‘Train Dreams’ Director Clint Bentley on Losing His Parents Before Filming: ‘They Didn’t Feel Like Dreams. They Felt Like Visitations’
Clint Bentley has spent the last few years staring down grief and transformation, both on-screen and off.
The writer-director of “Train Dreams,” adapted from Denis Johnson’s Pulitzer Prize finalist novella, lost both of his parents in quick succession while preparing the film, an experience that reshaped his understanding of life, art and memory.
“Right after they passed, I would have these dreams that didn’t feel like dreams at times,” Bentley tells Variety‘s Awards Circuit Podcast. “They felt like visitations. I believe I dreamed them, but the things that happened in those dreams — they’ve become as distinct as memories from when my parents were alive.”
Those blurred lines between the real and the surreal — between memory and imagination — are at the heart of “Train Dreams,” a quietly devastating drama set in the early 20th-century Pacific Northwest. The story follows a solitary railroad worker, played by Joel Edgerton, who must navigate personal loss amid the country’s shifting industrial landscape. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2025, where it was acquired by Netflix. It has since become one of the best-reviewed movies of the year, currently sitting at 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, and emerging as the little movie that could this Oscar season.
For Bentley, who is fresh off his first Oscar nomination for adapted screenplay for “Sing Sing” (2024) — which he co-wrote with longtime collaborator Greg Kwedar, who also partnered with him on “Train Dreams” — there was pressure in translating Johnson’s words into images. More than that, he yearned to capture the ache of being left behind as the world moves forward.
“I’d lost quite a few people in my life around that time and was still kind of reeling from it,” he reflects. “At the same time, my wife and I were welcoming our first child. All these conflicting emotions — grief and joy, birth and death — just collided. The story felt so emotionally relevant to what I was going through.”
The story of “Train Dreams” feels timeless, something Bentley also agrees with. “Even though it’s about a man who lives in the Pacific Northwest in the first part of the 20th century, it felt very relevant to today,” he explains. “We’re going through a time of incredible upheaval and change — and that’s what this man’s story is about. It’s about the pain of holding on when the world keeps shifting.”
When asked whether he sees the film as a meditation on grief or a journey toward acceptance, Bentley pauses. “Maybe both,” he says thoughtfully. “Life is strange and beautiful and filled with contradictions. Our subconscious holds on to things — dreams, memories, people — long after we think we’ve let them go. ‘Train Dreams’ is my way of honoring that.”
On this episode of the Variety Awards Circuit Podcast, Bentley discusses the themes and challenges of making the period drama, working with Joel Edgerton, William H. Macy and the rest of the cast in developing their characters, and the music, cinematography and visual style.
Also on this episode: casting director Francine Maisler. Listen below!
Read excerpts from his interview below, which has been edited and condensed for clarity.
I came across the novella when it first came out. It was one of the books to read that year — a Pulitzer finalist around 2014 or something. I fell in love with it, and I fell in love with Denis Johnson’s writing. It sent me down this path of reading “Jesus’ Son” and “Angels,” and all of his nonfiction. I was just a big fan.
But I wouldn’t have had the courage to make it into a movie until I made “Jockey,” which went to Sundance — virtual Sundance — in 2021.
Anytime you make a film, you get sent a lot of stuff — mostly, unfortunately, some iteration of what you’ve already done. I got sent the heist movie at a horse racetrack, or another sports movie. Then this one came across. These three producers — Marissa McMahon, Ashley Shaffer and Will Janowitz — had the rights to the book. “Train Dreams” had been trying to get made for a long time and couldn’t find the right filmmaker or the right time.
They sent it to me, and I reread the book with a film in mind. It just blew me away all over again. It felt cinematically rich, with a ton of potential, and I fell in love with this character and what it was saying about grief. I had just lost quite a few people in my life and was still kind of reeling from it — but also welcoming my first child into the world with my wife. Just all of these conflicting, strange emotions. And yet, it felt very relevant to today — in terms of the world we’re going through, a time of incredible upheaval and change. So all those things came together, and I was like, I would be so lucky to make this into a movie.
