TOTW 15/07: Short story or movie, which one do you prefer?

[Oregondoggie]

Many of us know the movie frame by frame by now.  Maybe don't watch it like we used to.  Some of us watch segments depending on our mood.  Maybe just for the music.  Stoke the day.

But the little short story retains its power.  Sometimes the rainbow appears over one part.  Another time the wind tears down the page.

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!   

[Front-Ranger]

Sure you can. Just say, "Jack and I get to talkin, drinking, might not make it back until tomorrow!."

[brokebackjack]

Anti-Jack or anti-gay, same thing!!??

Certainly anti-Jack!! Glad you awake persons to that!

Hugs!

Terribly sorry Artiste but it is NOT the same thing.

Nor was BBM anti Jack.

I simply do not get any of this, any of it at all.

[serious crayons]

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.

No, I don't mean women like the movie better because they're more sympathetic to or interested in the female characters. I haven't seen that tendency at all.

I think what I might be getting at is, the movie is slightly more romantic in the traditional sense -- with emphasis on the "slightly" (it definitely never gets sentimental or maudlin or any of those icky things). But Annie Proulx is even more unsentimental, and while up to a point I admire that about the story in a literary sense, in some cases she goes so far as to keep me a bit distanced from the characters emotionally. And -- so shoot me if this sounds sexist -- women sometimes tend to be more drawn than men are toward romantic fare.

It's just slightly, slightly more (and oh gosh, I know I'm going to get in huge trouble for using this term) chick flicky.

We can't ignore them and just run off to the Motel Siesta!

Well, I do. I'm one of those people whose sympathies for Alma in that scene are purely intellectual. They don't impinge on my happiness for J & E.

I simply do not get any of this, any of it at all.

Me neither, Jack, but there's a whole thread devoted to this topic (13 pages long, at present) on this forum, where I assume Artiste outlines his views. So what's say we move on from the anti-gay/Jack discussion here.

[Artiste]

ineedcrayons, I am very sad because of your demand.

Guess we have no more freedom to be gay men here?

Of all, you surprise me...

Hugs!

[serious crayons]

Guess we have no more freedom to be gay men here?

Don't be sad, Artiste. That's not what I said.

What I said was, there is already a thread devoted to the anti-gay question. Anyone interested can discuss that question there.  This thread is about preferences for the story vs. the movie. Let's talk about that issue here, so that people who are interested in that topic can do so.

Gay men, obviously, have freedom to be gay men wherever they like.

[LauraGigs]

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.

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.

[serious crayons]

(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.

And in return, I agree with these statements! One, that Rodney's reading helped me find more emotion in the story. It's strange how to some people all the emotion is there right away, and for others it isn't, or at least it isn't until they see it dramatized in the movie. But Rodney really brought it out well -- in a way that was moving, and wholly independent of the movie.

And two, that I was better able to access the internal lives of the characters in the movie. Strange, because with books and movies it's usually the other way around. After all, books can just come right out and say what characters are thinking, and movies have to show them thinking it.

But Proulx rarely does say what her characters are thinking. So to me, anyway, they came off as rather flat. And the actors in the movie -- Heath Ledger in particular, but the others, too -- do such a great job of revealing their thoughts and feelings without using dialogue that I suddenly understood the characters much better after seeing the film than I had when reading the story.

[brokeplex]

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?

[Jeff Wrangler]

do you think the dry, sparse prose of AP makes the poignancy of the tale all the more sharper?

It does for me with respect to when Ennis finds the shirts.

Possibly this is because the story doesn't give us the post-divorce scene, and Jack's reaction. The story only refers to the post-divorce episode retrospectively, as the only time in 20 years that Ennis telephoned Jack until the postcard came back marked "deceased." I don't get from the story the sense that I do from the film of Jack's longing, over 20 years, to be with Ennis, so when I read the story and get to the part where Ennis finds the shirts--and there is the tangible evidence of Jack's abiding love--real love--over all those years, yes, I guess it does kick me harder than it does when I watch Heath find the shirts.