The tide of traffic

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title The tide of traffic
Country of production Great Britain
original language English
Publishing year 1972
length 28 minutes
Rod
Director Derek Williams
script Derek Williams
production Humphrey Swingler
music Humphrey Searle
camera Maurice Picot
cut Michael Crane

The Tide of Traffic is a British documentary - short film from 1972. It was directed by Derek Williams , who also originated the screenplay.

content

Based on the situation in Venice , a city of gondolas and canals, but without cars - these are in the parking lots on the outskirts of the city - the film shows how much motor vehicles are now (i.e. the beginning of the 1970s) part of people's lives. Cars offer the freedom to get where you want and when you want. They take many different forms depending on the intended use. But since the 1940s in the USA and since the 1950s in Europe there have been so many cars that the roads had to be adapted. This is how the first major change in road construction since the time of the Roman Empire came : the highways . These cost a lot of money and land, and while they solved traffic flow problems, they relocated these problems to where they ended: to the city limits. Cities were originally planned for pedestrians, sometimes for horse-drawn carriages, but not for cars that don't always fit there.

Due to the mass transport, the boundaries between cities and their suburbs are blurring, which are also spreading further and further. Private motor vehicles make it easier to get from these suburbs to the cities and back again. But this leads to parking problems, and it is again evident that cities were not planned for automobiles. One way to deal with this is to close off certain zones in the cities to cars, whatever more cities are doing. City motorways are a better alternative, as they can guide traffic better, but also attract more traffic. However, streets are also barriers, and large streets are large barriers that can cut up urban neighborhoods. The road layout should therefore be based on existing structures such as railroad tracks or rivers. In addition, streets can also run underground or on several levels one above the other.

Every two minutes someone dies on the streets of this world. Street noise and the vibrations generated by motor vehicles are a nuisance for residents and damage the fabric of the streets. More and more people have to regulate the traffic and are exposed to the associated smell. Conflicts in traffic put a strain on people's dealings with one another. There are also forecasts according to which sales figures in the USA will double in the next thirty years (from the perspective of the 1970s) and even triple in Europe. So the world will increasingly change to adapt to automobile traffic. We have to ask ourselves whether motor vehicle traffic is worth it, after all, the car was invented to be used by people.

background

The Tide of Traffic was produced by Greenpark Productions in association with the Film Producers Guild London on behalf of BP . The film was a contribution from BP to the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm in 1972 .

reception

Awards

At the Oscar ceremony in 1973 producer was Humphrey Swingler with The Tide of Traffic for an Oscar in the category Best Short Documentary nominated. However, the award went to Charles Huguenot van der Linden and Martina Huguenot van der Linden for Deze kleine wereld .

In the same year, The Tide of Traffic was also nominated for a BAFTA Award in the short film category (John Grierson Award). That award went to the film Memorial .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ The Tide of Traffic (1972). In: BFI.org. British Film Institute , accessed February 7, 2020 .
  2. ↑ The 45th Academy Awards | 1973. In: Oscars.org. Retrieved February 7, 2020 .
  3. ^ Film in 1973. In: BAFTA. Retrieved February 7, 2020 .