Lyrical and elegiac even while being rooted in hope and tenderness, director Clint Bentley’s “Train Dreams” moves with the grace of a liturgy.
The film centers on a logger, Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), whose work building railroads tames America’s vast landscape into something manageable. The seasonality of his work means he rarely gets to see his wife, Gladys (Felicity Jones), or his daughter, Katy, and his life oscillates between the beauty and harshness of his vocation and the joy of being reunited with his family.
One day, Granier witnesses and is unable to stop a fellow worker, Fu Sheng (Alfred Hsing), from being the victim of a brutal and racially-motivated murder. In the aftermath, Granier believes himself to be cursed in some way, and it isn’t long before Job-like tragedies befall him. Amidst his hardships, he learns how to make sense of his place in an ever-shifting world that’s all too ready to leave him behind, and in his struggle, he learns to rely on the restorative company of good friends.
For Bentley and Edgerton, human beings’ abilities to rebuild after loss are something they wanted to celebrate.”It’s a real sign of regrowth when someone, despite their gloominess, finds the joy of living in the moment where they start responding to jokes again and their mirth returns,” Edgerton shared. Likewise, for Bentley, the project was a way to reckon with the inherent finitude of existence, how “you give up something for everything you get,” and that that’s important to remember amidst the “hustle culture we have that’s very in fashion right now in the US.”
Over Zoom and at a red carpet event, Bentley and Edgerton spoke with RogerEbert.com; about the beautiful unpredictability of working with animals, how the film challenged the false notion of linear healing, and how Granier’s struggle with the industry can guide creatives through the proliferation of generative AI.
This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.
Joel, you’ve had your own formative experience with Denis’ book, having gotten it as a wrap gift from “Boy Erased.” I believe you considered directing an adaptation at some point. Literature can speak to people in so many different ways, so was there any conversation about merging your interpretation of the book with what Clint was trying to bring to life?
Joel Edgerton: You’re right, a book speaks to different people in different ways. I had read Denis’ book years before Clint reached out to me, and when he did, I reread it, which I usually don’t do. Rereading the book meant so much more to me because when Clint and I started speaking about the movie, I had become a father. This idea of loss and grief was so much more potent for me.
The novella tells the story of an ordinary person who creates his own heroic journey; I really connected with that idea. The simple things in life, such as love, family, and work troubles, as well as darker experiences like grief and loss, are moments that an ordinary person goes through. It’s epic to live a normal life, but we often don’t see it when we’re in the mire and myopia of it all.
Speaking of rendering the ordinary with a sense of loftiness, Clint, I’m struck by the ways you depict–and sometimes choose not to depict–violence in the film. We see Apostle Frank get shot from a distance; we don’t see the impact of Fu Sheng’s body when he’s thrown off the tracks.
Clint Bentley: The interesting thing is that I can say some things that have struck me since, but the thing about making films is that a lot of times what ends up becoming stylistic choices come from just trying to solve problems and limitations. To make these moments of violence look real–especially on an independent budget– it’s easier to showcase them from a distance.
Especially living in that world, though, I did want to make it feel like death is always just kind of there around the corner; it doesn’t always announce itself in a big way. It just steps in, has its moment, and then steps out, kind of like that scene with the cowboy who walks in, shoots, and then leaves. The proximity of death is true for all of us in life, but it was less sanitized back then, and there was less distance from it than there is now.
I also think of that scene where the boy falls dead, seemingly out of nowhere, and the narrator says how had he been born a few years later, he would have been fine because the condition that killed him could have been treated. I was trying to get into Granier’s mindset and portray that for his world: a big part of it is the reality that death steps in at every moment, so he’s very accustomed to it. At least in the United States at this moment in time, we’re more separated from that and don’t have to encounter it as much.
Speaking of “death stepping in,” I think about how you and cinematographer Adolpho Veloso framed Fu Sheng’s death, how there are these men who step into the frame suddenly and then throw him off the bridge.
CB: Nobody seems to know why this is happening to Fu Sheng, even the guys who are doing it are moving as if there’s a force carrying them along. Going back even earlier, there’s that scene where Granier sees a Chinese family being thrown out of a store, and he’s baffled by the casualness of it. Not to put too fine a point on it, but today, you have groups of men in masks grabbing people off the street, and people are screaming at them and trying to get them to stop. It’s tragic.
To sit with that sequence for a bit, I’ve been chewing on the fact that the first thing Granier says when he sees this violence happen is “What did he do?” It’s such an honest response and speaks to how, as humans, we need to rationalize why bad things happen, when in reality there’s often no good or adequate reason why tragedy strikes.
