When Art Becomes a Battlefield: Revisiting ‘The Train’

In the waning months of World War II as the Allies inch closer to Paris, an art-obsessed Nazi colonel embarks on a final, desperate act of cultural plunder. A locomotive brimming with stolen masterpieces - works by Renoir, Matisse, Degas, Picasso, Van Gogh - barrels toward Germany. Thus begins John Frankenheimer’s relentlessly riveting ‘The Train’ (1964).

The film, one of the last great action spectacles shot in stark black and white, is a rare bird - an ‘intellectual actioner’ that merges spectacle with substance.

War films have long been fixated on what makes a cause worth fighting for. Most stories in the genre hinge on the salvation of people, nations or ideologies, but ‘The Train’ is different. It wrestles with the idea that a country’s identity is not only its people but also its art. Yet it does not glorify this ideal without question.

Burt Lancaster, in a performance as rugged as the steel tracks his character fights to sabotage, plays French Resistance leader Labiche, a railwayman with no love for the art in question. Yet, he and his fellow partisans engage in a deadly chess match to thwart the train commandeered by the film’s most compelling figure - Nazi Colonel von Waldheim, played with mesmerizing menace by Paul Scofield.

Waldheim is no ordinary villain. Unlike the cartoonish Nazi brutes of WW2 films, he is cultured, a man who speaks of art with near-religious reverence. For him, the paintings are the essence of civilization itself. His obsession makes him dangerous, but also strangely tragic.

The hardened Labiche is deeply sceptical of the notion that culture is worth more than a man’s life. But as the film unfolds, his actions betray his cynicism. He begins derailing the train’s journey, engaging in a lethal war of wits with von Waldheim. Labiche, for all his pragmatism, cannot bring himself to let the Nazis abscond with the “soul of France.”

Frankenheimer, who took over after Lancaster fired the original director Arthur Penn for making the film ‘too intellectual,’ crafts a masterpiece of tension and realism. The train sequences, filmed with real locomotives, are breathtaking.

François Truffaut once remarke d that war films in black and white feel more authentic, and here, cinematographer Jean Tournier delivers stunning compositions reinforcing the film’s realism. The deep shadows and stark contrasts recall war photography, lending an almost documentary-like immediacy.

Frankenheimer’s dynamic camerawork heightens the film’s relentless momentum. One of the most jaw-dropping sequences - a real train derailment wherein a train loaded with Nazi troops collides with another at full speed - is a visceral reminder of an era when action cinema was built on precision and ingenuity rather than digital trickery.

Beyond the action, there are moments of quiet devastation, none more affecting than Michel Simon’s poignant performance as ‘Papa Boulle,’ the aging railway worker caught in the resistance’s deadly game. Simon, a legendary French actor, imbues Boulle with warmth and weary dignity. In a single, heartbreaking moment, when he naïvely assumes he can outwit the Nazis only to meet a cruel fate, Simon captures the human cost of war.

Lancaster, who performed many of his own stunts, brings a raw physicality to the role. Maurice Jarre’s percussive score adds to the film’s sense of urgency.

The 1960s were a golden era for World War II cinema. Big-budget ‘caper’ epics like ‘The Guns of Navarone’ (1961), ‘The Dirty Dozen’ (1967) and ‘Where Eagles Dare’ (1968) delivered slam-bang action while more cerebral thrillers like ‘The Counterfeit Traitor’ (1962) and ‘The Night of the Generals’ (1967) examined war’s ethical complexities. ‘The Train’ straddles both worlds, delivering heart-pounding thrills while posing difficult questions.

Yet, for all its action, The Train is ultimately a film about values. In a world where art is often dismissed as secondary to survival, its central dilemma remains eerily relevant today. In the film’s haunting final shot, as Labiche’s silent, limping figure walks away from the dead bodies and the undisturbed art masterpieces, the uncomfortable question lingers: What, in the end, is truly worth saving?

Today, when so much action cinema is driven by CGI bombast, ‘The Train’ feels like an artifact from a lost age. It is a film about the fragility of culture, the cost of resistance and the uneasy choices war forces upon those caught in its grasp. It remains, in every sense, a must-watch.