I don’t know. It’s always hard when you talk about this, because I’m so blown away by what the actors do. They bring so much richness and beauty, and they bring these characters to life. And I’m like, I don’t know where they got that. And then you listen to actors, and they’re like, “Well, I saw it in the script.”
But that’s the alchemy of this medium — it is there, I guess, it’s just not written.
You spend hours talking about these things in a beautiful, enlightening way. It’s almost strange — I’m learning what the film is as we’re making it, even after spending a year and a half with Greg writing the script. We spent all this time talking and digging into it, and then you get into the making of it, and the edit of it, and even the release of it — reading people’s responses to it — and I feel like I’m still just learning what it’s about in an odd way that I think is really magical.
Joel is incredible. I think he does so much. It’s really hard to do what he does in a performance like that. It’s not big, it’s not showy. It’s very nuanced. There’s so much emotional color and range that he shows. To be able to have the patience and presence as an actor — to be a man of few words.
What I was hoping to portray is this character — like my father, my uncle, my grandfather — these men who don’t say much. And yet, there’s something very deep running through them. They’re feeling really big emotions, and yet they say three words.
With his stuff, the only thing you have to do in the edit is choose the best take of eight amazing takes. That’s the problem. There’s so much nuance — where you’re like, this one’s great for this reason, and that one’s great for that reason.
I was coming in as such a big fan — with all of this cast, but specifically him. I grew up watching “Fargo,” “Boogie Nights,” “Magnolia,” all these things, where you’re just like, oh my God — is Bill Macy coming on?
And yet, he’s so humble and thoughtful and generous. He’s so much about the work. But he also brought things to it. There were moments where I just had ellipses, and he goes on telling his story. And he’s like, “Hey, what do you think about this being the story that I tell?” And he gave it, and I was like, okay, well, that’s going in the movie.
Or the song — I thought he would hum a tune, and he sings this song in a tent in one section of the movie. He’s like, “What do you think about this song?” We wrote the song — or he wrote the song. We didn’t do anything other than I gave him some thoughts on the lyrics. But other than that, he wrote this beautiful song that’s now at the end of the credits also.
He’s such a great force. There’s so much goodness and wisdom and also kind of wiliness that comes from him. He’s one of those people you just want to watch do anything. I could give him one little note, and then he would just turn it in a big way. I hope I get to work with him many more times.
The switching off just kind of naturally happened. We both feel incredibly lucky to be working with each other — and not only that, but also to be deep friends. He’s family at this point. His family is my family. I’m very thankful for the relationship in all these different forms.
I think the switching off in the past has been, honestly, because we haven’t had a ton of opportunities — of people racing to make our films. We banded together. With “Trans Pecos” and “Jockey,” we raised the financing mostly in Texas. Most of the investors had never made a film before.
It was only with “Sing Sing,” with Black Bear, that we finally had an industry financier who wanted to take a leap with us and make a film.
Adolpho Veloso — I’m so lucky to work with him. He’s a brilliant DP. He’s a brilliant artist. He’s a beautiful person.
I think he’s one of those rare cinematographers — like Robbie Müller or something — that has their own style as an artist, but it doesn’t get in the way of the story being told. It’s not cinematography for cinematography’s sake.
That’s been one of the joys of working with him — he helps the film come to life. He and I have very similar sensibilities. As artists, we’re both very nitpicky and OCD about the details, but also very open and willing to throw out a shot list at a moment’s notice — if the light is coming in a different way, or if there’s a breeze blowing up through the trees and you want to work that into the scene.
Or if the actors come in and they’re like, “Listen, I know we blocked it this way, but it really feels kind of weird. Can we mix this up?” And you go, yeah, that’s great — because now the film is coming to life, rather than just executing a plan.
