Some films catch you right up and hold you close from the opening scenes in a kind of intimate, magic-of-the-movies sense, the outside world gone gently incommunicado as you settle into something resembling a trance state, putty in the hands of the film’s creative team and the alternate—or in some cases, more real than “real”— universe they are bringing to life in front of you.
Director Clint Bentley’s “Train Dreams,” based on the 2011 novella of the same title by Denis Johnson, is one such film.
For his third feature film, Bentley offers up an intensely personal portrait of one man’s life trajectory, set against the towering, impersonal backdrop of the Pacific Northwest and its ancient forests.
The film is relatively short at 102 minutes, but its wholly immersive quality and historic sweep make it seem longer—in all the best ways. One emerges blinking pensively back into the dayworld, having had an experience rather than merely watching a movie.
There’s nothing particularly remarkable about Robert Grainier’s life. Played with consummate and convincing grace by the Australian actor Joel Edgerton, we quickly come to understand him as a quiet, modest, almost reticent man of few and considered words. Orphaned before he ever formed a memory of his biological parents, he goes through life tentative about most everything but hard work.
We see the woman who is to become his wife (played by Felicity Jones) and mother of his only child have to almost chase him down to introduce herself at an informal gathering. Her gambit succeeds, and their union lights the fuse that coheres his life through the movie’s first half.
Grainier is trying to make his way as best he can in the rough-hewn world of pre-mechanical, hand-tooling logging crews felling trees that will flatten the landscape for the railroads to feed the great industrial juggernaut that America is becoming early in the 20th century. It’s grueling, dangerous, and unfortunately, seasonal work that keeps the hardened men who do it away from whatever they consider home for huge swaths of every year.
As such, Grainier becomes the paragon of a steadfast everyman working too hard for too little and too far away from the precious few he loves. And of course, life and the movies are not done with him once he establishes his little homestead and begins wrestling with how to spend more time there.
Far deeper troubles yet await.
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I wasn’t familiar with Clint Bentley’s work before hearing and reading enough about “Train Dreams” to get it in front of me this week. But it comes as a revelation and promise of future treasure in both exploring his past films and seeing what is yet to come. (He’s turning 41 on New Year’s Day; for some perspective, Martin Scorsese has now been making movies for 58 years.)
Just a few minutes into “Train Dreams,” however, it wasn’t Scorsese I was thinking of, but rather another aged director with far fewer films to his credit but arguably equal renown: 82-year-old Terrence Malick. (“Badlands,” “Days of Heaven,” “The Tree of Life.”)
Like Malick, Bentley implicitly reminds us that “going to the pictures” was once common phraseology for taking in a movie—reinforcing its essential and early historical role as a visual medium. We are thus treated to luxurious cinematography by Adolfo Veloso that is unafraid to linger on still shots and slow pans, allowing us to study expressions, abide silence, gape at the natural world, and have the story’s chosen subjects, whether plant, animal or person, reveal something of their essence.
We should not forget the original story is Johnson’s, enhanced for the screen (sometimes with the rougher edges sanded off) not only by Bentley’s direction, but by his collaboration with longtime friend Greg Kwedar on the screenplay. The duo most recently paired up on the critically acclaimed “Sing Sing,” with their roles reversed.
Tragedy and the challenges of a fast-changing world dog Grainier’s life, which lasts until his 80th year. And it is his very endurance and essential decency that mark his life as both epic and all too normal.
Epic because whose life ever doesn’t feel that way to the one living it—and to all whom he/she has affected?
All too normal because the reward for living long enough is to have suffered deep and multiple sorrows bobbing right along in eternal tension—or in concert?—with joy. Far be it from us to think we ever lack plentiful company in either.
One man/woman, having lived in a particular place, at a particular time, navigating the shoals and currents, the peaches and pits of their life, sometimes forging ahead, other times slammed to the ground, thriving here, regressing there—and enduring. There’s tremendous nobility in the mere facts of the case.
