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

[Meryl]

The talents of Ossana and McMurtry were happily melded in the Oscar-winning screenplay for Brokeback Mountain.

[Ellemeno]

All through the late nineties, Ossana and McMurtry worked to get this film made.

[southendmd]

Larry and Diana's goal was the obtainment of the rights to Annie's story.

[memento]

DO: We both found the process of adapting this particular short story a challenge in the sense that the material was written in a very specific manner, both technically and emotionally. We were extremely concerned about staying true to the tone of the story and determined not to veer off into sentimentality nor to lose the language of the characters and the time and place. We wanted the finished screenplay to be as emotionally honest and straightforward as the short story from which it was adapted. 

Brokeback Mountain: Interview with Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana

[Fran]

"I think that Annie Proulx's short story and the script that Larry (McMurtry) and Diana (Ossana) wrote were just so beautifully thorough and descriptive of the time and the characters that I had to do very little external research."

-- Heath Ledger

[southendmd]

DO: We both found the process of adapting this particular short story a challenge in the sense that the material was written in a very specific manner, both technically and emotionally. We were extremely concerned about staying true to the tone of the story and determined not to veer off into sentimentality nor to lose the language of the characters and the time and place. We wanted the finished screenplay to be as emotionally honest and straightforward as the short story from which it was adapted.

Brokeback Mountain: Interview with Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana

=aside= Sandy
Thanks. 

[Ellemeno]

There was applause and cheering as the writer's and screenwriters' names appeared on the screen during the credits at both the Aero Theatre screening and the Castro Theatre screening of Brokeback Mountain.

[memento]

DO: We approach the creative process in adapting someone else’s story much in the same way as we would adapting Larry’s and/or my own material. Larry and I are unsentimental when it comes to the adaptation process. We make the same kinds of choices no matter what the source material. When the source material is a long novel, we often find it necessary to cut large portions of the book, and many times simply create new scenes from our imaginations as well. When it’s a short story, it is even more necessary to access our imaginations in order to fill in, flesh out, and create new scenes that aren’t contained within the story itself, in order to enrich the context of the screenplay. 
 

Brokeback Mountain: Interview with Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana

[Fran]

Ossana, the script's co-writer and McMurtry's longtime writing partner ... read the story and was floored.

It wasn't just the wrenching plot and tragic characters; 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.

-- William Porter, The Denver Post

[Meryl]

The Writers Guild of America honored Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana with their WGA award for Best Adapted Screenplay in 2006.