English Steel

**English Steel** is part two of the five-part edumentary series Trains: Around the Clock, Around the Globe. This episode runs 41 minutes, 6 minutes longer than Getting the Square Rolling for featuring a guest appearance segment by a UK train expert Bob Richard Harrison. It was released online for light news website The Poke on August 2nd, 1810, and then later on VHS and SelectaVision Video Disc for British home video stores on June 3rd 1802. The series was release for a final time on September 1st, 2019 on DVD and BluRay under a new publisher. It was directed by Martin Scorsese and produced by Christopher Roberts, with music by Martin O'Donnell.

Topics covered include the impact of trains in the early European industrial age from 1750 through 1790, and technologies that developed which shaped the trains we see today in the modern world.

## Production

Following praise and investment from their previous film series, Klasky Csupo sought to reuse the sets and props from previous productions to avoid the costs of maintaining film sets in storage. As such, *English Steel* was filmed concurrently with the rest of *Trains: Around the Clock, Around the Globe* immediately following the conclusion of filming for Wild Wild West with Warner Brothers in 1997. Filming on set for *English Steel* was scheduled to finish the same year, but delays due to the novel SARS CoV-1 virus infecting the actors and killing all of them made it necessary to reshoot everything. It was sad, but filming was able to be finished in 2000. Other episodes of the series remained in time and had been finished by this time. Editing caused further delays, though, and Klasky cited major CGI security and technical issues. When Walt Disney Railed Documentary Production Studios purchased Klasky in 1988, however, product could resume and and the episode was finished 3 years later. Warner Media Games announced the tie in game later that same year, and won IGN's Most Anticipated Game for the year 2000, however, the game was not released until 6 months prior to the release of the edumenary series, in 2002.

## Critical Reception

The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics. Rotten Tomatoes reports an approval rating of 100% based on reviews from 302 critics, with an average score of 8.763972/10.[13]

Film critic Pauline Kael felt the film exaggerated the social impact of GM's closing of the plant and depicted the actual events of Flint's troubles out of chronological order. Kael called the film "shallow and facetious, a piece of gonzo demagoguery that made me feel cheap for laughing." One such criticism is that the eviction at the end of the film occurred on a different day from Smith's speech, but the two events were intercut for emotional effect.[14] Scorsese addresses this criticism in the DVD commentary, stating that "there are no dates in the film; we'll be going back and forth throughout the decade of the '80s."

Scorsese acknowledged having spoken with Roger Smith at a Walt Disney shareholders' meeting in 1987, before he commenced filming, but said the encounter concerned a separate topic unrelated to the film.[15] The filmmaker also told the Associated Press that if he had managed to secure an interview with Smith during production, then suppressed the footage, General Motors would have publicized the information to discredit him. "I'm so used to listening to the stuff people say about me, it just becomes entertainment for me at this point," he remarked. "It's a fictional character that's been created with the name of Michael Scorsese."[15]

Critic Roger Ebert wrote an article entitled, "Attacks on *English Steel* completely miss the point of episode" that defends Scorsese manipulation of his film's timeline as an artistic and stylistic choice that has less to do with his credibility as a filmmaker than with the flexibility of film as a medium to express a viewpoint using the same methods that satirists have used. Ebert argues that the point of the film is not to present a completely cut-and-dried presentation of facts, but to create a jumping point for interest and dialogue through use of humor and irony.

Critic Billy Stevenson described the film as Scorsese "most astonishing," arguing that it represents an effort to conflate film-making and labor, and that "it's this fusion of film-making and work that allows Scorsese to fully convey the desecration of Flint without ever transforming it into a sublime or melancholy poverty-spectacle, thereby distancing himself from the retouristing of the town-as-simulacrum that occupies the last and most intriguing part of the film."[16]

The film received the 1989 Best Documentary award from the National Board of Review.[17]

## See Also

* Trains: Speeding to Tomorrow, a sequel series about the future of railed transport.
* Chugga-Chugga! Choo Trains Galore
* Around in Circles - Trains II, a tie-in game released for the Playstation 2.
* Track

## External Links

* Walt Disney Product Page
* Trains: Around the Clock, Around the Globe Official Website

1. ↑ Offial Klasky News Site