Brokeback Mountain: Story to Screenplay

That's fine. I didn't need my heart anyway.

This book is like a punch in the gut. I never thought that a short story could have such an impact on me. This isn’t simply a book about two cowboys falling in love: this is the heartbreaking tale of Jack and Ennis who love each other, but deny it not only because they’re afraid of the outside world, but also of their own feelings.
America in the 1960’s wasn’t a safe place for homosexuals after all, and if society can’t accept them, how can they accept themselves? That emotional struggle makes this book so heart-wrenching, because both men know their love for each other is real. It just can’t happen. And that tears them apart.

[Jack:] “You have no fuckin idea how bad it gets. I’m not you. I can’t make it on a couple a high-altitude fucks once or twice a year. You’re too much for Ennis, you son of a whoreson bitch. I wish I knew how to quit you.”

Maybe this story hits so much harder because the books I read earlier featured happy LGBT-characters. Where young transgender Stella gets the full support of her mother (The Sunlight Pilgrims) and Simon’s coming out is met with positive reactions (Simon Vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda), Jack and Ennis’s (love) life is anything but happy and easy. They were two masculine men living in prejudice Wyoming during the sixties, a place where young Ennis saw an old rancher being tortured to death for being gay. This was not uncommon back then, and times haven’t really changed for the better.
Because although the world is slowly getting more accepting of gay love, still so many LGBT-people are getting harassed, kicked out, or physically and/or emotionally abused because of who they love. Don’t get blinded by the Pride Parades or the legalisation of same-sex marriage in America: the world is still a cruel place for many.

This is why I think Brokeback Mountain is a must read for fans of LGBT-books, to get that reality check. To other readers I’d also recommend this book, because for a book with only 60 pages, this short story packs a powerful punch. The prose is concise and the writing style rough, but it suits the characters and their story.

5 stars for this heart-breaking little book, which I won’t forget soon.

If I had to describe this story in three words, they would be: beautiful, heartbreaking, and unique.

Let’s put this into context: I received not so good news yesterday at night – I really felt in a bad way, a little bit optimistic though. Before too long, I decided to pick up this book, since I have always believed that a book can help us to face any difficult situation when there’s no one around us at that precise moment. So, I read this one at 2 AM today, while I was listening to Can you feel the love tonight? by Elton John again and again and again, so that I could enjoy this love story even more.

I’d also like to say I’ve never watched the film, nor the trailer, which is based on this book; so, I always supposed this would be a love story, I mean, a completely love story; however, as I said at the beginning of my review, it turned out to be rather heartbreaking. This fact was not such a big problem, since people sometimes need to know the difficulties of others to learn how to overcome their own stuff, for instance, as Goethe said at the beginning of The Sorrows of Young Werther: And thou, good soul, who sufferest the same distress as he endured once, draw comfort from his sorrows; and let this little book be thy friend, if, owing to fortune or through thine own fault, thou canst not find a dearer companion. Thus, I decided to take his advice, and make things follow their own course.
By the way, now that I’ve read this story, I think it’s going to be a great idea to watch the movie as soon as possible; we’ll see.

In a nutshell, and in order to be truly honest, this book was even much more astonishing and compelling than I could have imagine: the story itself, its very well developed protagonists (which is impressive if you consider this as a really short story), and the affecting ending; overall, it made me feel such things that I’d never felt reading a book before – perhaps you get what I mean after I told you how I felt last night when I was reading it.

And can you feel the love tonight?
It is where we are…

Sometimes you read a short story that falls a bit short of expectations. Because it would have been a better, or more complete story if it had been longer. This is not how this short story made me feel. In fact, more than sixty pages of this might have been too much. I only wished I had read it before I watched the amazing movie adaptation.

This story, as Julie so cleverly phrased it, is about being in love with someone you can’t have, and few feelings are as violent as that. And I’m willing to bet that few places made you feel the burn of that feeling more than Wyoming in the 1960s. Ideas about masculinity, sex and love die hard in places where a living is earned the rough way.

