The Old Glasgow Subway And Death Watch

Over at Hidden Glasgow, there are some beautiful photographs of the old Glasgow Subway around the time of its closure:

These images remind me of Death Watch, the completely wiggy, borderline-unwatchable 1980 Bernard Tavernier film starring Harvey Keitel, Romy Schneider and, fleetingly, Max von Sydow, which was shot in Glasgow, then the ideal location to evoke a dystopian futurescape.

Here’s a quote from Tavernier, explaining his choice of location, cribbed from erstwhile Submit Responser Len’s piece on the film:

Glasgow is a city of infinite possibilities. Everywhere you look, with the eye of a film director, there are fascinating shots, angles and juxtapositions, such as the lines of a new, modern office block contrasting with its next door neighbour, a Victorian church. Your freeway looks like something out of a modern American city, yet it leads directly on to 19th century streets.

(The subway photographs are via bonaldi’s post on MetaFilter, which I suspect may in turn be via my links, in which case this post neatly closes a subway-like loop.)

Posted at 1pm on 23/01/06 by Jack Mottram to the places category.
Permalink · Add to del.icio.us
Tags: film, glasgow, history