{"id":406043,"date":"2026-01-14T05:43:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T05:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/406043\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T05:43:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T05:43:08","slug":"clint-bentley-on-making-train-dreams-and-selling-his-film-to-netflix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/406043\/","title":{"rendered":"Clint Bentley on Making Train Dreams and Selling His Film to Netflix"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tLess than a year ago, Clint Bentley<\/a> earned his first Oscar nomination as the co-writer on Sing Sing<\/a>, Greg Kwedar<\/a>\u2019s emotional prison-set drama starring Colman Domingo<\/a>. The pair are now in the hunt for a second consecutive adapted-screenplay nod with Train Dreams<\/a>, which has also been included in best-picture lineups by the PGA, Indie Spirits and more \u2014 only this time, it\u2019s Bentley in the director\u2019s chair, his second feature after the critical hit Jockey.<\/p>\n

\n\tAdapted from Denis Johnson\u2019s novella, Train Dreams stars Joel Edgerton<\/a> in an elegiac, mournful portrait of a logger at the turn of the century. Spanning decades, the movie captures his encounters with romance and heartbreak, grief and redemption \u2014 at a deliberate pace, the thrills being found in Adolpho Veloso\u2019s lush cinematography and Edgerton\u2019s quietly stirring performance. This is all by design for Bentley, a Florida native born on a cattle ranch who\u2019s suddenly emerged as the filmmaker behind one of Netflix<\/a>\u2019s top awards contenders. Below, he reflects on the experience with THR.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThis is your second feature, and it\u2019s come a long way from Sundance<\/a> to where we are now. This and Jockey share a certain, deliberate pace and focus on smaller moments. Has the trajectory here felt reaffirming for your voice as a filmmaker?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIt is something I\u2019ve given a lot of thought to, because this one was a big bet in a lot of ways. What I\u2019d started exploring in Jockey, I was trying to grow without losing it and develop a cinematic language further \u2014 and be thoughtful to the audience, but also be very particular to what that style is and what my interests are. I was raised in the Sticks, on a cattle ranch in the middle of nowhere. I didn\u2019t have access to art house cinemas or anything like that. I wanted to make a film that felt like what [Robert] Bresson or [Andrei] Tarkovsky does for me, but translating that to folks who might never watch Persona.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s a second film and I feel like I\u2019m very much just beginning to figure out what I\u2019ll do as a filmmaker. It\u2019s incredibly encouraging that people have connected with it in a way that they have, in a way that I didn\u2019t think that they would. But I\u2019m not looking at this as a stepping stone to some big tentpole.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhy were you not expecting people to connect to it as they did?<\/p>\n

\n\tIf I told you, \u201cHey, there\u2019s going to be this quiet film about a logger in the Pacific Northwest who doesn\u2019t say very much, and it\u2019s got a lot of magical realism,\u201d it doesn\u2019t scream something that\u2019s going to connect with a broader audience \u2014 just on paper.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat\u2019s the biggest swing you took on this film, creatively?<\/p>\n

\n\tHe\u2019s a character who is not passive, but not a typically active character either. Very much from the beginning, I wanted to try and make a small life feel as big and beautiful as it does to us, without leaning on tropes of some big event happening or something like that. The little moments of when he\u2019s with his family \u2014 I can\u2019t take full credit for that because Joel is fucking amazing, and that works because of Joel. Then, the pacing and the tone and just trying to make something that\u2019s quiet and gives people space to hopefully open up inside a bit as they\u2019re going through it. I get notes from people being like, \u201cI was watching a film with a family member and I can\u2019t remember the last film that they watched that they put their phone down for.\u201d That\u2019s encouraging just for the state of cinema in general.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo your point, it is a quieter movie, and yet when it dropped on Netflix, it was stirring up real discourse. It charted on the platform. The streaming release really was an event in a way that is pretty uncommon for movies of this scope, even for those that go on Netflix.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe thing that I was really excited about, working with Netflix on it, was the fact that they had said early on, they were going to do theatrical distribution, which they did, and do a 35mm print and all these things. The other side of that is\u2026there was something very exciting about working with Netflix, knowing that some of my family out in Florida who\u2019ve never seen my films were going to be able to watch it at the same time that [cinematographer] Adolpho [Veloso\u2019s] family in Brazil was going to be able to watch it. There was something very democratizing about that, especially given the subject matter. It\u2019s what I would like to hopefully continue to do as a filmmaker. The fact that it actually cracked their top 10 when it came out and then started a discourse \u2014 I had family in town that weekend, and there was a New York magazine article<\/a> about it.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe Train Dreams Wars.\u201d I remember the headline.<\/p>\n

\n\tYeah, and I didn\u2019t know any of that happened because I\u2019d just been hanging out with family that was in town over Thanksgiving. Then I poked my head out of the sand and was like, \u201cOh, there was a whole thing that happened over the weekend\u201d \u2014 which is maybe better.<\/p>\n

\n\tDid you stay offline intentionally that first weekend?\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI make peace with what I\u2019ve made. I have thoughts about it. I have notes on Train Dreams. (Laughs.) But I\u2019m also very proud of it, and I\u2019m happy with what it is. If I get a good review or a bad review, it\u2019s not really pushing me one way or the other in terms of how I feel about the project. And just in general. I try to not spend a lot of time online if I can help it.<\/p>\n