It’s also about the impossible weight of such a secret, how it taints other good things. Obviously, this is Jack and Ennis’ story, but my heart also broke for Alma, who simply couldn’t understand and yet kept her husband’s secret; and for Lureen, who probably understood too late.

In some ways, it reminded me a lot of “Carol” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), which tackles a similar subject matter, albeit with less tragic consequences.

Be careful reading this: it might rip your heart out.

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About the movie: it’s sublime. It would have been sublime even if it hadn’t been Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger, but they were so freaking perfect. I’ve watched it at least twelve times and cried at every single viewing.

Uno dei rari casi (ricordo solo il Benjamin Button di Fitzgerald, sinceramente) in cui il film batte ampiamente il racconto. Non che manchi nulla (tranne qualche aggiunta a livello cinematografico, probabilmente per rimpolpare una trama di per sé assai breve), ma la narrazione è fredda, asciutta, asettica. Tranne in brevi sprazzi manca della passione che una simile storia dovrebbe lasciar trasparire a ogni pagina. Manca di quella disperazione soffocata che dovrebbe far da sfondo a ogni vicenda narrata. Non male, quindi. Ma con un grande "ma"...

I'm fucking terrified that yesterday will mean a lackadaisicaling of today, wherein a legal, incorporated, minute change of one of many laws interwoven in the Hetereosexual Agenda banishes the rest to the "what more could you need?" closet and the society spectacle incineration. This work has been termed apolitical by some, but seriously, how can you call a history of human sacrifice apolitical? Not even dwelling on the money, status, and human network so often illegally amputated and afterwards legally maintained, but you should really be looking at where one may be fired, alienated, and killed for same sex marriage. Here is a good start. So long as all that exists, the tire iron is still in force. I'm not even going to talk about countries outside the US, both for reasons of US-centricity and, really, if the biggest imperial force of contemporary times starts putting socioeconomic pressure on the source of those homophobic delegations fucking around on their passports, some good may come of it.

The book? Well, for a tip of the iceberg, it doesn't mince around the brutality of living a love that historically and presently is deemed obscene, perverse, unnatural, absurd, corrupting, and above all, other. We're talking a difference of sexuality, indeed only the most popular of many myriads, that the US used in the late 20th century as an excuse for ignoring a pandemic within the boundaries of home territory. The book is wary, self-sufficient, sweet (mind, I wouldn't recommend using it as a guide to safe sex of the sort it contains), and knows that particular future of blood and vice and quarantine is to be expected. One review says, of the two main characters, that "[t]hey know what they're not—not queer, not gay—but they have no idea what they are"; to be labeled with the popularly ostracized is to commit to death.

In regards to same sex marriage? I'd like to think that bans lifted in conjunction with legal marital rights (hospital visits, name on the death certificate, adoption) will expand the reality beyond the sensationalized stereotypes and into the mundane of missed deadlines, exasperating paperwork, and side characters in a novel who, thanks to the author's experiences in a broader space of public personal interaction, will be enhanced with real flesh and blood. The problem, you see, is this is all very mental, philosophical, the sort of social structuring that really doesn't mean much to those who are still dying. The problem is whether this story of Brokeback Mountain will have to be told again, and again, and again, as the public refuses to take LGBT in more than a single wave of dosage, that category here, this category there, never mind the intersections of gender, race, religion, others upon others whose denizens will be impacted regardless of the awareness of common sense.

I don't know. I really don't. I'll keep reading, though. That much I am capable of.

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.

Very much like the film but one of those rare instances where I liked the film better than the book. Perhaps that's because I saw the movie before reading the book.

That's not to say the book wasn't stunningly good because it was. That poignant atmosphere is there. The characters are complex and interesting. But because I knew the ending I read with a kind of dread. Absolutely recomended for open-minded and intellectually curious individuals which likely would not include Elon Musk. Very good reading indeed.

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.