Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Film-Ennis vs. Story-Ennis and Film-Jack vs. Story-Jack
TJ:
Some of the farmboys/farmers, ranchers/ranchboys and cowboys with whom I enjoyed being with actually looked they were put together like Frankenstein did to create his human-parts monster.
Annie Proulx's Jack Twist was not exactly handsome nor was he ugly. Her Ennis Del Mar was not handsome at all. But, I have seen and loved all the way to their hearts guys who fit her descriptions of her ranch boys.
JfT:
According to Webster's Universal College Dict., quicksilver(3) means "unpredictably changeable."
Jack quicksilver? I thought Jack was more endearingly predictable, as opposed to Ennis , whom at times could surprise.
Brown Eyes:
--- Quote from: JfT on May 05, 2006, 10:57:14 pm ---Jack quicksilver? I thought Jack was more endearingly predictable, as opposed to Ennis , whom at times could surprise.
--- End quote ---
Hi JfT, I agree with this reading. Darn, I'm going to have to search around for that Proulx interview. I don't think she was implying anything *negative* about film-Ennis.
Brown Eyes:
OK, here's Proulx's quotation... It's from an interview with the Advocate back in December. Here's the link http://www.advocate.com/news_detail.asp?id=23486 if anyone's interested.
"AP: What did you think of the performances by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal?
Proulx: I thought they were magnificent, both of them. Jake Gyllenhaal's Jack Twist...wasn't the Jack Twist that I had in mind when I wrote this story. The Jack that I saw was jumpier, homely. But Gyllenhaal's sensitivity and subtleness in this role is just huge. The scenes he's in have a kind of quicksilver feel to them. Heath Ledger is just almost really beyond description as far as I'm concerned. He got inside the story more deeply than I did. All that thinking about the character of Ennis that was so hard for me to get, Ledger just was there. He did indeed move inside the skin of the character, not just in the shirt but inside the person. It was remarkable."
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: atz75 on May 06, 2006, 12:07:13 am ---Hi JfT, I agree with this reading. Darn, I'm going to have to search around for that Proulx interview. I don't think she was implying anything *negative* about film-Ennis.
--- End quote ---
I found the "quicksilver" quote.
It apparently comes from an interview Annie Proulx gave to Sandy Cohen of the Associated Press. A couple of months ago I found it on line at Advocate.com and printed a hard copy for my Brokeback file. I have that hard copy in front of me now:
[Interviewer] What did you think of the performances by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal?
[Annie Proulx] I thought they were magnificient, both of them. Jake Gyllenhaal's Jack Twist wasn't the Jack Twist I had in mind when I wrote the story. The Jack that I saw was jumpier, homely. But Gyllenhaal's sensitivity and subtleness in this role is just huge. The scene's he's in have a kind of quicksilver feel to them. Heath Ledger is just almost really beyond description as far as I'm concerned. He got inside the story more deeply than I did. All that thinking about the character of Ennis that was so hard for me to get, Ledger just was there. He did indeed move inside the skin of the character, not just inside the shirt but inside the person. It was remarkable.
So my memory stands corrected. She applied the "quicksilver" analogy to Jake's scenes, rather than specifically to Jake.
But I can't forebear adding that it's always made me extremely happy that the creator of Ennis and Jack is so pleased with Heath and Jake's portrayals. The comment that Heath got more deeply inside the story than did Annie Proulx herself is truly remarkable.
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