Brokeback mountain, more like bareback mountain.
It's a story of two guys who had the hots for one another, but went on to have wives and kids of their own.
They meet twice a year on a "fishing trip", and at last one of em dies and the other gets his ashes to where they "done it" the first time.

Update: Today, I finally sat down and watched the movie based on this short story. Wow, just wow. The movie was beautifully shot, with strong performance from Heath Ledger as Ennis del Mar and Jake Gyllenhaal as Jack Twist. The breathtaking scenery of Wyoming, especially of Brokeback Mountain, and those chubby, cutie sheep add so much poetry to a truthful but forbidden love story.

I must admit, when I read the story, I really didn’t know how director Ang Lee could transform 55 pages of words into an Oscar-nominated 2-hour-long movie that brought tears to my eyes. But after watching the movie, I kinda knew how he did it. What Annie Proulx described in her short story in one sentence, Ang Lee let it play out in multiple different scenes, permitting viewers to experience the story of “Brokeback Mountain” in a deeper and more complete way. He also added some new side characters (I believe) to the movie version, which in turn gave the story more dynamics and colors. Heath Ledger, with his sad eyes, brilliantly portrayed Ennis del Mar - an introverted, silent cowboy who had to choose between his responsibility as a husband and father, and the dream of being with Jack Twist in their own paradise. Jake Gyllenhaal also brought Jack Twist to life - a seemingly straight man who leaned more toward gay in the sexuality spectrum.

Both actors and the script really highlighted the struggle that gay men at that time must have faced, not only repressed sexuality but also the ties and bonds in their realities that prevented them from living their love and the life that they wanted. So much happened in both Ennis and Jack’s lives; so much passed between them, and they lost 20 years in which they could have been together during that process. All that was left was Brokeback Mountain, the memories of those days they spent together when they were young, which were represented in the two shirts and a photo of the mountain, hiding inside Ennis’ closet. I cried when Ennis cried; my heart broke for him, for Jack Twist, for the love that must forever be kept silent…

How sad and how depressing. I just wish both Ennis and Jack had been born in this time, when there has been so much improvement and openness on how the society views the LGBTQ community. Then this love story wouldn’t have had to be so tragic and heartbreaking like this…

Old review:

I bought this book at a discounted price (only 1 dollar) during my vacation in Cambodia in the summer of 2012. I don’t know why I waited nearly 6 years to read it. What can I say? The best summary about this beautifully written short story belongs to Walter Kirn’s review in New York Magazine:

n  

“A stand-out story… ‘Brokeback Mountain’ is the sad chronology of a love affair between two men who can’t afford to call it that. They know what they’re not - not queer, not gay - but have no idea what they are.”

n

Yes, both Ennis and Jack refused to identify themselves as gay or queer. Ennis even said he loved having sex with women. Both got married, had kids, but somehow the bond that formed during those nights spent together on Brokeback Mountain still haunted them ever since. Ennis missed Jack so much; Jack wanted to have more chances, more time, more love makings with Ennis rather than just one or two copulations in four years. They were trapped in an unsung love and the fear of being repudiated, even tortured, by the society, at that time still didn’t accept that men could fall in love with men, too.

Were Ennis and Jack gay, or were they bisexual? Does this question even matter, when, in my opinion, this story isn’t just about repressed sexuality? It’s simply about love between two human beings, which transcends sexual orientation, labels or what we come to define as LGBTQ.

And don’t let me start talking about the ending, which nearly broke my heart and brought tears to my eyes:

n  

"The shirt seemed heavy until he saw there was another shirt inside it, the sleeves carefully worked down inside Jack’s sleeves. It was his own plaid shirt, lost, he’d thought, long ago in some damn laundry, his dirty shirt, the pocket ripped, buttons missing, stolen by Jack and hidden here inside Jack’s own shirt, the pair like two skins, one inside the other, two in one. He pressed his face into the fabric and breathed in slowly through his mouth and nose, hoping for the faintest smoke and mountain sage and salty sweet stink of Jack but there was no real scent, only the memory of it, the imagined power of Brokeback Mountain of which nothing was left but what he held in his hands.”

n

The only thing I didn’t like about this story is that it was too short, which means there wasn’t enough space for character development. There were many parts in which I felt the change in the characters’ attitude, feelings or thoughts were too abrupt. Even the progression of Ennis and Jack’s love story felt a little bit rushed. With an amazing idea like this, I would love to see it be made into a novel, and I don’t mind reading more pages and more words if it means I could experience the story in a deeper and more thorough way.

