Say, Billy, do you think it’s a little different now? I don’t know if it’s different or if it’s always been this way. Maybe I was rougher, just like these boys, and I just don’t remember it.
Train Dreams is a movie that appears to have been made for me, even though I’m very different from its protagonist, an Idaho lumberjack. For example, I have plane dreams rather than train dreams.
I don’t remember having watched a movie that captures the feeling of being outdoors in the Northwestern forests better than Train Dreams. I’ve never seen sunsets, clouds, creeks, trees, campfires and grass look so true on a screen. I don’t usually think about cinematography when I watch a movie, but in this case, it was so exceptional that it entered my consciousness. And it’s not just me: Train Dreams earned Adolpho Veloso a nomination for the Academy Award for best cinematography.
Good writers show, they don’t tell. Similarly, good actors and directors are able to show what their characters feel without resorting to gratuitous displays of emotion. Train Dreams does this well. When the lead character, portrayed by Joel Edgerton, encounters tragedy, there is no need to show that he is devastated by using heavy-handed cliches like starting to drink heavily, or contemplating suicide, or going on an angry rampage. The subtle acting and the story make his emotional state apparent enough.
From the beginning, the narration makes it clear that Train Dreams is the adaptation of a novel. While watching, I thought I heard Norman Maclean’s voice. Turns out, while it is thematically set in the Northwestern forests like Maclean’s writing, Train Dreams is based on a novel by Denis Johnson. I haven’t been familiar with him and will now have to read some of his books.
For a more substantial review, read the one by Brian Tallerico here, or just go an watch the movie.
