutually: relational feminine, xchg btwn fe/male + un/conscious ideal state), until he goes too fast again (libido à la fwd thrust of train, man’s fate determined by his instinct/"drive").

After apology next a.m. (where he tells her he likes mvmt of train: still clinging to life; also, in tune w/ unconscious "vibes"), hits on vamp just down aisleway (amorality à la propulsiveness, similar disinclination twd settling down) who washes his hair (head-cleaning communion w/ "masculine" – aggressive – fem) + kisses his way (when not smacking his face while he talks about looking up mother’s dress: pleasuregiving/punitive Mom, lifegiving force whose attraction aftwd = womb/tomb death); meanwhile, guy throws tarot for Stephanie (+ 3 other wmn, he fem-associated self in touch w/ mystical-numinous insight into train/destiny) + talks about "circling ouroboros" (vs linear, fwd-bound train: fem vs masc worldview, latter leading back to beginning, no matter) + circuit of energy from perineum (btwn vaginal origin + anal exit) around back: "You’ll never nave to make love again" (similarly self-contained unconscious, masturbatory intimation taken up later by another character).

Stephanie intercepted + drawn away by Jack w/ accusation "No, you brought me here" (she good-mother he later discovers/imagines 2B bad, as well) before himself being pulled away by Gene for drinks + pitch ("piece of land" aka grave), leaving her again (touch + go mind vacillating btwn death + life, un/consciousness, fe/male) for poker game (vs tarot cards: luck vs destiny, latter allied w/ wmn, frmr w/ men) dealt by African American Korean War vet (aboriginal dark-self controlling odds), whom he tells "cargo" black guy who saved his life (story changing every time told both denial + multifaceted nature of material 2B buried [forgotten] à la several-souls of eastern mysticism breaking up upon death); imagines Stephanie gang-raped by other players (1st indication narrator really going off rails) while dealer berates him (male 1-upmanship degrading anima/life), sdtrk "This Love of Mine Goes On" mocking failure of romance in real world + indicating Falen’s continued attachment to life.

Emile holds forth on masturbation (reprised in next-film Sitting Ducks, both characters’ holistic health concerns taking spirituality o/t physical as given) + next day admits to underlying sexuality of chess obsession ("positions" double entendre, director similarly plotting characters’ moves + determining placement – people abandoning + calling each other away for no apparent reason because directed by larger hand – tho encouraging improvisation [give+take of sex] à la God/free will + tarot/poker); Jack + Mark compare notes on childhood (as tho separated at birth [death], actors Dean Stockwell/Mark + Hopper/Jack born w/i months of each other; Mark his "underground" – shadow – freewheeling self so far buried he’s taken on own personality), latter run away at age 7, Jack 14 (dates roughly 1943 + 1950 - WWII + Korean), both influenced by trains (M got self together via back+forth travel, he psychopompos defined by hermetic transit-btwn; J joined army "to see where trains were going," he introspective self embodying destiny – where violent men headed [connotation also of war/trains for Jewish-born Jaglom, setup à la Ship of Fools]).

Falen walks naked thru aisles (along birth canal) while MP searches train (baring self to consciousness in anticipation of rebirth), putting on civvies back in cabin (returned to womb-innocence) before interrupted by Mark’s plea for help ("All you gotta do is hide me" – ie, bury swinger whose "joy is just a cover" – ie, face own sorrow - before he can be purified), Mark turning hostile (cargo buddy "died because of guys like you. You’re the ones that killed him": innocence lost by failure to abet "underground" resistance, ie keep contact w/ unconscious which, paradoxically, wants to enlighten him [focus of M’s train-talk on "quality of light" in Edenic New Mexico + aboard train – inner illumination o/t unconsc – which Jack only observed from w/o]) when he won't disguise him in uniform (resistance-as-soldier masquerade à la character’s hermetic nature, "I wanna bring you back alive" mutual/ouroboric bringing of Jack to consciousness by similarly bringing Mark "above ground"); kicked out (tragic bad move, futility of evading train-fate), Mark pursued by Gene (secret agent of consc’ss sim’y working undercover: mental censor trying to keep disturbing information quiet so sleep [American "dream"] may continue, called into play by cassette-to-his-head Jack [head-in-sand American public]; desire to sell grave easing self twd oblivion before awareness reaches conscious mind) while Jack stuffs uniform in bag to sdtrk "Hot time in Berlin [now-divided city]/The Yanks [consc’ss] are moving in" (to, again paradox’y, preserve unconsc’ss).

