Train Dreams delivers a present day critique from the past

When traveling from state to state by train, you are left with a lot of time to fill. Of course, you can always use it to get some shut-eye in a sleeper car. Or you can plug in a headset to listen to the latest Cup of Tea Critiques podcast, a new novel by Margaret Atwood, or recently dropped CDs by Justin Timberlake or Rhianna. Imagine, though, that none of these is an option since it is the early twentieth century. Rooms in sleeper cars are costly, and portable listening devices have not yet been invented. For many who lacked means and whose lives predated these technologies, long train rides were spent in quiet thought about work, family, social issues, and what lies ahead for future generations, at least that is what the Oscar-nominated movie, Train Dreams, leads us to believe.

Set in the early twentieth century and presented in a traditional indie vein, Train Dreams is based in the Pacific Northwest, feeling as if the story was lifted from the pages of a book and projected onscreen. That eponymous book was written by Denis Johnson and adapted to screen with additional writing by Clint Bentley and Greg Kwedar. In the film, Joel Edgerton stars as Robert Grainier, a logger who freelances his labor, sawing down trees and building railroads when work is in season, traveling by train for hours to get to the worksites. Images of two people working a lumberman’s saw and a jackhammer being swung over the shoulder and down onto a spike are surreal, given the modern-day chainsaw and slide sledge.

The visuals in this film transport me back to the time when the phrase “manual labor” meant intense and physically taxing work, rather than its contemporary reference to the breadth of skilled trades that often involve the use of power tools, machinery, lifters, loaders, and the like. These visual elements in the film are reminders that today’s manual labor is not the same as yesterday’s. Add to this that the worksites of the past were in remote areas and the transportation to them was limited to trains and horse carriages. So, rather than looking forward to seeing their families each evening, the workers camped in the forests or near the train tracks where they worked for the season.

Train Dreams returns us to a time when people in these occupations seemed lonely and their labor arduous. But it also presents a time that was simple, which provides a contrast for viewing the present. When Robert, a quiet man, meets Gladys (Felicity Jones), for example, the two spend time in the kitchen cooking and going on picnics together. Such private, intimate moments spark the realization of just how fast-paced our lives have become today. The repartee that ensues from Gladys and Robert’s marriage proposal pushes this theme further.

While on a picnic, Gladys asks Robert what he is thinking. “Well, I was thinking we ought to get married,” he says lazily. Gladys responds that they are “already married,” and “now all [they] need is a ceremony to prove it.” Both the intimacy of the proposal and the clever exchange differ from present-day marriage proposals that are often open to the public, flashed on jumbotrons at ball parks, and live-streamed on social media. The scene in Train Dreams drives home the realization that the intimacy of the marriage proposal itself has now been rendered boring and obsolete, despite it signaling the beginning of, arguably, the most consequential event in a couple’s life.

Train Dreams moves at a slow pace and delivers a storytelling style that includes some voiceover narration by Will Patton. The movie takes place largely in rural settings, which pushes the notion of Robert’s life as sad and isolated. This emanates from the amount of time he spends away from his family and alone on job sites where he limits his conversation to the few people he knows, like Arn Peeples (William H. Macy), an older logger. The sense of isolation and sameness is similar to the tone of the Native American reservation centered in the movie, Wind River. The lull that hangs over the desolate community conveys the feeling that the residents have resigned themselves to a way of life.

Robert listens intently during a fireside chat with several loggers one night, in which a young logger boasts about the money the job pays and insists that trees will be around forever. Arn shares his concern about cutting down trees that have been here for over 500 years. “Every thread we pull,” he notes, “we know not how it affects the design of things.” Arn’s comment hints at some anxiety about the environmental effects of razing forests about a half century before climate change arose as a social and political issue. Coincidentally, Robert’s life changes when he returns home after a season away and finds fire spreading throughout his rural community. The moment leaves us dismayed about the many decades that passed since then, before climate change became a priority issue.

It is interesting what we think about when we have downtime, when the noise around us cancels out and our bodies and minds are at peace. Given the social and political themes in this film that speak strongly to modern-day life, Train Dreams can be seen as more than a story about a quiet logger who thought deeply about the world around him. It is also a story that pushes the art forward by contributing to culture in a way that prompts us to critique ourselves. Spending some time in the past as this film allows us to do subtly encourages us to realize the present. Congratulations to Clint Bentley and his team on their Oscar nomination.