We did build trees. Our production designer, Alex Schaller, and her team — because we wanted to have some of these scenes where you can cut into a huge tree that just looks gargantuan. But you don’t want to cut down a huge tree. Morally, I could never cut into it.
Even the trees that are cut down in the film — those were just done in logging areas where they were already cutting down trees. We said, “Can you show us what trees you’re going to cut down and then let us film that when you cut them?” When you’re already going to cut that tree down. That’s how we got that.
We really tried to be as conscious in the production so we’re not doing the very thing that we’re criticizing — which is taking out all these trees.
Those scenes — where they’re cutting into the old trees, or where the guys are laying in the notch of the tree, like recreating a Darius Kinsey photograph — that’s partly a build by our production design team and partly VFX. And I just think it’s so magical, what they did.
There’s a ton of effects in the film. I will happily say that. It allows you to get what you need without harming the world around you. You can do really chaotic-looking things without putting people or animals in danger.
The forest fire sequence is a good example. Our VFX supervisor, Ilya Tolstunov, is an incredible artist with incredible taste. We went into an area where wildfire had already swept through and devastated a forest. We shot in that forest — all the trees were already gone. Then we pumped smoke in, filmed at night, pumped ashes in, lit real fires. You can see what it looks like with the fire department there. That’s a real fire. The rest of the fire — the CGI fire — is built off that.
Going back to those things — even going back to Georges Méliès — it’s been long a part of our medium. It looks new now, but it’s selling some magic. We’re sending a rocket to the moon or whatever — it’s always been part of this medium.
People ask this from the time it was a script — did it really happen or not? It was a delicate dance, in so many different ways.
If I say, definitively, yes — it really happened, 100%, that kills it. If I say, definitively, no — it’s a figment of his imagination, it didn’t happen — that kills it too.
And the honest answer — and this is not to dodge the question — but it is the honest answer, is a bit like: I don’t know. That’s what I tried to do. The voiceover in it says that. He struggled the rest of his life to wonder — it felt as real as anything else.
For me, it really happened to him. Now, whether it actually happened — a kid showed up that was his daughter, or wasn’t — or whether he dreamed it — I don’t know. But it really happened for him.
I lost my parents in quick succession. It doesn’t happen as much now — which makes me a bit sad — but especially right after, I would have these dreams. But they didn’t feel like dreams. They felt like visitations.
There are a couple — in an odd way — that I believe I dreamed, but things happened in the dreams that felt as distinct as a memory from when they were alive. And as meaningful. There’s really no difference in terms of my emotional connection to those moments. Life is a strange and beautiful thing. And our subconscious is a very odd being that we’re living with.
It’s one of those things — kind of like the VFX — where it’s almost invisible. That’s not true for everything. There are a lot of great films where the music is front and center and sticks out — and that’s amazing.
But Bryce is brilliant — such a thoughtful composer. It weaves in. I can’t think about the DNA of this film without it. It lifts it up. You’ve got all these different elements — the cinematography, the acting, the writing, the voiceover — and the score glues it all together.
What I love about Bryce is he’s classically trained, but he has this avant-garde mindset. So we can do things where there’s a moment where it’s just him playing a beautiful little guitar piece — it feels like a little family moment.
Then, when Grainier goes back to the woods to try and log again, it’s this big operatic score — like a classical composition. Feels like a movie from the ’40s. And then, when the fire is happening, we kept putting more noise in — more disjointed elements — where it almost feels very avant-garde just listening to it.
The fact that he can do all that — and do it well — is astounding.
I hope they feel seen — especially those who’ve lost something or someone and are still learning how to live with that absence.
The film is about grief, yes — but also resilience and wonder. It’s about how life keeps moving, and somehow, so do we.
Variety Awards Circuit: Oscars
Variety’s “Awards Circuit” podcast, hosted by Clayton Davis, Jazz Tangcay, Emily Longeretta, Jenelle Riley and Michael Schneider, who also produces, is your one-stop source for lively conversations about the best in film and television. Each episode, “Awards Circuit” features interviews with top film and TV talent and creatives, discussions and debates about awards races and industry headlines, and much more. Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or anywhere you download podcasts.
