The "ABCs of BBM": Round 965! (Rules in first post)

[Fran]

Site Name: Basque Bridge

Travel Directions:
Galatea Day Use Area, Spray Valley Provincial Park, 6.2 km south of Kananaskis Golf Course on Hwy 40. Follow trail downhill approximately 500 m to bridge.

Remarks:
The suspension bridge provided a memorable setting for the Basque provisioner’s (Calgary actor David Trimble) remark to Ennis that it was "too early in the summer to be sick of beans."

[FindingBroekback.com]

[Meryl]

Beyond the Upper and Lower Kananaskis Lakes in Peter Lougheed Provincial Park lies Three Isle Lake, another popular destination for hikers.

[southendmd]

Site Name: Drop off  (Carlesand)
 

Travel Directions:
Hwy 24 at the intersection of Range Road 260, Carseland, facing east.

Remarks:
A complex story begins simply at this unassuming spot. A telephoto lens was used to bring the much discussed grouping of three utility poles, which are actually quite distant, into the image.
 

[Fran]

With Brokeback Mountain, we see Alberta's versatileness as a filming location.  This province can convincingly portray a brooding 1963 Wyoming or a brash 1982 Texas.

[memento]

Site Name: Twist Ranch

Travel Directions:
Follow Hwy 9 (also known as Township Road 282) 6.5 km east of Beiseker to Range Road 252 (watch for the brown “Grande Ole West Villa Ranch” sign). Turn right (south) onto Range Road 252, go 1.6 km. The ranch is behind the overgrown thicket on the east (left) side of the road.

Remarks:
Welcome to the Twist Ranch. No other Brokeback location received the investment of time and money that the production team lavished upon this desolate farmhouse some 80 km NE of Calgary.

This is a well-hidden landmark; indeed the front is completely obscured by a dense thicket of Albertan caragana. Just as Ennis generally did, you will find it most convenient to approach from the rear. The structure, which has faded considerably since the film was made, is boarded up, albeit imperfectly.

The ranch is located on rural farmland in an area once occupied by native Blackfoot peoples. They called the region “Clear Running Water.” A deep lake, said to be filled with old Blackfoot arrowheads, is 9 km away. The Canadian Railway established a rail line here in 1883. By 1909, when irrigation canals were completed, permitting large scale cultivation of wheat, the area was homesteaded, largely by German families emigrating from Nebraska and Kansas.

The current owner of the house grew up on an adjacent farm. His family acquired the property in the late 1960s.

[Toast]

Interview with Brokeback Mountain  Production Manager Tom Benz
.....

Rob: What was so special about Alberta, as opposed to Wyoming, for the filming?

Benz: I was phoned by Kevin Hyman, one of the chief xecutives of Focus who I met in 1999 on another film, and I was so surprised because it sounded like he knew me from just last week; the familiarity. Ang Lee had never made a film that was not on the location in which the story was set. That was, no pun intended, "Ang's angst" as we called it. Kevin was very clear to me from the very first phone call in December, that a key part of this effort was to make Ang comfortable that he was not going to be shooting in Wyoming.

The studio had studied the logistics and the costs of filming in Wyoming, a state that doesn't have as many people as Calgary does as a city. The essential support services that come with that, including hotels, cars, airports, simply to start a film, much less host the crew, the equipment, all of those things, are not available in Wyoming. Literally every last element would have had to be brought into Wyoming and my belief is it would have cost millions more to shoot there.

This is an independent feature; there is a ceiling to the amount one can invest in a work of art. When one goes to make a King Kong for $200 million it is a different kind of gamble with a different kind of audience to see if you can fill the theatre. (That gamble, incidentally, a $200 million investment in making King Kong compared with a $15 - 17 million investment with producing Brokeback Mountain, both netted the same profit.) So it's a different risk and a different undertaking to make a film like Brokeback Mountain. Absolutely, Brokeback was motivated by the literature, a good short story made into a very fine screen play.

Link

[memento]

Round 524!!!
Alberta - Still More to Explore!!!

[Fran]

Legions of "Brokeback Mountain" fans have been flooding the phone lines at Wyoming's tourism office with inquiries on how to get to the majestic peaks captured so artfully on the big screen.

There's only one problem.  Brokeback Mountain doesn't exist.  In fact, the peaks featured in the film are some 1,100 kilometres north of Wyoming in Alberta's Canadian Rockies, primarily in the Kananaskis Country, near Banff National Park.

-- Mary Nersessian, CTV.ca News

[memento]

Site Name: Two Peaks

Travel Directions:
View from the east side of Hwy 40, next to the Kananaskis Golf Course entrance.

Remarks:
Mount Lorette, like many of its neighboring peaks, is named for WW I military campaigns in which Canadians played a role. Standing 2,469 m / 8,101' at Skogan Pass, its profile is a signature image of the imposing Kananaskis Range.

The shot in the film was probably made from neighboring Mt. Baldy, but the perspective from the Lorette Ponds parking area is almost identical and equally inspiring.

The Mt. Baldy hike is a popular day hike among locals. Experienced, hard-core technical rock climbers may want to attempt Mt. Lorette.

[FindingBrokeback.com]

[Toast]

....
I am never a big fan of country/folk music, and never really into the cowboys’ life. But this movie, with most of scenes shot in the farm and mountainous area, has a striking appeal, and along with its soundtrack in the background, creating a world that might be wild and rough, but has its natural, gripping beauty at the same time. And the love between two cowboys, under the blue sky, in front of the brokeback mountain, is so passionate, powerful and sometimes as damaging as the nature itself. And the complexity of life and the journey of two then young men discovering themselves and the love of their lives, are all presented in a subtle, mature and convincing way. Ang Lee, along with the screenwriters, had done a remarkable job in interpreting the original story, if not enriching and expanding it to a level that suits better for the big screen.

Though on the contrary to what most people assumed, this movie was not shot in rural Wyoming, instead it was mostly shot in Alberta, Canada due to the fact Wyoming doesn’t have the infrastructure to support the movie making. It is a bit pity, cause personally I would really like to see how this western state looks like, the part of the country that I have never set my foot on.

Blog:  A Movable Feast