How director Ang Lee took this 55-page short story and turned it into an Oscar-nominated 2-hour-long movie is beyond me :D I must watch the movie as soon as possible ahhhh!!!! R.I.P. Heath Ledger :((((

"Tao đâu có thể chịu mỗi năm một, hai lần làm tình ở tuốt trên cao. Mày quá đáng đối với tao, Ennis, đồ chó đẻ điếm đàng. Ước gì tao biết cách bỏ mày."
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Mùa hè năm ấy, tít trên ngọn Brokeback giá lạnh, hai gã trai vừa chớm hai mươi hừng hực lao vào nhau bằng tất cả bất chợt và nhục dục. Hè qua, họ rời xa, chỉ để lại cho nhau những mảnh ký ức rạc rời.
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Bẵng đi hai mươi năm, khối tình đành đoạn ngày nào vẫn nhen hồng như lửa, đốt cháy tâm can hai kẻ nọ bằng tất cả nỗi nhớ nhung dạt dào tựa gió. Rồi cơm áo gạo tiền đẩy họ dần xa, rồi phận số đọa đày xé toạc họ ra, chỉ để lại một sự im lặng chói lói, bàng hoàng.
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Những ngày sau cuối, người này vẫn còn nhớ đêm hè năm đó, có một người vòng tay ôm lấy một người từ đằng sau, không chút gợn dục, chỉ khát khao sẻ chia. Những ngày sau cuối, người này tìm thấy hai chiếc áo sơ mi đã bạc màu lồng vào nhau, tựa như vẫn miết da thịt vào nhau, gom tất cả nỗi nhớ thắt tim cùng nỗi đau xé lòng tựu thành kỷ niệm.
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Ở một quá khứ xa xôi, từng có hai kẻ tuổi trẻ như nắng đổ vàng ươm, ngồi cạnh bên đống lửa tí tách tàn, nghe hơi thở phả vào nhau miết mải; từng cùng nhau sưởi ấm trong những cơn gió tuyết thốc tháo, thấy mái lều nhỏ bé tựa một gia đình, thấy chênh vênh hóa hư không, và yêu thương thoang thoảng như làn khói. Giá như họ biết trước được rằng, rằng họ sẽ chỉ có duy nhất một mùa hè đó thôi...
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"Cà phê cũ đang sôi nhưng hắn bắt kịp trước khi nó trào, rót vào cái tách cáu bẩn và thổi chất nước đen, để một mảng giấc mơ tràn đến. Nếu hắn không buộc mình cảnh giác, nó có thể khơi dậy ngày ấy, hâm nóng lại thời lạnh lẽo trên núi, khi họ làm chủ thế giới và không có điều gì sai trái."
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Ừ thì làm gì có điều gì sai trái. Tất cả là tình yêu.

Brokeback Mountain, I got on the book through the movie and I was not disappointed. there are several stories about Wyoming and cowboys. The author, Annie Proulx, uses a lot of strong language, which makes the stories even more emotional and tragic. For anyone who likes serious cowboy stories

In honor of Brokeback Mountain being nearly 20-years old (!!) and newly released on 4K disc, I'm journeying back to the story and screenplay which changed my life.

I was 16.5 years old when the film debuted on December 9, 2005. The limited release in LA/NYC was already a box office smash and critical reviews were stellar. In Oklahoma we had to wait a while longer for it to appear in local theaters. Unlike Utah, where it was banned in at least one cinema due to its "dangerous" portrayal of non-traditional family, I'm not aware of any protests or controversy. Of course everyone was talking about it. Much later, after sweeping the Golden Globes, it even started playing in my small town. The local paper gave it a glowing review. I was shocked.

Before it debuted locally, however, I drove over an hour each way to see it on the big screen near Oklahoma City. I also drove any friend willing to go with me. In total, I ended up seeing it around 14 times in theaters. Somewhere I still have the ticket stubs to prove it. Huge thank you to all the box office attendants who let me buy tickets to an R-rated movie without adult accompaniment.

Of course I also read Annie Proulx's 1997 short story, originally published in The New Yorker and later included in the Pulitzer-nominated collection Close Range: Wyoming Stories. At the time I remember enjoying the story, but finding it perhaps too veiled in its description of physical love. I was a horny teenager, what can I say?

