Institute History
Description
Robert Grainier is a day laborer building America’s railroads at the start of the 20th century as he experiences profound love, shocking defeat, and a world irrevocably transforming before his very eyes.
Adapted from Denis Johnson’s novella, Train Dreams finds its center in the mesmerizing figure of Grainier (Joel Edgerton). An ordinary man, a logger, a husband, and a father, Grainier’s life unfolds amid the vast wilderness of the American West — the age of the locomotive, the country’s epic expansion. Despite that grandeur, the film’s lens is focused and intimate. Filmmaker Clint Bentley brings a naturalism to this historical drama, love story, and metaphysical meditation that wrestles with our sense of being, and how we reconcile the immensity of our lives with our barely discernible place in the world, the forces of nature, and the sweep of history. A humble, passively curious man, Grainier is haunted by his past, bewildered by the changing world, and mystified by his own fleeting existence.—John Nein
Available in person.
Screenings include closed and open captions.