http://www.dallasvoice.com/artman/publish/article_9320.phpFrom:
Dallas Voice The Community Newspaper for Gay & Lesbian DallasBooksLiterary lionsLarry McMurtry and
Diana Ossana co-wrote the screenplay to “
Brokeback Mountain” and won Oscars for their efforts.
By
Arnold Wayne JonesJul 10, 2008 - 4:57:36 PM
Before their appearance at the Nasher, Oscar winners Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana discuss their writing partnership, Heath Ledger and why they never called ‘Brokeback Mountain’ a ‘gay cowboy movie’ Texas literary giant
Larry McMurtry has made a career chronicling the rugged but emotionally tumultuous lives of manly men. In “
Lonesome Dove,” “
The Last Picture Show” and their sequels, he book-ended how the Old West and the new stand side-by-side — and not always comfortably.
But for gay readers, nothing helped redefine and reimagine the idea of the Western and its menfolk like the screenplay to “
Brokeback Mountain,” which he adapted with writing partner
Diana Ossana from
E. Annie Proulx ’s short story (and for which they won an Oscar for their efforts). Suddenly, “riding the range” took on a meaning not often discussed in cowboy culture.
The Nasher Sculpture Center hosts McMurtry and Ossana at its Salon Lecture Series on Thursday. What will they be talking about?
“We do everything pretty much free form,” Ossana says.
“We don’t have an agenda we know about — just talk and answer questions,” McMurtry adds, interrupting Ossana in a slow Texas drawl. (Each tends to talk over one other, as if speaking in one voice.) “You cover more ground in a Q&A.”
Far be it from us to argue with Larry McMurtry. Here, then, is a preview of their visit — presented, of course, as a Q&A.
Dallas Voice: As a straight Texas male, Larry, how did you react when you first read “Brokeback Mountain” and Jack and Ennis suddenly begin to have sex?LM: My reaction was that it was dead-on accurate. I wasn’t surprised by it at all. I thought it was a great story and was moved by it; the fact there was gay love didn’t faze me at all. I grew up in the cowboy world with my father and eight brothers and I know something of how that life would have been. There wasn’t a missed beat.
DO: Larry said to me after he read the short story, “This is a story I should have written.”
LM: Yes, I should have. It was just sitting there waiting [to be told] — it had only come out in fragments [in previous stories].
Q. How do you react to the pigeonhole of “Brokeback Mountain” as “the gay cowboy movie”?LM: We didn’t think much about that when we were writing the script. Technically, they were bisexual — both had families and a lot of that would be common with real cowboys.
DO: That the thing about labels: They weren’t even cowboys, they were wannabe cowboys — ranch hands. It’s a lot more complicated than a “gay cowboy story.” We never referred to it that way. It’s a universal love story, a very tragic story. Some people said, “It’s just
‘Romeo and Juliet’ with two men” — but it is two men! You can’t ignore that specificity. That’s what makes it a great story.
Q. Heath Ledger’s death is still pretty fresh, and his final completed film, “The Dark Knight,” opens the day after your appearance. Were you friendly with Ledger? Any thoughts about him?LM: Diana was a friend — I tried never to be on the set. I only really met him at awards ceremonies after the film came out.
DO: I was a producer, so I was on the set. He was a very vibrant and inspired young man. He could also be exasperating but a lovely young man. I’ve already seen “
The Dark Knight;” let’s just say he’s the best thing in it.
Q. It’s funny, Larry, that when the local NPR station has promoted your appearance in Dallas, they have referred to you as the author of that great Western story… “Lonesome Dove.” Whereas my thoughts always go to “Brokeback.”LM: That’s Texas. [The irony is that] I’ve always been a critic of the West. “
Hud” was my first criticism, and I always thought of “
Lonesome Dove” as critical, too. I have debunked, as far as I can, the cowboy myth.
But I found that “
Lonesome Dove” has reinforced that myth. [The book and miniseries have become] tremendously mythic now, like the “
Gone with the Wind” of the West.
DO: They have “
Lonesome Dove”-watching parties.
LM: I didn’t see the miniseries; I had nothing to do with it.
DO: … But it’s not “
Gone with the Wind,” Larry —I think it’s more like King Arthur. It has that kind of mythology.
Q. What’s the most engaging thing about writing?LM: Writing is the engagement and the best part of it. Nothing surrounding it is as pleasurable as just writing. Publishing is secondary and anyway comes way behind once you’ve retreated from the world of the book.
Q. How does a writing partnership like yours work?DO: Neither of us ever went to school for screenwriting. You learn how to write by reading; you learn how to write screenplays by watching films. We go back and forth until we have a first draft. Larry writes much more skeletally when he writes with me.
LM: I write early — say, five pages a day. I’ll give them to Diana and she’ll work on it the rest of the day.
Q: How has your writing crystallized over the course of your career?LM: It hasn’t crystallized.
Q. You’ve influenced a lot of writers; do you have any writers who influenced you?LM: I’m about 28,000 volumes into my library. I was stirred by Kerouac and “
On the Road” because it was so different than anything else that was around. And Cervantes. In my new memoir, I explain how in “
Lonesome Dove” I recreated the classic pair from “
Don Quixote:” Don Quixote and Sancho Panza — the visionary and the practical one. They are archetypes.
DO: And Ennis and Jack are the same.