The writers of Netflix's 'Train Dreams' reflect on the trip to Idaho that shaped the film

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With director Clint Bentley on the road promoting “Train Dreams” and his co-writer Greg Kwedar on set shooting his next film, the pair decided to pass reflections on writing the script back and forth.Here’s their conversation:Bentley: Greg, I’m curious what you remember of your earliest impressions of the novella.

I remember that the things that excited me most about adapting it into a film also made me the most nervous: the way the book makes us feel an entire life in just over a hundred pages, the way dreams and visions interact with our waking world, this beautiful, quiet character of Robert Grainier.I couldn’t wait to portray that old world of logging, even though I had no idea how to pull it off.

I remember coming to the moment where a dying man asks for a drink of water from his own boot because there’s nothing else around and I just thought, “I want to put that in a movie.”Kwedar: The first time I read the novella, or any of Denis Johnson’s work, was when you handed it to me and asked me if I thought this was a movie.I read it in one sitting.

It washed over me like a wave.I felt the grandness of the world.

The towering forests.The towering ambition of the men remaking the landscape with saws and axes, and the men, like Grainier, who were somehow pulled through that current.

I was also struck by its startling intimacy.The peace at the cabin along the Moyie River.

The care of relative strangers lifting up Grainier from the pit of despair.And yes, I was quite taken by that drink of water the dying boomer takes from the boot.

Really, all of the peculiarities of the book serve to balance the scope and the tenderness and somehow suspend it all into mystery.It also felt like something only you could make, and that is rare to come by in our line of work.

And I had this feeling that by working on this, I could know you better through it.So, Clint, what was...