Reading it back now, I appreciate the original story a lot more. All the film's iconic dialogue is pulled straight from these pages, unabridged and in its entirety. Sometimes internal thoughts are converted to dialogue in the film, and occasionally a single word might be exchanged. Otherwise, it's all here, miraculously housed in a mere 28 pages.

Annie Proulx's writing is gorgeous and crisp. Arguably too sparse at times. She loves her commas and the best imagery is often breezed through in a string of clauses. It would be wise to read her very slowly and allow the weight of each word to take hold. Or just watch the movie. This is a rare case where I do think the movie is better. Without the masterful delivery of Heath Ledger, Jack Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, Randy Quaid, and Anne Hathaway, the pitch-perfect dialogue doesn't land quite as strong on the page.

Reflecting back on my youth, I think there's a number of reasons I found the movie so moving. It was my first experience with high art in popular culture, for one. I often brought notepad and pencil to my cinema viewings, conducting literary analysis in real time. I recall noting how each time Jack and Ennis allow themselves joy, a natural element or interpersonal conflict separates them. In the end, these factors both succeed and fail to keep them apart. I remember doing a lengthy comparison to Romeo & Juliet at one point, but that was only one of my many literary musings.

Of course, there was also a more personal impact. Being gay in Oklahoma during the G.W. Bush years, there wasn't a lot of positivity in my life. My peers enjoyed my company more as a curiosity of nature rather than any real friendship. Later, I discovered, they thought my gayness was a ploy for attention. When I actually started having relationships with guys, they rebuked me. My family was exceedingly homophobic. I lived with the fear they would place me in conversion therapy at any moment. Every day I wasn't 18 felt like a day of danger, when somebody might use their parental authority to destroy my life.

Separate from the ground-breaking plot of Brokeback Mountain, I think the critical acclaim changed my life. Gay pop culture references at this time were largely farces (Will & Grace, for example). The mere concept that a gay storyline could be profound and award-worthy was completely new to me. I checked its Rotten Tomatoes score daily, almost in tears to see it so overwhelmingly "Fresh."

I don't think I was alone in feeling this way. It's likely why there's still so much fury that Crash won Best Picture over Brokeback. I was furious too. But in hindsight, I'm okay with it. Crash is a great movie too. At the time, though, that critical validation felt like everything. Our lives mattered, our stories mattered. Our love was just as worthy of analysis as straight love.

Anyway, these thoughts all came rushing to me after re-reading the short story. I'll pick back up after reading the screenplay, also included in this book.

The Screenplay

For those who never or rarely read screenplays, this is a wonderful place to start. It's certainly among the best I've read, from a technical perspective as well as content. The directions are crisp yet wildly visual, and there's plenty of descriptions which give new insights to iconic scenes I knew by heart. Small things, such as a bottle of "cheap white wine" found in Ennis' refrigerator being a "legacy of Cassie" got me very excited.

There's also gorgeous character detail. These words were largely intended for the actor and director, but readers will relish them as well. For example, when Ennis discovers the two shirts in Jack's old bedroom, there's this direction:

ENNIS presses his face into the fabric and breathes in slowly through his mouth, hoping for the faintest smoke and mountain sage and salty sweet stink of JACK. But there is no real scent, only the memory of it, the imagined power of Brokeback Mountain, of which nothing is left but what he now holds in his trembling hands.

The screenplay is full of such moments. While the cast somehow managed to convey these emotions without words, the added detail brings new insight into their performance.

Also included in the book are a section of glossy images from the film and three short essays from the writers.


"Getting Movied" by Annie Proulx

A marvelous short essay offering insight into Annie Proulx's creative vision behind Brokeback Mountain.

She recalls seeing an "older ranch hand" at a bar in 1997. Though the bar was full of beautiful women, she noticed his fixation was on a particular cowboy playing pool. Something about his expression suggested "bitter longing" and Proulx wondered if he might be "country gay."

Her creative mind began to whirl with possible backstories for this stranger across the bar, what he might've endured living in "homophobic rural Wyoming."

A few days later, Proulx overheard a cafe owner ranting about how two "homos" came in and ordered dinner the other night. Soon the pieces started coming together for her short story.

As much as I've watched and read Brokeback Mountain, I hadn't read this essay before. It's surprisingly forthright for an author describing the creative process. It also improves my opinion of Annie Proulx who has come across in recent years as almost annoyed by the emotional reactions to her story. She even said that she "regretted" writing the story after receiving so many manuscripts of fan fiction with alternative happy endings. Probably she was only joking.