Enough to fill out a short novel and the ravishing movie made from it by those who see it clearly, in all its brutal, tender beauty.
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I purposely avoided as many spoilers as possible in the above for all who have yet to see the movie, and this lovely blurb below doesn’t give much away either—while also highlighting the music, which I did not mention either but am glad to share some of here…
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Halfway through this post, I recalled another with “Epic” in its headline, from 10+ years ago. A not-unrelated companion read, with a side of theology for good measure… https://andrewhidas.com/your-epic-life/
For a lengthy, forthright, and fun Q & A session with Clint Bentley on the social media site Reddit, click here.
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Deep appreciation to the photographers! Unless otherwise stated, some rights reserved under Creative Commons licensing.
Elizabeth Haslam, whose photos (except for library books) grace the rotating banner top of homepage. https://www.flickr.com/photos/lizhaslam/
Library books photo by Larry Rose, Redlands, California, all rights reserved, contact: larry@rosefoto.com
Locomotive by Brian Suman, Hamilton, Ohio https://unsplash.com/@briansuman
Film outtake courtesy of its website https://www.traindreamsfilm.com/
Great movie. It gets my vote for surprise hit of the year.
Once more, you’ve added Train Dreams to my queue of future reads and sees. Several of the points you made I found very interesting. First, to create a film covering a man’s life from young adulthood to eighty-years of age is not only unusual but difficult to an extreme; director Clint Bentley must have been tempted to extend Train Dreams another hour or so. Second, cinematographer Adolfo Veloso’s decision to utilize still shots, slow pans and gaps of silence to enhance the expressive power of a particular scene is refreshing. These visual elements have been lost to so many contemporary filmmakers. Interestingly, the silent era directors and cinematographers effectively incorporated them into their talkies; the last few minutes of Lewis Milestone’s 1930 epic All Quiet on the Western Front is a classic example of this. Finally, many screenwriters prefer the short story or novella as the source of their creativity. Stephen King felt his short stories and novellas (The Shawshank Redemption, Stand by Me, Creepshow, Children of the Corn, Silver Bullet, and Cat’s Eye to name just a few) were often better suited to film than his novels. Thanks again for drawing my attention to Train Dreams.
I’ll be voting with you, Jonathan, thanks for casting your ballot here!
Robert, you’re right about the challenge of encompassing an entire life in 102 minutes. I’ll likely be watching the movie again both for its visual beauty and to find out more about how Bentley did it. And if you haven’t seen Terrence Malick’s “Days of Heaven,” which is my favorite of his movies, check it out after you’ve seen “Train Dreams” and you’ll appreciate the debt Bentley says he owes to Malick as a major influence. And while you’re at that, I can finally see “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which has escaped me all these years, and which, I have read, also got a highly lauded remake not many years ago.
Such a beautiful film, on so many many levels that unfolded and unfolded and unfolded, revealing Grainier’s ordinary and extraordinary struggles. The film is made at a human pace, one that invites and rewards our attention and engagement.
In addition, I’m not sure I have ever seen a film that so adeptly and accurately, in its completely understated way, portray the deep and vibrant love between a father and a small child. What a gift.
Fully agreed on all counts, Mary. I feel like Bentley and various others are finding new ways to convey stories, emotions, human experience, without having to resort to sensationalistic plot lines, over-the-top violence and sex, nihilism, snark, and all the hoohaw that too many filmmakers have relied on for too long to cash in at the box office. Whether there’s ever anything more than a devoted audience of Indie-moviephiles that respond to it is a question that remains to be seen, but would it be presumptuous to at least hope it’s the start of a trend?
I saw Train Dreams and loved it, as I loved your excellent review. Thank you for helping me to think more deeply about this beautiful, artful movie.
Thanks very much, Jefferson, I loved the movie too, will likely bathe in it again, and I’m looking forward to checking in with the rest of his work (right after I finish catching up with a few things I’ve still missed from Malick!). I think your word ‘artful” perfectly captures a certain quality that stands out in Train Dreams. Happy New Year to you!