Train Dreams
Train Dreams, a movie about a logger and railroad worker in the American West at the turn of the 20th Century, is a great, powerful movie. William H Macy is amazing in it. Here’s a bit of dialogue:
Logger One: “I ain’t never happy when the job ends for some reason. I just feel itchy inside.”
Arn (William H. Macy): “That’s ’cause it’s rough work, gentlemen, not just on the body but on the soul. We just cut down trees that have been here for 500 years. It upsets a man’s soul whether you recognize it or not.”
Logger Two: “I’ll have $200 in my pocket tomorrow morning. Don’t bother my soul. Not one damn bit.”
Arn: “That’s ’cause you Minnesota fellas don’t know nothing about history.”
Robert (Joel Edgerton): “These trees are really that old?”
Arn: “Why, some’s older even. This world is intricately stitched together, boys. Every thread we pull, we know not how it affects the design of things. We’re but children on this earth, pulling bolts out of the Ferris wheel, thinking ourselves to be gods.”
Logger Two: “That’s horseshit. I’ve been to Washington too. Cut all up through Canada and back down again. There’s enough logs for us to cut for 1,000 years. And then when the last one’s cut, well, first one will be growed up as big as anything around today.”
Arn: “I remember thinking the same thing when I was a young man. . . the very same thing.”