\n\tWe got a really bad review from a critic who I really look up to and admire, as a film lover. There are those reviewers and those critics that you connect with, and I want to hear what they think about a project. So on the same day where I got that bad review from somebody I really respect, I got a note on Instagram from somebody from a father who had lost his child and had trouble moving beyond that. He wrote this long letter to me about how the film helped him move on. And so I was like, it balances it all out, I guess.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tLulu Wang and Barry Jenkins with Bentley at a Los Angeles Train Dreams reception<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGonzalo Marroquin\/Getty Images for Netflix<\/p>\n

\n\tThe first audience saw the movie in Park City, of course. What was Sundance like this year? You also brought Jockey there, but here you wind up selling to Netflix.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tJockey was in the first pandemic year, 2021. We went without a distributor, but then we ended up selling it two nights before it premiered to Sony Classics. Before the premiere happened, that anxiety was gone. With this one, it was the first time in person for me \u2014 I\u2019d never been to Sundance because I never had the money to go as a young filmmaker. I was like, \u201cI\u2019m going to go when I have a film there.\u201d Then I didn\u2019t get to go with Jockey. So there were all these emotions. There\u2019s the incredible anxiety of, so much has to go right in the room for distributors to get into your film. Now the way it is with most titles, and just in the landscape in general, is the wait to see how the reviews start to come out. So you\u2019re also hoping that that goes well and that the reviewer has a good seat and doesn\u2019t have a bad experience. There\u2019s just so much pressure around this one screening.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBut I remember just sitting down, and they do the pre-roll of the Sundance logo and the different films that they\u2019ve played over the years and things like that. I just felt so grateful to be some little piece of the legacy of that organization and institution that had meant so much to me as a filmmaker. What they did over the decades shaped me so much. It felt like both of my films were premiering at the same time.<\/p>\n

\n\tDid you have any mixed feelings about selling it to a streamer? Between you and Greg Kwedar, your co-writer who also directs his own movies, you\u2019ve never worked with one before.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI won\u2019t lie that, before I met the folks at Netflix, I didn\u2019t know what to expect, and there was some trepidation before meeting them about what it could look like. But everybody I met over there, their passion for film and cinema really blew me away. Their passion for this film, and not only that, but their ideas about what the film could become and what they could help it become \u2014 that\u2019s the thing that really struck me. I wanted to trust them on that, that they would do that, and they\u2019ve delivered it and beyond.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI wish everybody would see a film in a theater. I\u2019m always going to say any film is going to be a better experience for somebody in a theater for sure. I know I\u2019m in a kind of a rare situation where I got to have my cake and eat it too: I got a note from somebody a week ago who just saw the film in the theater in New Orleans. It\u2019s the longest theatrical run that any of our films have had. Jockey, Sing Sing \u2014 like any of the films Greg and I have done, it\u2019s ironically the longest theatrical run. I realize the charmed experience that I\u2019ve had with it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen you think about what\u2019s next at this point, is there a sense of more resources or a clearer path on how to cobble together the next movie?<\/p>\n

\n\tWe always want more time and more money. That\u2019s what every filmmaker wants. But I like this idea of growing slowly. A lot of the filmmakers that I look up to grew slowly, and I am really trying to, and it\u2019s hard. It\u2019s very difficult, but I\u2019m really trying to not put the cart before the horse and think about a budget range. It\u2019s just trying to just think about the story that I want to tell and start there and then let the rest fall into place as it does. The blessing and the curse is there\u2019s a lot coming at me in terms of ideas and scripts, but also people who want to work together, which is amazing. I\u2019m trying to get back from all of that, to come from a place of what\u2019s coming from inside, which is where both Jockey and Train Dreams came from.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tHow do you reflect on these last few months, taking the movie around on the awards trail? What\u2019s it been like?<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s felt like being in an indie band. When we re-started in the fall [after Sundance], we started doing the different festivals. Then we were in smaller theaters that were half full. It\u2019s been kind of beautiful to watch the theaters grow and the crowds grow. To see people coming back to the film having watched it, being at Q&As, coming back to watch it again. I\u2019ve gotten to meet a bunch of heroes of mine along the way.<\/p>\n

\n\tLike who?<\/p>\n

\n\tI got to meet Spielberg<\/a>, which kind of blew my mind. Joachim Trier<\/a>. That\u2019s the special thing about all of this, is getting to interact with your people you really, really look up to.<\/p>\n

\n\tI remember meeting you at one of those very early Q&As which was, to your point, in a smaller theater. We just saw each other at another one in a much bigger theater, full house. That\u2019s pretty rare, even for big contenders, for a movie that came out months ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tI\u2019m getting notes on Instagram from people in Turkey and people in Iran and people in India who are very moved by the film and want to interact with it. And I\u2019m in the car and I\u2019m passing a Train Dreams billboard right now. It\u2019s crazy. It doesn\u2019t feel real. I feel like I\u2019m going to wake up very soon and then be like, \u201cOh, well, that was a nice dream.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Less than a year ago, Clint Bentley earned his first Oscar nomination as the co-writer on Sing Sing,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[148886,27452,88,151489,85494,135937,206,217,195570,20284,98560,122900],"class_list":{"0":"post-406043","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-clint-bentley","9":"tag-colman-domingo","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-greg-kwedar","12":"tag-joachim-trier","13":"tag-joel-edgerton","14":"tag-movies","15":"tag-netflix","16":"tag-sing-sing","17":"tag-spielberg","18":"tag-sundance","19":"tag-train-dreams"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}