I recently watched the movie A Good Person. The movie opens with a scene where Morgan Freeman is running trains on his layout and he shares a quote by Herman Williams saying, "In Herman William's seminal work 'On the Joys of being a model train hobbyist', many an hour have I spent blissfully lost in a world of my own creation..." I have scoured the internet and spent a while searching for Herman Williams or this "seminal work". Does anyone have any information about this quote? Does a book, an article, someting even exist by Herman Williams on model railroading, or was all of this made up for the movie??? The trailer for A Good Person is linked here and you can hear a portion of the quote from the opening scene.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQQcccyGwN0&ab_channel=RottenTomatoesTrailers
Unfortunately, it appears the author and quote are made up. The Library of Congress does not have any author with the name Herman Williams and model trains. While less reliable, Google also does not gnerate anything either.
Am I mistaken? Happy to stand corrected!
Well . . . it's Hollywood, so there's a good chance Herman Williams is a friend of Charlie Chan's grandfather.
LINK to SNSR Blog
From IMDB:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14153080/goofs/?tab=gf&ref_=tt_trv_gf
From Trivia:
In a 2023 interview with HeyUGuys, Zach Braff spoke about the personal significance of model trains in his life and how it informed the film: "I had a model train set as a child. All of the writing I do I pull from life experiences and my model train set was my favorite thing. It was in the basement of my house, just like Morgan Freeman's is. And whenever life felt out-of-control I would retreat to this little train set. Mine wasn't nearly as fancy as Morgan's character, but I got so much pleasure and it was meditative. I didn't realize at the time, but for me as a child it was meditative and quieting. And so I added that for Morgan's character, who doesn't have a lot of control and has had a lot of mayhem in his life. And it's where he goes to retreat and be meditative and create his own world that he can control."
Also in Errors in geography:
South Orange station in the movie is actually Mountain station. South Orange is an elevated rail stop, while the station used in the movie is an at level boarding.
Regards, Ed
Shocker about Hollywood taking liberalities with geography and historical fact. Next thing you'll tell me is a former actor becomes president! What is happening in the world?!
kasskaboose Next thing you'll tell me is a former actor becomes president!
"He's gotta look good on television!"
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.
sdgastonthe movie A Good Person.
Knowing my love for model railroading prompted my niece to suggest this movie. Freeman's narration about his character Daniel's model railroad really hit home, "blissful hours" to say the least. Daniel's reflection of the past and present thru layout scenes he tailored to his family was something I really identified with.
Can't help but draw comparions in how the writer/director's childhood model train set provided him soothing pleasure during times of stress. As a boy I found building models and arranging simple dioramas a joyful and comforting escape. The value of model railroading in helping relieve the pressures of life cannot be overstated.
Regards, Peter