Adapting ‘Train Dreams’: Clint Bentley on Why Changing One of the ‘Greatest Endings in Literature’ Mattered

In a short time, director Clint Bentley lost both his parents and then welcomed his first child, both of which he carried into his adaptation of Denis Johnson’s “Train Dreams” with his longtime writing and producing partner, Greg Kwedar.

Johnson’s novella captured specific, sometimes seemingly insignificant, moments in the life of an ordinary logger named Robert Grainier (Joel Edgerton), who died at 80. While on this week’s episode of the Toolkit podcast, Bentley talked about how, at the time, following his experience with death and birth, he was thinking about what we actually remember from our own lives.

“We think about our life in turning points,” said Bentley. “And then yet looking back, you find that a lot of the most special moments are the more mundane — that random Saturday morning you spent with your family and you weren’t planning anything, and then it became one of…