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Symbolism in film

missnoise

02:14 / 17.04.06

anybody know what the symbolism of a bus in film represents? also, the allegory of waiting for a bus in a film. any suggestions and films that have this used in an interesting manner would be greatly appreciated.

matthew.

03:02 / 17.04.06

A bus sort of goes where you want it to go. It lets you off close to your destination, but you have to walk the remaining distance. There are other passengers on the bus that have their places to go, and their journey is just as important as yours. It seems to me that a bus could represent the community, a trend away from self-centredness and self-involvement. Waiting for a bus then represents you waiting to get into the community, waiting to go on a journey that you share with complete strangers.

missnoise

03:10 / 17.04.06

mmmmm.... nice one!! thank you kindly! i like the suggestion of the community that is an interesting point.

Jack Denfeld

05:27 / 17.04.06

A bus will always go Xmph. If it goes slower or faster than X a bomb on the bus will explode. Therefore a bus in film represents disaster if someone tries to challenge the status quo.

PatrickMM

05:41 / 17.04.06

Definitely check out Ghost World, critical use of the bus as symbol, particularly the waiting.

Alex's Grandma

05:59 / 17.04.06

Margaret Thatcher once said that if you find yourself on a bus after the age of twenty five, you can consider yourself to have failed in life. (Paraphrasing slightly, but that was the gist.) So, according to that reading, bus for men = impotence, bus for women = hanging about in gin joints, not meeting the right kind of guy.

Jack Denfeld

06:05 / 17.04.06

Margaret Thatcher once said that if you find yourself on a bus after the age of twenty five, you can consider yourself to have failed in life.
Fuck you Thatcher!

miss wonderstarr

09:09 / 17.04.06

A Greyhound bus is a sign of low-budget transit across America, which involves lots of gazing out of windows, and sleeping, as the passengers next to you change (they are often old ladies or kooky people; occasionally cute members of the opposite sex, who share a stick of Wrigley's gum) in a montage sequence. Over this sequence you might like to use a song that will figure prominently on the soundtrack. Perhaps by Avril Lavigne.

Kiltartan Cross

09:46 / 17.04.06

I shall paraphrase someone myself (I forget who): Sometimes a bus is just a bus.

I'd be wary of assigning any more significance to the appearance of a bus in film than absolutely necessary. I might even go so far as to call a curse upon any film-maker who decided that their bus should have some greater existential purpose as a metaphor, instead of remaining a nice, simple, prosaic means of getting from one place to another.

Oh, yeah, and fuck Thatcher, too.

Mike Modular

09:55 / 17.04.06

Buses can represent one's desire to shake your fist and exclaim "I'll get you Butler!" or to engage in saucy romps chasing "birds" - this theme being explored further in the cinema than through the medium of television...

Fatima Mansions once sang 'Only Losers Take The Bus', yet Spike Lee encourages us to 'Get On The Bus'. Go figure...

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Seriously, though, I can suddenly think of loads of films featuring buses (Midnight Cowboy, Summer Holiday, The Big Bus...) and whether they all represent the same thing is fairly unlikely. Did you have a particular example in mind, noiseforneko? Your first post did make me think of Ghost World too, is that the case? Or is this for something you're making/writing? What's the context here? I'm just interested...

(Kay - that was Freud, I think: "Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar")

miss wonderstarr

10:01 / 17.04.06

A bus may also signify "we are now in (swinging) London".

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

13:22 / 17.04.06

Margaret Thatcher once said that if you find yourself on a bus after the age of twenty five, you can consider yourself to have failed in life.

Or conversely that Thatcherism (and its insidious offspring Blairism) has thus far failed to entirely eradicate public services.

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