JE: One of the great things about the novella in general is that there’s this philosophical and spiritual religiousness around nature itself that’s separate from the classic religion of Christianity. It’s this idea that the bad things we do follow us around, and there’s a counterbalance to one’s guilt or complicity in a terrible act. Robert put his hands on Fu Sheng, then Fu Sheng was killed, and somehow, Robert owes a debt, and the world is going to justice for this situation. He feels like death is coming for him, even if the audience may not judge him or think what happened was entirely his fault.
We all, since the beginning of time, have tried to make sense of our place in the world. That’s the reason why religion even became a part of our culture; it was to make sense of this world we’re living in and to get close to these questions of “What is life? What’s its purpose? What are we owed and what do we owe as a result of having this privilege or curse of being a person?” There’s something naive in a view of the world that doesn’t try to answer questions, but just poses them, and I think that’s very special.
It’s made me think about how a film like this is a celebration of the divinity of everyday life. The thing about Robert, though, is that he’s a receiver throughout this film; things happen to him rather than him instigating change. I’m curious about both of you: where is this line in life? How are you discerning when to practice contentment and embrace limits, while also honoring your ambitions for more?
JE: Clint, you’ve put it really nicely a couple of times. At some point, you realize, you’ve just got to put one foot in front of the other. Unless you make the big choice to give up on life and tap out, you’ve got to keep moving because the world asks you to keep moving; you can’t just sit in one place forever. The question of ambition versus pure existence is an interesting proposition.
Robert is not someone who is going to take his own life necessarily. So he needs to, as Clint has said, put one foot in front of the other. What’s beautiful is that, like the forest is regrowing itself after a fire, characters like Ignatius Jack and Claire come into Robert’s life, and they’re the soil that helps regrow him by bringing things out of him. They offer him food, company, and warmth, and let him know there’s support. That’s a lofty idea: that, as human beings, while we can drag each other off the street and be part of the violence of culture, we can also be part of each other’s regrowth and rebirth. That, to me, shows the heart of human nature.
CB: That’s a wonderful way to put it. These questions around ambition versus contentment versus acceptance … it’s not an either-or. You give up something for everything you get, and I think that’s an important thing to remember, especially in this ridiculous hustle culture we have, which is very in fashion right now in the US. By pursuing something, you’re giving up time with your family, and by staying home with your family, you may be giving up opportunities. The answer’s different for everybody, but finding your place in all of this and settling into acceptance … that’s the epic journey of your life.
JE: I was with my kids this morning, and they went through contentment and discontentment about ten times before they went to school. They were drawing a fairy, which was great, but then my son, Jack, drew the wings wrong, and he thought the world was coming to an end. I was trying to teach them this expression: “That day is the first day of the rest of your life.” At any moment, we can slip away from contentment and happiness into the opposite. Life is a constant struggle between good and evil, but rebirth and reset can happen at any moment.
Clint, I want to follow up on what you shared about the hustle culture we find ourselves in. Constant stimulation is the norm, yet “Train Dreams” invites people into a more meditative, thoughtful mindset. I do think its rewards are evident after first viewing, but it can be a hard wavelength to tap into. How do you contend with the fact that art like this will live long after you, or its benefits may take longer to blossom and be fully appreciated?
JE: I literally sent a message to Clint last night, telling him that what’s special to me about the film is that I think it will live forever. You can’t say that of every film, but thematically and aesthetically, I feel like it sits on a nice high shelf. It’s a positive message in the world, and ironically, I was watching an Instagram video where a guy was teaching people about how to spend less time on Instagram. He was encouraging people to stop doomscrolling and to find pleasure and stimulation in seeking the opposite of overstimulation and quiet.
Joel, I could hear the audience swoon and breathe a sigh of relief when they saw you playing with dogs. I’m wondering if you can talk about what working with animals, with all their adorableness and unpredictability, does for you as an actor. With human beings, there can be some form of conversation and compromise about the performance, but you can only control animals so much.
CE: (Laughs) Well, you can’t really control humans either.
JE: (Laughs) Yeah, W. C. Fields should have changed his quote to “Never work with animals, children, or actors.” I think it’s actually pleasurable if you just choose not to throw the script away, but to at least ask yourself, “What is the moment you need?” and then explore how you go about finding your own version of that moment with animals or children, who are not robots that can repeat moments or learn lines? That’s the beauty of someone like Clint coming in; he doesn’t sit there saying, “Why won’t this dog or child do what I want it to?”
CE: I grew up on a cattle ranch worked with horses, cows, and dogs; each animal has their own personality. If you can set up your film in such a way that you can kind of guide them in a direction, and then we can all kind of follow them, that’s ideal. The puppies you can’t control, but they bring so much joy to the work. They brought an element of life you can’t replicate.
