I seen the film first and then read the short story. Both are excellent. Her writing is like a Mozart opera; take one phrase out and it will be greatly diminished.
Insofar as I am concerned it was as faithful to the book as a film could be.
I saw the movie before I read the story, and that might have influenced my "like the movie best" vote. But frankly, while I thought the story was wonderful, it just didn't haunt me the way the movie did, nor did I feel compelled to read it over and over, although I have read it several times. And I doubt very seriously that this and other Brokeback-themed forums would exist if the short story had never been made into film.
But, of course, the film would not exist without the story.
Wow, wow!!
Of course, we like BOTH!!
Annie's story words are repeated in the movie, thank goodness!
But the cute two main gay or bi (or straight) guys in the book are changed by the movie! (They would notlook like these actors!!
Right??
Hugs to all!!
Thanks brokeplex!
Right, I say to you first sentence as well as to your second one:
Do you mean that in that Jake and Heath do not resemble the descriptions of Jack and Ennis in the short story?
Or do you mean that in the movie the two actors do not show the signs of age that we would expect?
...
Even if both the book and the movie are important: Jake, I say, is too cute, as Jack! So is Heath as Ennis! That seems so according to Annie's book descriptions??
Let us start with that?? (Tackle the other sentence later, as to aging??)
Hugs!
Would you have rather seen Danny Devito and Fred Thompson cavorting up and down Brokeback Mountain? As an ex-political consultant, I wonder just how politically catastrophic such an appearance would have been for Fred, he really couldn't screw up his campaign any more than it is already.
You need both??
Or we need a continued Annie's story, in order to have also BM II ??
Hugs!
Thanks brokeplex!
I am very sad by what you say here, may I add!
Since I see that the BM movie was done by straights and I see too much gratuitous violence, anti-gay ways, etc., to murder gay men even to-day too easily, I am FOR another movie, an BM one as a second, but done by gay men, for justice this time!
Surely you can think about that... in many ways? Even if it is another story like BM I? Above all, we need movies which present real lives of gay men, so we are showed as meaningful!
Are we not human, civil, gay men we are!
Hugs!
To say it's anti-gay is like movies about racism are anti-black, or movies depicting Jesus' crucifixion are anti-Christ.
Anti-Jack or anti-gay, same thing!!??
Wouldn't it be reasonable to say that crucifixion movies are anti-Christ, after all it was Christ that was killed. So while BBM isn't anti-gay, you could argue that it's anti-Jack! Um, hi Katherine! ;)
Hi Chris! Nice to see you! I'm not sure I understand your comment, though. If the filmmakers clearly take the position that killing the person or persons was wrong, then the movies are not anti-whatever. In BBM, the people who killed Earl were anti-Earl, and if Jack was murdered, then whoever did it was anti-Jack. But the movie isn't anti-Earl and -Jack.
No I don't think you missed my point, just that there is a very big difference between the killing of a character (Jack, Jesus, etc) and the prejudice of a social group (gays, Christians, etc). I was pointing out that crucifixion films may be anti-Christ, but not anti-Christian. Wrt the writers of BBM, one way or another they intended to kill Jack to serve the narrative. Additionally, Jack regularly appeared as being picked on (in the bar after the rodeo, the guys calling Jack a piss-ant, Lorene's father, Jack's father, etc, etc), and all of this was intended to present Jack as a character to sympathise with. And with this in mind I put to you that the film was anti-Jack, but where talking about a character here. So while you could argue that the film is negative towards Jack as a character I don't think people named Jack should feel concerned. In my mind though, anti-gay is too generic a term to be used in this way and to say BBM is anti-gay is to suggest a negativity was intended towards gay people, which I strongly dispute.
No I don't think you missed my point, just that there is a very big difference between the killing of a character (Jack, Jesus, etc) and the prejudice of a social group (gays, Christians, etc). I was pointing out that crucifixion films may be anti-Christ, but not anti-Christian. Wrt the writers of BBM, one way or another they intended to kill Jack to serve the narrative. Additionally, Jack regularly appeared as being picked on (in the bar after the rodeo, the guys calling Jack a piss-ant, Lorene's father, Jack's father, etc, etc), and all of this was intended to present Jack as a character to sympathise with. And with this in mind I put to you that the film was anti-Jack, but where talking about a character here. So while you could argue that the film is negative towards Jack as a character I don't think people named Jack should feel concerned. In my mind though, anti-gay is too generic a term to be used in this way and to say BBM is anti-gay is to suggest a negativity was intended towards gay people, which I strongly dispute.
