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

[Meryl]

Although the final screenplay for Brokeback Mountain makes no mention of Linda Higgins's gift shop, the postcard that hangs next to the shirts on Ennis's closet door is a vestigial reminder of that scene in the story.

[Fran]

"One of the reasons I've read the short story more than once is that I keep finding new details that I overlooked in previous readings -- little asides on Proulx's part that continually add to a deeper meaning.  Brokeback Mountain is a movie made by people who read every word of the story every single day, wringing out its potential for drama like you'd wring out a soaked washcloth.  The largest additions are in Jack Twist's passing of years, filling out details unexplored by the story's reliance on the Ennis POV, but of those scenes only one -- in which Jack stands up to his rich and domineering father-in-law at Thanksgiving -- feels at all out of place." 

-- Liz Miller, Hollywood Madam

=compliment= Meryl
Impressive "V".

[Toast]

The earlier screenplays had too much xpressivity thrust on Ennis as he talks to the old man at the beginning of the tale.

.....
ENNIS, surprised by this torrent of words, clears his throat.

                    ENNIS
          Sir?

The OLD MAN kicks at the tractor tire a time or two, as if irritated it exists. Looks at ENNIS.

                    OLD MAN
          Where was you raised, bud?

                    ENNIS
          Ur, Sage

                    Old Man
          Why, that ain't hardly in Wyoming,
          that's nearly to Utah. You ain't a damn
          Mormon, are you?.

                    ENNIS
          No, sir. I just never heard a no place
          called Brokeback.

The OLD MAN points to a long, barren mountain to the north, its upper reaches miles away, reaching well above the tree line.

                    OLD MAN
          Don't you let that damn Joe Aguirre send
          you up there with no twenty-two.  Coyotes don't
          mind a twenty-two.  Make sure he gives you a
          thirty-ought.

Too much talk for ENNIS, who nods his thanks.  Looks up at the mountain as he walks off.


The scene was later removed, and his quiet entrance to town works much better.

[memento]

Round 553!
Differences between the screenplay and the story!

[memento]

"One of the reasons I've read the short story more than once is that I keep finding new details that I overlooked in previous readings -- little asides on Proulx's part that continually add to a deeper meaning.  Brokeback Mountain is a movie made by people who read every word of the story every single day, wringing out its potential for drama like you'd wring out a soaked washcloth.  The largest additions are in Jack Twist's passing of years, filling out details unexplored by the story's reliance on the Ennis POV, but of those scenes only one -- in which Jack stands up to his rich and domineering father-in-law at Thanksgiving -- feels at all out of place." 

-- Liz Miller, Hollywood Madam

[Fran]

"The big-eyed Jake Gyllenhaal is a far cry from Proulx's small, bucktoothed Jack Twist, just as the blond, square-jawed Heath Ledger is nothing like her Ennis Del Mar, 'scruffy and a little cave-chested.'  Yet, even if, in their tailored jeans and ironed plaid shirts, Gyllenhaal and Ledger sometimes look more like Wrangler models than teenagers too poor to buy a new pair of boots, the film neither feels synthetic (in the manner of the abysmal Making Love) nor silly (in the manner of gay porn)."

-- David Leavitt, Slate

[Toast]

Annie Proulx included her prologue when Brokeback Mountain was published in her collection of Wyoming stories - Close Range.   The prologue's dreams, urinating, ranch closure and already-married daughter, are all excluded from screenplays and the movie. 

[memento]

"The screenwriters have commented that nearly all of the dialog and descriptions from the original story were included in the screenplay. Few major differences have been noted. Most of the changes involve expansion, with brief mentions of the character's marriages in the story becoming scenes of domestic life in the film. The narrative sequence is nearly identical in story and film: both begin with Jack and Ennis meeting in 1963 and end with a scene of Ennis 20 years later. One example of adaptation of the story's dramatic arc arises from a significant memory (of the men embracing by a campfire): it appears in the film as a flashback in the same sequence as Jack recalls it in the story."

Wikipedia

[Fran]

"The screenwriters have commented that nearly all of the dialog and descriptions from the original story were included in the screenplay.  Few major differences have been noted.  Most of the changes involve expansion, with brief mentions of the character's marriages in the story becoming scenes of domestic life in the film."

-- Wikipedia

=aside= Sandy

[Toast]

In the 2003 screenplay, Ennis's second daughter is still called Francine, but in the later screenplays and in the movie she has become Jenny.

                ALMA JR.
            (relieved, talks faster)
        ..... Wedding'll be June fifth at the
        Methodist Church.  Francine's singing,
        and Monroe's gonna cater the reception.
            (beat)
        Was hoping you'd be there.

Never enough Frans, never enough.