In filmmaking, you can try to control everything about it; you can control the frame, you can try to control the people in it, take out the animals, do everything on a green screen so you can control the way the light comes in, but doing all that means you lose life out of what you’re making.
To bring life to the audience, you have to put things in there that are unpredictable and that you’re not able to control. It’s about bending with them; something more magical comes from that kind of collaboration.
JE: I think Granier’s daughter, Katy, gets the biggest laughs in the film because she throws a pot in the river and yells. There are things you couldn’t script. Clint embraces those moments. For a film that undulates through some beautiful highs and some pretty low valleys of life, the reminder of innocence that animals and children bring is kind of extraordinary for an audience, and it just reaches into people’s hearts in a special way.
It speaks to the ambience you’ve created on set, Clint, that welcomes and invites that freestyling and experimentation. I’m curious about how working on this film has challenged the linear timeline we often place on healing. Robert rebuilt his house after the fire, but he didn’t rebuild the bedroom. Healing, as shown in the film, isn’t always about “going back” to the way things were.
JE: I’ll tell you, one of the great sounds I’ve ever heard is hearing the laughter of a friend after they’ve gone through a really tough and gloomy period. The first time you hear them laugh or genuinely smile … there’s nothing like that. As human beings, we can often flatline, and our joy goes away. It’s a real sign of regrowth when someone, despite their gloominess, finds the joy of living in the moment, where they start responding to jokes again and their mirth returns.
It reminds me of the speech in Hamlet where he says, “I have of late, but / wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth.” We find joy again. That’s the one hopefulness we can offer to some people. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. That sound of a person’s first laughter after a period of devastation is quite a special reminder of how we can rebuild ourselves.
That’s why I love the silly debate about the chief wolf and red dog conversation that Ignatius Jack and Robert have by the fire; we are sustained by those seemingly pointless conversations we have with good company.
JE: Exactly, that’s what I’m talking about. We finally go, “Oh, Robert has a chance. Thanks to a friend.”
CB: Greg Kwedar and I were writing this script as we were in the midst of and then coming out of COVID, where people had lost their family members and their jobs. I wanted to get across this idea that life is never going to go back to the way it was, and that’s okay. There can still be loveliness ahead, and the way that you heal, to Joel’s point, is through and with other people. They can lift you, and you can also lift them.
That moment where Ignatius Jack and Robert are sitting around the fire, chitchatting and dozing off together, I could have sat there all night. We were filming that scene at a place that had been wiped out by the Medical Lake Fire a few months earlier. We were in the midst of this very tragic place on this bed of ash, and yet we were filming this wonderful moment between two friends. It felt so special to film, and these are the things I hold onto. You can’t stop tragedy from coming in from life, but you can hold on to these moments.
A core provocation of the film is the reality that Robert feels displaced in his industry during his lifetime. The world’s resources were being used to fuel growth, leaving people like him on the wayside. It’s made me think about generative AI and how its proliferation is harming not just the environment but also the people in the industry. Robert left logging, but you guys are still planning to act and direct, I’d imagine. How are you finding your place in this industry as it goes through this massive change?
CB: (Jokingly) Actually, I’m looking for an exit out of this business right now.
JE: It is interesting. The filmmakers that really impress me are doing things that are new and indelible in their own way. The theory is that AI will learn and absorb everything and start thinking in its own elliptical, cryptic ways. But I just love when I see stories and I go, “There’s no way that this could be created by anything other than a human being, having an elastic imagination.”
The thing humans do very well is that we’re good at knowing ourselves. What’s important in a story is that we watch it because we want to see human relationships; who’s better to describe, observe, and depict them than human beings? I want to challenge my creativity and create things that are indelible and new; I want to put stories out in the world that people know are bespoke.
CB: I agree. I think we are doing something now in a medium that’s very specific to our time with cinema, but it’s a very timeless thing where we’re connecting. We’re telling each other stories to help each other, whether we’re just trying to entertain and give a good time, or to share a message that helps other people along. The novel was the vessel for that connection in the 1700s and 1800s, and in the early 1900s, it was an ancient Greek theater.
With AI, I don’t fucking know… I think we’re looking at the steam engine version of this, and we can’t even imagine what the rocket technology will be if we stick to this analogy. But I do think we will always need that connection to each other through storytelling, in whatever form it takes.
JE: Clint would actually like the phone number for Tilly Norwood. (Laughs)
I can’t wait to see her in “Train Dreams 2.”
“Train Dreams” is now in theaters via Netflix and will stream on that platform on November 21st.