I forgot! As far as saying that I prefer the movie or the book, that is one reason maybe that the book might be better?
Hugs!
I grew up in Kansas, not Texas, in the '60s, and the Jack Twist house is a dead ringer for my childhood home. It is very faithful to the post-war newly affluent suburban Midwest lifestyle of that time.
What did you think of the decor in Alma's apt with Ennis in Riverton? I thought that was right on target for a poor young married couple with a young child. The Singer sewing machine over in the corner, the red Betty Crocker cookbook on the drainboard, the plastic glued on vanity cabinets in bathroom. Wow, I think Ang Lee sure got that one right!
I agree! From what I've read, he and his wife were in a similar situation when he was young and studying at the University of Chicago and later in New York. Minus the rural aspect, of course! Alma's prominently displayed sewing machine, along with her knitting, made me think of her as a kind of Penelope character, waiting for her man to come home, or more to the point, to his senses. And in the opposite corner was a chilling tryptich--a vacumn cleaner (a reminder of Jack, since he is associated with the wind), a water heater (ditto, Jack was associated with water), and, most chilling of all, an iron on an ironing board!! :'(
One question about Jack and Lureen's house, Brokeplex. Do you think it's tacky in an inherent sense, or is it tacky to our contemporary eyes because it's so '70s?
Great post brokeplex!
I definitely agree that the artificiality in both the interior design and the clothing of Lureen and Jack might be a sign of their false marriage.
I wonder if the artificial signs of nature inside the Twist house (the fake cactus plant lamps) and the faux signs of being "western" in their decor might correspond a bit to the framed pictures of mountains in Ennis and Alma's homes (in the isolated ranch house and in the apartment over the laundromat).
The containment of the symbol of the mountain for Ennis may be slightly different in meaning from what you've pointed out here about Jack's daily-Texas environment.
I really don't understand this "pro gay" or "anti gay" idea concerning the story, and I think that trying to evaluate how "pro gay" the story or film is, is really not involved in the topic.
Does Annie's story tend to be more pro-gay and human, while the movie is much anti-gay in some ways??
Please get over this. This (off) topic has become tedious.
Anti-Jack or anti-gay, same thing!!??
Certainly anti-Jack!! Glad you awake persons to that!
Hugs!
Can't really guess how liking the movie or the short story better would break down by gender, except that the screen play opens up the lives of the female characters.
We can't ignore them and just run off to the Motel Siesta!
I simply do not get any of this, any of it at all.
Guess we have no more freedom to be gay men here?
The movie is what really made an emotional impact on me . . . it is not as zealously unsentimental as the story. [Annie Proulx's] spareness was so extreme as to ultimately be, for me, off-putting.
Some of the elements used to undercut otherwise touching moments -- "he missed Ennis bad enough sometimes to make him whip babies," the flashback of Jack's dad peeing on him -- were just a bit too ascetic.
(Evidently not a problem for other readers, but it tripped up my experience a bit. Listening to RodneyWY's live reading was so illuminating for me.)
Also, the film really illustrated the internal dialogue — the thought/emotional processes of the characters like the story never did. IMO, an entire new dimension was presented there.
This is exactly how I feel about the book vs. the film. Proulx wraps a raw, tender bleeding heart of a plot in such a dry prose style, the raw emotion is (almost) obscured . (Evidently not a problem for other readers, but it tripped up my experience a bit. Listening to RodneyWY's live reading was so illuminating for me.)
Also, the film really illustrated the internal dialogue — the thought/emotional processes of the characters like the story never did. IMO, an entire new dimension was presented there.
do you think the dry, sparse prose of AP makes the poignancy of the tale all the more sharper?
Uh-oh, I'm getting pretty wordy myself now! Hope you men can make it through this post! :laugh:Friend, that's the most you've spoke in two weeks!!
Front-Ranger still has the magazine on her bedside table 10 years later.Actually I carry copies of it around in my briefcase now, and the magazine pages are hidden away where housecleaners cannot find and toss them!
Thomas Pynchon is another writer who seems to appeal much more to men. As is Don DeLillo. And Cormac McCarthy.
I can't think offhand of good, literary books (not romance novels or bodice-rippers) that appeal primarily to women, but I'm sure there are many. Probably the majority are a) written by women and b) have female protagonists.
Faulkner, who was straight, was the very definition of verbosity. Joyce, ditto. While Hemingway, whose orientation was undoubtedly mixed, was very terse. Proulx (she's been married three times to men!) is terse, Tennessee Williams (gay) verbose. The only conclusions I can gather from all this is that people are all different and defy generalization!