The writer-director of “Train Dreams,” adapted from Denis Johnson’s Pulitzer Prize finalist novella, lost both of his parents in quick succession while preparing the film, an experience that reshaped his understanding of life, art and memory.
“Right after they passed, I would have these dreams that didn’t feel like dreams at times,” Bentley tells Variety‘s Awards Circuit Podcast. “They felt like visitations. I believe I dreamed them, but the things that happened in those dreams — they’ve become as distinct as memories from when my parents were alive.”
Those blurred lines between the real and the surreal — between memory and imagination — are at the heart of “Train Dreams,” a quietly devastating drama set in the early 20th-century Pacific Northwest. The story follows a solitary railroad worker, played by Joel Edgerton, who must navigate personal loss amid the country’s shifting industrial landscape. The film premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January 2025, where it was acquired by Netflix. It has since become one of the best-reviewed movies of the year, currently sitting at 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, and emerging as the little movie that could this Oscar season.
For Bentley, who is fresh off his first Oscar nomination for adapted screenplay for “Sing Sing” (2024) — which he co-wrote with longtime collaborator Greg Kwedar, who also partnered with him on “Train Dreams” — there was pressure in translating Johnson’s words into images. More than that, he yearned to capture the ache of being left behind as the world moves forward.
“I’d lost quite a few people in my life around that time and was still kind of reeling from it,” he reflects. “At the same time, my wife and I were welcoming our first child. All these conflicting emotions — grief and joy, birth and death — just collided. The story felt so emotionally relevant to what I was going through.”
The story of “Train Dreams” feels timeless, something Bentley also agrees with. “Even though it’s about a man who lives in the Pacific Northwest in the first part of the 20th century, it felt very relevant to today,” he explains. “We’re going through a time of incredible upheaval and change — and that’s what this man’s story is about. It’s about the pain of holding on when the world keeps shifting.”
When asked whether he sees the film as a meditation on grief or a journey toward acceptance, Bentley pauses. “Maybe both,” he says thoughtfully. “Life is strange and beautiful and filled with contradictions. Our subconscious holds on to things — dreams, memories, people — long after we think we’ve let them go. ‘Train Dreams’ is my way of honoring that.”
On this episode of the Variety Awards Circuit Podcast, Bentley discusses the themes and challenges of making the period drama, working with Joel Edgerton, William H. Macy and the rest of the cast in developing their characters, and the music, cinematography and visual style.
Also on this episode: casting director Francine Maisler. Listen below!
Read excerpts from his interview below, which has been edited and condensed for clarity.
I came across the novella when it first came out. It was one of the books to read that year — a Pulitzer finalist around 2014 or something. I fell in love with it, and I fell in love with Denis Johnson’s writing. It sent me down this path of reading “Jesus’ Son” and “Angels,” and all of his nonfiction. I was just a big fan.
But I wouldn’t have had the courage to make it into a movie until I made “Jockey,” which went to Sundance — virtual Sundance — in 2021.
Anytime you make a film, you get sent a lot of stuff — mostly, unfortunately, some iteration of what you’ve already done. I got sent the heist movie at a horse racetrack, or another sports movie. Then this one came across. These three producers — Marissa McMahon, Ashley Shaffer and Will Janowitz — had the rights to the book. “Train Dreams” had been trying to get made for a long time and couldn’t find the right filmmaker or the right time.
They sent it to me, and I reread the book with a film in mind. It just blew me away all over again. It felt cinematically rich, with a ton of potential, and I fell in love with this character and what it was saying about grief. I had just lost quite a few people in my life and was still kind of reeling from it — but also welcoming my first child into the world with my wife. Just all of these conflicting, strange emotions. And yet, it felt very relevant to today — in terms of the world we’re going through, a time of incredible upheaval and change. So all those things came together, and I was like, I would be so lucky to make this into a movie.