Leaves train w/ Stephanie (following wmn/feminine man’s salvation from destiny/self) to visit place she used to go w/ her family (Eden where he may restart, following fem-other principles) + makes love w/ her there (communion w/ – as it turns out – obliterating Mother) till he starts freaking out (imagines her in his uniform on train, shooting: ouroboric womb-tomb beginning + endpoint, orgasmic [ecstasy from Gk ek-stasis: being outside self] vision of female-self [uterine pre-differentiation btwn mother/fem + own aboriginal fetal fem character] destroying ego) + insisting he’s "on a very important mission" (to bury otherself – unfortunate goal of adolescence, when boy separates from mother/fem) on which Mark "had 2B sacrificed" (assuming association w/ Gene-etic consciousness accepting masculine role: another step twd grave), she fleeing till shot dead (real-izing figurative gang-"bang" on train, asserting pwr over errant feminine); cries on train (back on track, w/ no fem presence to save/deter him) to strains of "My Sister + I" (about immigrant experience w/ sister-fem + left-behind Old World) – "But we don’t talk about that " (burial mission nearing completion).

At station (end of road: grave, or birth into world), synchronizes watches w/ undertakers (aligning self w/ death) to whom he declares "This guy’s a war hero" (war life, anyone who makes it thru intact heroic) + tours seemingly vacant town (deserted consciousness), from empty schoolroom (place of intellectual activity) to similar old house (w/ half-remembered above-lintel sign from Mark-talk, POVERTY IS NO CRIME: home his, he "cargo"/corpse; came from nothing, ie oblivion, to which he returning), his room filled w/ penants + dresser w/ war toys (violence innate to man-unkind + unrest to this one in particular), culminating in heartbreaking seconds-long shot of t-shirted boy Jack w/ figurine (man + boy in same room aka adolescence); cut to graveside (last img that to which film/dream/journey leading, after which old self [kid] may be buried [à la Safe Place Noah, sliding into oblivion]: childhood not lost – still there, in still center of Self/consc’ss; no crime, just sadness boy headed where he’s headed), where Jack laments to u-takers "No one showed up" (no glory in death atheist Jaglom indicating absence, especially, of God) then requests "a moment alone w/ my friend" (drawing closer to death).

Monolog breaks down (as mind in last moments before dreamless sleep/death) into rambling "I love/+ I hate" (distinctions evaporating at ouroboric starting/endpoint, train/tracks ultimately similar snake-which-eats-its-tail, Falen likewise "consuming" self) till he climbs into grave shouting "You motherfuckers" (entering hole enacting figurative sex [scene reiteration of solitary, grassy-field love w/ Stephanie], conflicted feelings about mother as for country he loves but which uselessly sent him to death [child raised on war-glory "railroaded"]) + opens casket to reveal – guns + helmet in place of body (self known only in militaristic terms, males groomed for warfare all thru life), yelling "You wanna go to Nam? I'll take you to Nam" (war literally coming home, character unwilling to bury/repress resentment anymore; film likewise declaring own intentions: armaments/violence deep in American soil/self [beneath flag] no longer 2B politely ignored ["But we don’t talk about that "]) + climbing out (as of foxhole where killed) to act out brutality, rage, betrayal + confusion deep w/i, freeze-frame on his emergence (far sight from alleged peaceful afterlife) img to take home w/ you: war-dead w/o rest, and will be avenged (cf ’74 zombie-vet Deathdream).