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

[Fran]

A funny thing happened on the way to filming "Brokeback Mountain," which opens amid a swirl of Oscar buzz and critical hosannas.

Contrary to what occurs with so many literary properties that are turned into movies, this tale of a 20-year love affair between two cowboys, drawn from an Annie Proulx short story in "Close Range: Wyoming Stories," has resulted in a pitch-perfect Hollywood film that scrupulously honors its origins and finds the author delighted with the experience.

In an industry that often treats literature as a pile of pretty words that interferes with things blowing up real good, the page-to-screen transformation of "Brokeback Mountain" amounts to something of a holiday miracle.

"The joinery is seamless in this," Proulx said with a laugh at a recent roundtable discussion at the Starz Denver International Film Festival. "I've come to the point where I feel I wrote what they wrote."

That the "they" includes Larry McMurtry, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Lonesome Dove" and an old hand at screenwriting, plus novelist Diana Ossana, helped. But it underscores the difficulty of transforming books into movies in a way that satisfies all parties, particularly authors.
 

-- William Porter, The Denver Post

=comment=
And what a fine "J" word "joinery" could have been!

[Ellemeno]

In the middle of the night, having just finished reading the short story in the New Yorker for the first time, Diana Ossana instantly knew she wanted to develop Brokeback Mountain into a film.

[memento]

MW: The film’s script had a wonderful element of humor, more so than the short story. How did this evolve? Was it conscious, or did it happen as part of an organic writing process?

DO: The humor in the screenplay was simply a product of the actual writing process, in developing the characters and their interaction. It felt completely natural to us, particularly during their time up on Brokeback Mountain and in the development of their emotional connection. Larry is excellent when writing humor into a script.

Brokeback Mountain: Interview with Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana

[Fran]

"Directed by Ang Lee, the film explores the 20-year relationship between Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, two Wyoming stockmen who fall in love one summer in 1963.  These are rather inarticulate men, and Proulx's dialogue, ferried intact to the screen, is choked and muted."
 

-- William Porter, The Denver Post

[southendmd]

The scriptwriters' work managed to garner several prestigious awards.

[memento]

DO: The humor in the screenplay was simply a product of the actual writing process, in developing the characters and their interaction. It felt completely natural to us, particularly during their time up on Brokeback Mountain and in the development of their emotional connection. Larry is excellent when writing humor into a script.

Brokeback Mountain: Interview with Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana

[Fran]

"Brokeback Mountain's" journey from page to screen wasn't arduous, but it was fortuitous.

Proulx's story first appeared in the Oct. 13, 1997, issue of The New Yorker.  As literary luck would have it, that autumn a copy of the magazine was perched by Diana Ossana's bed on a night when she had insomnia.

Ossana, the script's co-writer and McMurtry's longtime writing partner (the two participated in the film festival session), read the story and was floored.

-- William Porter, The Denver Post

[southendmd]

"Brokeback Mountain's" journey from page to screen wasn't arduous, but it was fortuitous.

Proulx's story first appeared in the Oct. 13, 1997, issue of The New Yorker.  As literary luck would have it, that autumn a copy of the magazine was perched by Diana Ossana's bed on a night when she had insomnia.

Ossana, the script's co-writer and McMurtry's longtime writing partner (the two participated in the film festival session), read the story and was floored.

-- William Porter, The Denver Post

=aside= Fran
Thanks.

[Ellemeno]

Ossana and McMurtry were responsible for the metamorphosis of BBM from a short story to a screenplay.

[Fran]

It wasn't just the wrenching plot and tragic characters, (Diana) Ossana was also struck by the leanness of the prose.  Proulx is a master of understatement, given to rock-ribbed nouns and vivid verbs.  In her work, adjectives show up about as frequently as grandma's wedding china.

"It was so visual that I immediately began to see it in pictures," Ossana said.

She corralled McMurtry, who told her he didn't read short fiction. McMurtry is no snob; he views the short story as a desperately difficult form. "The only thing harder than a short story is a lyric poem," he said. "The reason I don't read short stories is because I never could write them."
 

-- William Porter, The Denver Post