I don’t know. It’s always hard when you talk about this, because I’m so blown away by what the actors do. They bring so much richness and beauty, and they bring these characters to life. And I’m like, I don’t know where they got that. And then you listen to actors, and they’re like, “Well, I saw it in the script.”
But that’s the alchemy of this medium — it is there, I guess, it’s just not written.
You spend hours talking about these things in a beautiful, enlightening way. It’s almost strange — I’m learning what the film is as we’re making it, even after spending a year and a half with Greg writing the script. We spent all this time talking and digging into it, and then you get into the making of it, and the edit of it, and even the release of it — reading people’s responses to it — and I feel like I’m still just learning what it’s about in an odd way that I think is really magical.
Joel is incredible. I think he does so much. It’s really hard to do what he does in a performance like that. It’s not big, it’s not showy. It’s very nuanced. There’s so much emotional color and range that he shows. To be able to have the patience and presence as an actor — to be a man of few words.
What I was hoping to portray is this character — like my father, my uncle, my grandfather — these men who don’t say much. And yet, there’s something very deep running through them. They’re feeling really big emotions, and yet they say three words.
With his stuff, the only thing you have to do in the edit is choose the best take of eight amazing takes. That’s the problem. There’s so much nuance — where you’re like, this one’s great for this reason, and that one’s great for that reason.
I was coming in as such a big fan — with all of this cast, but specifically him. I grew up watching “Fargo,” “Boogie Nights,” “Magnolia,” all these things, where you’re just like, oh my God — is Bill Macy coming on?
And yet, he’s so humble and thoughtful and generous. He’s so much about the work. But he also brought things to it. There were moments where I just had ellipses, and he goes on telling his story. And he’s like, “Hey, what do you think about this being the story that I tell?” And he gave it, and I was like, okay, well, that’s going in the movie.
Or the song — I thought he would hum a tune, and he sings this song in a tent in one section of the movie. He’s like, “What do you think about this song?” We wrote the song — or he wrote the song. We didn’t do anything other than I gave him some thoughts on the lyrics. But other than that, he wrote this beautiful song that’s now at the end of the credits also.
He’s such a great force. There’s so much goodness and wisdom and also kind of wiliness that comes from him. He’s one of those people you just want to watch do anything. I could give him one little note, and then he would just turn it in a big way. I hope I get to work with him many more times.
The switching off just kind of naturally happened. We both feel incredibly lucky to be working with each other — and not only that, but also to be deep friends. He’s family at this point. His family is my family. I’m very thankful for the relationship in all these different forms.
I think the switching off in the past has been, honestly, because we haven’t had a ton of opportunities — of people racing to make our films. We banded together. With “Trans Pecos” and “Jockey,” we raised the financing mostly in Texas. Most of the investors had never made a film before.
It was only with “Sing Sing,” with Black Bear, that we finally had an industry financier who wanted to take a leap with us and make a film.
Adolpho Veloso — I’m so lucky to work with him. He’s a brilliant DP. He’s a brilliant artist. He’s a beautiful person.
I think he’s one of those rare cinematographers — like Robbie Müller or something — that has their own style as an artist, but it doesn’t get in the way of the story being told. It’s not cinematography for cinematography’s sake.
That’s been one of the joys of working with him — he helps the film come to life. He and I have very similar sensibilities. As artists, we’re both very nitpicky and OCD about the details, but also very open and willing to throw out a shot list at a moment’s notice — if the light is coming in a different way, or if there’s a breeze blowing up through the trees and you want to work that into the scene.
Or if the actors come in and they’re like, “Listen, I know we blocked it this way, but it really feels kind of weird. Can we mix this up?” And you go, yeah, that’s great — because now the film is coming to life, rather than just executing a plan.
We did build trees. Our production designer, Alex Schaller, and her team — because we wanted to have some of these scenes where you can cut into a huge tree that just looks gargantuan. But you don’t want to cut down a huge tree. Morally, I could never cut into it.
