Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum

TOTW 15/07: Short story or movie, which one do you prefer?

<< < (2/25) > >>

Brown Eyes:
Chrissi... you know, when the opera of BBM comes out you'll be able to add another option to this question!
 :laugh: ;D

I wonder how people who saw the play of BBM that occurred in Europe a while back feel about the stage-version of BBM compared to the story and the film?

 It's amazing how many "official" versions of this story there are now... especially if you count the Close Range and New Yorker versions of the story as different.  It's actually someting I really love about BBM... that it keeps on going and it takes on many forms.
:)

brokebackjack:
I love them both.
The film gives a visuality to the short story which i do not think I would have been able to attain in my own head. It brought the characters alive....gave them a face so to speak. It did indeed flesh out Annie's sketchily drawn 'other characters', did indeed bring Jack Twist to life with a bang. [pun intended]. It had an impact which no film had ever had with me.

Insofar as I am concerned it was as faithful to the book as a film could be.

The short story became more awesome with each reading. It made me ask questions, made me want to do things. Eventually it made me want to ask the author questions, which she was gracious enough to answer. Her answers led to more questions and a great deal of analysis, by ME.

Eventually it made me want to write myself. When I did, and wanted criticism of my story, the person to do it was right there, waiting.

That story of Annie's did something which had never been done before, in that it used the principles of classical tragedy within a short story format. That's what Brokeback Mountain is in all its essentials>>>a Greek Tragedy. It is why it bites so damned deep, why there is no need for obvious contrivances to mar its simplicity.

She managed to change the short story itself as we know it, in English.

jstephens9:
I would have to vote for the movie although like others have said the book is definitely excellent. I saw the movie long before I read the book. I actually am quite glad that I had not read the book when I first saw the movie. The ending completely took me by surprise 100%. If I would have read the book first I would have known what was going to happen. For some reason when I watched the movie I was thinking, maybe hoping, for a happy ending. Obviously, that is not what happened. I still remember when I saw the "Deceased" on the postcard. I absolutely could not believe that Jack could be dead. So anyway by seeing the movie way ahead of reading the book I think of Heath and Jake when I hear the names Ennis and Jack. It will always remain that way for me. In fact, that is true of all the characters in the movie and the book. I have never been struck by a movie like Brokeback. I remember hearing about it long before it came out. I even remembering writing the title down, but I didn't go rushing to see it when it came out. I completely and totally never expected for that movie, or any movie, to have that kind of affect on me. I am still surprised somewhat. I'm not even a big movie watcher. I remember I wanted to see it before the Oscars simply to say that I had seen it. But again, I never thought it would be like it is. I didn't even know who Heath Ledger or Jake Gyllenhaal were. Anyway, like someone else said, the book never has never had the affect on me that the movie does. Of course, I am glad for the book because without it there would be no movie.

Jack

delalluvia:
Both.

They're two different artistic mediums and both have the same story to tell, but tell it in two different ways that affect you in two different ways, but just as impacting either way.  :)

brokebackjack:
I do have to agree with Jack and say I had never read the book before seeing the film. It was a complete shock, that 'deceased' stamp...

It took a while to get into the book. [a few days lolol] When I read it I was numb, but...but I kept going back. Afrter a certain point I started dissecting it down to the punctuation and ended by believing it to be  the finest story in English since Faulkner was in his prime.

It is PERFECT.

Yet the author still--to this day, late in 2007--tinkers with it. There are several versions of BBM out there, all minutely different. [ for info, pm rodneywy]
Why?
AP keeps tinkering with it. She is the original brokie. It is said she wrote an Ennis story for herself, because she could not sleep wondering what he was going to do....

One can't reach for perfection without trying to make it even more....perfect, can we? It's a human thing, I think. I just started rewriting my best story due to a few offhand comments about the use of the word 'tiny' in BBM by Canstandit and ministering angel. It made me realise I had left out a huge possibility within my own story, with a word I did not develop fully....a word which has great significance, used  several times in regard to one freeze-frame, without developing the end result. When I send the new one up to the person editing it I think I will say you are right, lets publish it LOLOL. This is number what, 29!!! I should be very happy I ain't Annie Proulx with her 60+ admitted revisions of Brokeback roflmao!!!

By the way, she is working on the second story in "the quartet of offbeat love stories " which BBM was intended to be part of.

How she will outdo BBM is anybodies guess!

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page