In this essay, we see her very sympathetic of hardships faced by the gay community. She references Matthew Shepard, the University of Wyoming student who was tortured and murdered just one year after her story was published. She expressions gratitude for the fan letters after the story's publication in The New Yorker and mentions the letters she wrote to Ang Lee, urging him to make certain changes to the film.

The essay makes it abundantly clear that Brokeback Mountain was important to Proulx and not just something she whipped up one day on a whim. She believed in the story and feared the movie might be in adequate. In the end, she provides a long list of things the movie got right and even did better than her story.

Larry McMurtry - "Adapting Brokeback Mountain"

As Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry was no stranger to Western life and fiction. This short essay is less about his process of adapting Brokeback Mountain for screen as it is theoretical musings on the challenges of adapting great literature in general. This thought then trails off to the dangers of picturesque idealism. The West landscape is rich with splendor and beauty, but is also deadly and prone to heartbreak. A fitting setting for the story of Jack and Ennis. McMurtry describes his source material as a modern masterpiece. Also, a story that has been there all along, waiting eons for someone with Proulx's skill to write it.

While not as revealing as Proulx's essay, and somehow meandering despite its short length, there are enough reveals from the late master of Western fiction and Academy Award-winner to make it a noteworthy text for anyone studying Brokeback's legacy.

Diana Ossana - "Climbing Brokeback Mountain"

In this essay we learn the backstory of how Brokeback Mountain became a film, from Ossana first reading the story in the New Yorker to the many years of waiting for Hollywood to take a chance on it. The essay oozes with vulnerable reflection, such as obsession with the source material and the fear of failure. There's a short note about the decision to never let threat of political backlash impede on their devotion to the story. Overall, a bit vague at times perhaps but generally satisfying to curious fans like me who want to know how a great film came to be.

Overall...

Revisiting Brokeback Mountain after several years has been an emotional journey. It's brought back memories from my coming-of-age years and reflection in general how this story has shaped my life.

Perhaps my favorite memory is of sneaking a piano rendition of the film's iconic "Wings" score into a high school Shakespeare performance. I was Petruchio in Taming of the Shrew and for some reason there was a scene with a piano on stage. I spent weeks learning the Brokeback theme song for just this moment, when my character would randomly play a few bars. It was all a hilarious inside joke for us theater kids. I'd dragged most of them to see the movie with me. After the performance, my mother was prouder of me playing the piano than having the lead role. Of course she had no idea where the tune was from LOL.

There's a question of how well Brokeback Mountain has aged. It's set in the 1960s in Wyoming and will be forever timeless of that era, but today our appetite for gay tragedies has lessened, I think. We still like the battle against adversity, but this is a Red, White & Royal Blue era of gay romance. We want that happy ending. We want prejudice to lose. In a way, Brokeback Mountain can feel hopeless at times. What if Ennis had decided to get a ranch with Jack? It's hard to imagine any scenario where things end happily. Of course, Annie Proulx would wag a finger at me for calling the story a romance. It isn't. It's a raw, real-life Western, and all the difficulties that come with the territory. Yes, love is part of it, but it's only a part.

Back in 2005, life didn't feel so different from the 1960s. Progress was happening, but not always well-received. Gay sex had just become legal in the 2003 Lawrence v. Texas supreme court case. In 2004, gay marriage became legal in the state of Massachusetts. Rather than celebration, the nation at large--certainly in Oklahoma--was skeptical, fearful, and furious to see gay people normalized. Like Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas still feels today, a majority saw these legal victories as a slippery slope to full gay rights in the United States. And they weren't shy in their disagreement.

When I first saw the film, the idea of two cowboys living a happy, normal relationship was about as far-fetched as it appeared in Ennis' imagination. That made the movie more powerful and more real. Even today, that life wouldn't come without hardships. But now, I think, most viewers are more disconnected from the historical subtext. They might see Ennis as annoyingly stubborn and not a tragic hero of circumstance. The ending might feel played out, too much of a victory for the homophobes. Perhaps that explains the avalanche of fan fiction Annie Proulx receives, almost always with an alternative ending to her story.

Regardless of how trends come and go, however, there will always be a need for great tragedy. Revisiting Brokeback now, I didn't find it dated at all. That may or may not be a good thing. It may be a testament to its genius, or a reflection of the dark clouds looming in our current political environment.