Even the trees that are cut down in the film — those were just done in logging areas where they were already cutting down trees. We said, “Can you show us what trees you’re going to cut down and then let us film that when you cut them?” When you’re already going to cut that tree down. That’s how we got that.
We really tried to be as conscious in the production so we’re not doing the very thing that we’re criticizing — which is taking out all these trees.
Those scenes — where they’re cutting into the old trees, or where the guys are laying in the notch of the tree, like recreating a Darius Kinsey photograph — that’s partly a build by our production design team and partly VFX. And I just think it’s so magical, what they did.
There’s a ton of effects in the film. I will happily say that. It allows you to get what you need without harming the world around you. You can do really chaotic-looking things without putting people or animals in danger.
The forest fire sequence is a good example. Our VFX supervisor, Ilya Tolstunov, is an incredible artist with incredible taste. We went into an area where wildfire had already swept through and devastated a forest. We shot in that forest — all the trees were already gone. Then we pumped smoke in, filmed at night, pumped ashes in, lit real fires. You can see what it looks like with the fire department there. That’s a real fire. The rest of the fire — the CGI fire — is built off that.
Going back to those things — even going back to Georges Méliès — it’s been long a part of our medium. It looks new now, but it’s selling some magic. We’re sending a rocket to the moon or whatever — it’s always been part of this medium.
People ask this from the time it was a script — did it really happen or not? It was a delicate dance, in so many different ways.
If I say, definitively, yes — it really happened, 100%, that kills it. If I say, definitively, no — it’s a figment of his imagination, it didn’t happen — that kills it too.
And the honest answer — and this is not to dodge the question — but it is the honest answer, is a bit like: I don’t know. That’s what I tried to do. The voiceover in it says that. He struggled the rest of his life to wonder — it felt as real as anything else.
For me, it really happened to him. Now, whether it actually happened — a kid showed up that was his daughter, or wasn’t — or whether he dreamed it — I don’t know. But it really happened for him.
I lost my parents in quick succession. It doesn’t happen as much now — which makes me a bit sad — but especially right after, I would have these dreams. But they didn’t feel like dreams. They felt like visitations.
There are a couple — in an odd way — that I believe I dreamed, but things happened in the dreams that felt as distinct as a memory from when they were alive. And as meaningful. There’s really no difference in terms of my emotional connection to those moments. Life is a strange and beautiful thing. And our subconscious is a very odd being that we’re living with.
It’s one of those things — kind of like the VFX — where it’s almost invisible. That’s not true for everything. There are a lot of great films where the music is front and center and sticks out — and that’s amazing.
But Bryce is brilliant — such a thoughtful composer. It weaves in. I can’t think about the DNA of this film without it. It lifts it up. You’ve got all these different elements — the cinematography, the acting, the writing, the voiceover — and the score glues it all together.
What I love about Bryce is he’s classically trained, but he has this avant-garde mindset. So we can do things where there’s a moment where it’s just him playing a beautiful little guitar piece — it feels like a little family moment.
Then, when Grainier goes back to the woods to try and log again, it’s this big operatic score — like a classical composition. Feels like a movie from the ’40s. And then, when the fire is happening, we kept putting more noise in — more disjointed elements — where it almost feels very avant-garde just listening to it.
The fact that he can do all that — and do it well — is astounding.
I hope they feel seen — especially those who’ve lost something or someone and are still learning how to live with that absence.
The film is about grief, yes — but also resilience and wonder. It’s about how life keeps moving, and somehow, so do we.
Variety Awards Circuit: Oscars
Variety’s “Awards Circuit” podcast, hosted by Clayton Davis, Jazz Tangcay, Emily Longeretta, Jenelle Riley and Michael Schneider, who also produces, is your one-stop source for lively conversations about the best in film and television. Each episode, “Awards Circuit” features interviews with top film and TV talent and creatives, discussions and debates about awards races and industry headlines, and much more. Subscribe via Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify or anywhere you download podcasts.