‘Train Dreams’ director Clint Bentley breaks down that harrowing wildfire sequence: “We filmed in an area that had been wiped out by wildfire”

Train Dreams director and co-writer Clint Bentley knew he wanted to weave themes of environmentalism and capitalism into his film adaptation of Denis Johnson’s 2011 novella, which began streaming on Netflix on Friday.

“That was something I wanted to make very clear without being preachy,” Bentley told Decider in a recent Zoom interview. “Some of the best times of our lives are robbed from us for having to work, and that’s very tragic.”

That tragedy comes across all too well in Train Dreams, which stars Joel Edgerton as a quiet, hard-working logger, Robert Grainier, working on the railroad in the American West in the 1920s. Despite his introverted nature, he finds love (Felicity Jones) and starts a beautiful, simple life. But over the years, the logging industry takes more and more trees from the earth, and takes more and more of Robert’s life from him. Neither of those resources are infinite.

Bentley co-wrote the Train Dreams script with his creative partner Greg Kwedar. The pair’s last film, 2023’s Sing Sing (directed by Kwedar, co-written by Bentley) earned them both an Oscar nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. While Sing Sing took Bentley and the team inside concrete prisons, Train Dreams was filmed almost entirely in the great outdoors.

Although “challenges were aplenty” filming in nature in the Pacific Northwest, Bentley said he, his cast, and crew all chose to “embrace the unknown and not look at it as a problem that we need to solve, but as something that’s giving us the answer that we don’t know yet.”

Bentley spoke to Decider about embracing those challenges, filming in a real wildfire-scorched area, and the message he hopes his movie conveys.

DECIDER: Tell me about working with Joel Edgerton on this character, Robert. What were those early conversations like?

CLINT BENTLEY: Joel is such an incredible actor. What I found through the process is he’s also an incredible person—as wonderful a human as he is an actor. Early on, we talked a lot about the character being this guy who has a deep well of emotions running through him, that doesn’t quite have the words to be able say what they are. He can’t communicate himself, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there. Having an actor who can get that across to an audience, and break their hearts with just a look, is astounding. It’s very rare for an actor to be able to do that. We both had young kids around the same age, and we talked about that, in terms of what this character would be going through and experiencing and longing for.

I spoke to Joel yesterday and he was telling me about how you loose you kept thing, especially on the scenes with his toddler daughter. I would love to hear from, your perspective, how you approached that sequence, and working with such a young child.

My son was two when we were filming this. At that time, I knew what we were getting into. I know that, most times, you can control them. They’re going to do what they’re gonna do, even when you try and make a game out of it, or something like that. So, the only way we could really be successful with that, and make something interesting and real, is by embracing it.

Luckily, Joel is not only a dad, but he’s a very good dad, and a very sweet dad. Felicity, as well, has children around the same age, and is a very wonderful mother. So just giving them the space, and having Adolpho [Veloso] be the DP that he is, that can catch all of that, and make it beautiful, while giving them space to follow the kid where it wants to be. I think what made [for these] great moments was this thing where [we were] like, “We don’t have to stick to a script. We just have to stay to a feeling.” As long as we get to that, we can get something good. Nine times out of ten, it was better than anything I scripted for the moment.

Tell me a little bit about filming in the Pacific Northwest. What were the challenges and rewards, especially for a movie that takes place almost entirely outdoors?

I love it. I love being out in the woods. It’s such a beautiful landscape, and such a varied and rich landscape. You’ve got snow-covered mountains, and dusty plains, and rain forests. But, challenges were aplenty. [Laughs.] Anytime you take a film crew out in out in nature and then throw some horses in the mix, or some chickens. But all of us, cast included, leaned into this approach.

We said, “Okay. We’re going to embrace the unknown and not look at it as a problem that we need to solve, but as something that’s giving us the answer that we don’t know yet. Something that we need to listen to, and then try and make something great out of it, and follow that.” When Joel is trudging through the snow, and his character is trying to light a lantern, and he can’t because his fingers are so numb, that’s because Joel’s fingers are very numb from trudging in the snow. It just brought so much more than whatever difficulties we had.

That harrowing wildfire scene had me thinking about the recent California wildfires and the LA fire last year. Was that on your mind at all? How did choreograph and film that sequence?

The [LA] fires hadn’t happened at the time, until we were had finished editing. But, those wildfires, especially in Washington, Oregon, and Canada—they have what they call fire season. They have fires all the time. We’d gone out to start filming about six months before we actually filmed it. We got shut down by the strikes. But while we were out there, a wildfire popped up. It was very harrowing and scary. That is a part of people’s lives out there, that they have to deal with every year.

When we were filming that, it was in this area that had been wiped out by wildfire. I wanted to be very sensitive to—we all did, on the filmmaking team—to be very sensitive to that, and also portray it realistically. That sequence was really hard to get. We filmed at night, and we pumped smoke in, lit little fires, and pumped embers in. Then that was enhanced by VFX with our wonderful VFX supervisor, Ilia Mokhtareizadeh. I’m very proud of how that sequence turned out cinematically, while also recognizing that it’s a very tough thing to put on screen.

We see the logging industry steal trees from the earth, and also steal Robert’s life from him. Can you talk about those themes environmentalism and capitalism?

Well, Anna, I think you just said it quite well! Somebody said recently, “We live on a planet that literally grows food out of the ground, and yet, for some reason, we’ve designed this system where we have fucking credit scores.” It’s like, what have we done?

I didn’t want to have the film be preachy about it, but be very clear about [the fact that] some of the best times of our lives are robbed from us for having to work, and that’s very tragic. This is not particular to America—we’re doing it all over the world. And we’ve always done it, where we just take, and take, and take from nature, and called it a resource, without thinking about the destruction that we’re causing. Or the fact these are limited resources—there’s a limited supply, and what that [taking] is doing to the fabric of things. I think the film says it better than I could ramble through it on this thing. That was something I wanted to make very clear without being preachy.

I love the inclusion of a native character, Ignatius Jack, because the themes feel in line with Native American philosophies. Did you talk to the Kootenai Nation?

Yeah, we worked closely with the Kootenai Nation and tribe. Nathaniel Arcand [the actor who plays Ignatius Jack] was an incredible resource and collaborator in that, in trying to put the idea in there subtly. His character is clearly somebody who is—from the way he dresses, carries himself, and things that he says—very connected to his past, and yet is somebody who, like a lot of Native Americans of the time, in that place, has taken on a more Anglo name. He’s running a shop in time, and kind of bridging the divide between these two things, between traditionalism and modernity. But still remaining himself amidst all of it, and being such a good person. I think he portrayed the character so beautifully.