Real toys - Toccata for Toy Trains

Looking at this film feels, to me, like looking at a representation of a representation, but simultaneously, the film is also a representation of invention, the invention to which I refer being the toy. The film opens with a blurred close-up of a train filled with candy, moved in a forward direction by a giant hand that enters the shot. The film is established as most definitely being about toy trains – and no other kind. This toy train represents an actual train, but in itself and on film, is clearly not. In itself, the train being filled with candy makes clear that it is a piece of design that is not for travel. It is transparent, without moving parts, and is filled with brightly coloured edibles. On film, it is made clear to the audience that we are to think of this as a toy and not a train when the hand enters to move it forward.

These toy trains, however, even though are evidently toys, more closely resemble actual trains. An education-film style voiceover can be heard: "This is a film about toy trains. These are real toys, not scale models." This makes clear that the film is not focused on trains as a modern creation; instead, the focus is on the abstraction of such an invention. The narrator's statement "these are real toys" suggests that the focus is in fact on the toys themselves, as a legitimate creation. To further emphasise this sentiment, the narrator says "we have lost the knack of making real toys."

The narrator goes on to say that older toys are of a "direct and unembarrassed manner", that the pleasure derived from these toys is different to the pleasure derived from toys that are more like replicas of the invention on which they are modelled. This suggests that Charles and Ray Eames had an intention to focus on the creations based on another creation – what perhaps fascinated them was the architecture of the idea of a train. A toy, based on the idea of a train, communicating the idea of a train, without actually being a train – while still being an invention itself.

The film's introduction as a celebratory display of toy trains – one toy sits upon a revolver to be displayed to the audience. Simultaneously, the narrator speaks of the tradition of old toys - "what is wood is wood, what is tin is tin, what is cast is beautifully cast." This sentiment highlights the appreciation of the design of these items. What is to follow later is something we, as students of this subject, have become quite accustomed to – the cityscape. In the filmic sense, Toccata for Toy Trains bears many similarities to the cityscape films, in that like Berlin, Symphony of a Great City is a collection of city images set to a symphony, the Eames cityscape is set to a toccata. Visually, and in meaning, Charles and Ray Eames' version of the cityscape in this film is far from what we have been accustomed to.

In some ways in this film, we are to use our imagination as would someone playing with the toy, but in many ways, we are not. We engage with the cityscape as a cityscape, in that we imagine what we see on screen to be functioning cityscape, however, with the entrance of the hand in the beginning of the film, and the continual reminder by the narrator, we the audience are prompted to view the toy trains as toy trains – in this cityscape, what is wood is wood, what is tin is tin, and what is cast is beautifully cast.