Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Why not read the original short story by Annie Proulx?
BBMGrandma:
--- Quote from: juneaux on March 09, 2006, 12:52:27 am ---After seeing the film for the first time I purchased the short story and read it about 4 times before giving it to a friend. Got another copy and read it a couple of times and gave *it* to another friend. I now have a copy of "Wyoming Stories" in my bedside table. (It is more difficult to give away when the book is NOT on my person.)
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HAHAH "J"...I gave away MY one copy to my therapist on Monday. Had to go out and buy another copy too. I'm going to have to do the same thing. Purchase a copy of Wyoming Stories and NOT take it out of the house!! ;)
Nancy
juneaux:
Iris, you are correct. The emotive things said by Ennis in the book were not carried through to the movie. My guess is that leaving out those statements make the character more distant and closed thereby making his transformation at the end (in Jack's closet with the shirts and with Jr.) more extreme. (By the way, the expression on her face when he agrees to attend her wedding makes my heart soar. Not just for the characters either. I see it as a testament to the ability of humans to learn from our mistakes and to make a conscious effort NOT to repeat them.)
Nancy, I suggest buying the collection to leave at home and the single short story to keep with you just in case run into someone who hasn't read it.
BBMGrandma:
--- Quote from: juneaux on March 09, 2006, 08:49:47 pm ---By the way, the expression on her face when he agrees to attend her wedding makes my heart soar. Not just for the characters either. I see it as a testament to the ability of humans to learn from our mistakes and to make a conscious effort NOT to repeat them.)
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Oh yes "J" ....those are MY hopes too!! That we "own" our mistakes and face them. And when that's done...move along. The past is over...done...kaput. There is SO much more to gain by looking to the future!!
And what a smile...on 'Juniors' face....huh? PURE LOVE!! Ennis DID love his girls....that's for sure and it's quite clear they adored their dad!
BTW....I truly believe that THIS is the place to 'own' those mistakes. And more importantly....the springboard to the future.
Much love to all....Nancy
Aussie Chris:
--- Quote from: iristarr on March 09, 2006, 04:03:20 am ---But here's what I think they left out: unless my ears failed me, Ennis never says "li'l darlin' during the kiss scene, as he does in the book. In the motel scene he says, "I never had no thoughts a doin it with another guy except I sure wrang it out a hunderd times thinkin about you." And in the next paragraph: "That summer, when we split up after we got paid out I had gut cramps so bad I pulled over and tried to puke, thought I ate somethin bad at that place in Dubois. Took me about a year to figure out it was that I shouldn't a let you out a my sights. Too late then by a long, long while."
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You know what Iris? I love that we have another source to provide a better understanding of characters. In particular, I love that he called Jack li'l darlin' and was really into him, but really, these little bits and pieces had to be left out from the film. Could you imagine how confusing it would have been if "that" side of Ennis was retained in the film, but we are still asked to believe that Ennis couldn't commit to Jack beyond the sporadic trysts up on Brokeback Mountain? I mean it would all still work, but how realistic would it have been if Ennis was up front with his feelings? I just don't think it would work.
TJ:
Oh, I think that more of the story could have been included in the movie. In one version of the screenplay which I found online, there were more things in that version of McMurtry's and Ossana's screenplay than what was in the final script of the movie.
I also say that since they show Ennis Del Mar's flashback of when they got blood on the shirts when discovers them in Jack Twist's boyhood closet as a scene early in the movie, they could have had Jack telling about his father urinating on him when he was a small boy when the guys were together at an earlier time. Ennis remembers that as a flashback when he is at Lightning Flat.
Oh, they would not have to show his father's penis in the movie; they could have just shown that he was undoing his pants and then cut to a little boy getting wet.
I just think that all of the action which is merely narrative when it takes place outside of Wyoming could have been done as a "voice-over" narrative, too.
I still don't understand why the other writers and the movie script had to have Ennis arrive in Signal in a semi truck, having hitched a ride with a trucker. In the screenplay, Ennis did not even know when he got to Signal; but, in the book, while Ennis is talking to Jack up on Brokeback Mountain, he does mention that his older brother lives in Signal.
Oh, I wouldn't have been surprised if Ennis had not called Jack, "little darlin" when they were up on Brokeback and being intimate.
Speaking of "intimate," unlike the movie, after Ennis gets into Jack's bedroll that first night in the tent, there was deepened intimacy before Jack took Ennis' LEFT hand and put it on his cock.
That was make to look rather awkward in the movie, with Jack lying on his left side with Ennis flat on his back behind Jack. Jack used his RIGHT hand to reach ACROSS Ennis to get Ennis' RIGHT hand and pull it across himself.
If Jack had actually done it like in the movie and knowing the character of Ennis, Ennis would not have had sex with Jack; he would have slugged him, giving Jack a cowboy "Attitude Adjustment."
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