Pynchon and McCarthy are two of my favourite authors! Do you like them too? The Crying of Lot 49 is awesome, and it has a female protagonist. I have read nearly all of McCarthy's books, except for No Country for Old Men, which I'm just starting. I love the way he does dialogue.
Salmon Rushdie said that his primary audience is women.
In fact, women read more serious fiction than men do.
The only conclusions I can gather from all this is that people are all different and defy generalization!
I guess I would say that the number of words is less important than what they add up to. Some writers are better with less or more. Some readers are better with less or more.
He, he, you know that term "book lust"? Well, that describes me when I get my hands on a good book!!
It seems that because Jack is much, too much, tragic in the movie (which makes it maybe more anti-gay), then I would prefer the book.There was an interesting interview with Ang Lee recently in the New York Times in which he said that he liked to take the side of the "losers" in his films. Of the characters in Brokeback Mountain, he said "Of course, gays...they're never going to win." But really, in the movie and in life, we all lose because of fear and hate. Even Aguirre had 25% loss...L.D. died, and Old Man Twist had nothing but an urnful of ashes to show for his life. Yes, Brokeback Mountain is a tragedy and in a sense you could call it anti-gay because it unabashedly shows the downside of the effects of hate and fear. For more of a "pro-gay" movie you could watch Maurice, The Wedding Banquet, or Shelter.
Of course the book had also negatives too! Is it more pro-gay?
Hugs!
Artiste, do I correctly understand you to be saying that BBM is anti-gay because you think that seeing Jack's possible killing will inspire audience members to go out and commit gay-bashing incidents or murders themselves?
I'll have to say, that doesn't make any sense at all to me. In fact, with all due respect, I'll have to go a step further and say it strikes me as completely absurd.
It's like trying to imagine someone watching "Sophie's Choice" or "Schindler's List" and then deciding to become a Nazi.
First of all, anybody who watches the movie already seems automatically, by definition, a member of that portion of the population least likely to be anti-gay or homophobic or likely to commit violence toward gays in the first place. Second, one big message of Brokeback Mountain, stated in the simplest possible terms, is that it's bad to kill gay men. Its gay characters are sympathetic and three dimensional and suffering. So if it's even possible to imagine a viewer who would otherwise be likely to commit anti-gay hate crimes somehow nevertheless choosing to see "Brokeback Mountain," I would say that the experience of watching the movie, if anything, makes them much LESS likely to commit violence toward gays than they were before.
Your repeated questions about anti-gay have made no sense to me. If I am now interpreting them correctly, I would have to say I couldn't disagree more.
Ineedcrayons, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I think that your analogy to the reaction of the general public to the Nazi violence depicted in "Sophie's Choice" and "Schindler's List" is right on target. "Brokeback Moutain" is a watershed in creating greater understanding in the general public about closeted gay/bisexuals, and about the true nature of the destructiveness of the closet.
Then, may I say that you are re-acting maybe like the gay men you said about? I agree that everyone wants to stir away from a subject when it is painful or difficult!! It is better to really get involved, is it not?? May I ask?
I find puzzling, as I am a gay man, that the accent is not only on the gay or bi lives (especially of the main two charactors who can be considered also maybe only heterosexuals by some), that not much as far as I concerned the film helps gay men, but why about straight women in it so much about them?? So, I do ask about that concerning what might be preferred the movie or the film, concerning these two main points (the 2 main characters concentrating about the men, as well as the the women (their wives)... as I think that those questions posed are important!!
What concerns me mostly is that some gay men that I communicated with had seen the BM movie and dislike it greatly! Never wanting to see it again!! Why? We must try to find out that??
There are also other concerns which puzzles me. Many women I feel and (I see in some ways) see the movie wanting it to be anti-gay!! They simply dispise the two main charactors!! Why?? Again, can this be an anti-gay thing??
But since I sense that the accent of the movie is maybe too much on wives, I think that is one source where gay men might dislike or hate that film (and see it as anti-gay, in a way ) ??
I am very puzzled as to why that is so numerous!! In a way, it does make the film anti-gay, to some persons!! Instead of remaining with the gay theme... if that what is the main aim. But we must not forget that it is Annie who wrote the story and that she is a woman and a lady; she is obvious (to me) confused about female issues and tries to solve some by her book maybe, but the movie does much more of that?? The movie was created with a script not only done by a male but also by a female!! Gays or bi, do suffer in the movie and in the book; but also females do too, much more by the movie?? I am happy that those issues of freedom for ladies are in the movie too; however, why so much??