Brokeback Mountain is a short story by American author Annie Proulx. It was originally published in The New
Yorker on October 13, 1997, and was subsequently
published in a slightly expanded version in Proulx's 1999 collection of short stories, Close Range: Wyoming Stories. The story won an O.
Henry Award prize (third place) in 1998. The New Yorker won the National Magazine Award for Fiction for its
publication of Brokeback Mountain in 1998. The collection was named a finalist for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.
Screenwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana
adapted the story for the film Brokeback Mountain, released in 2005. At that
time, the short story and the screenplay were published together, along with essays by Proulx and the screenwriters, in
Brokeback Mountain: Story to Screenplay. [1][2] The story was also published separately in book form.
Synopsis
Two young men who meet in Wyoming in 1963, forge a sudden emotional and sexual attachment, but soon part ways. As their
separate lives play out with marriages, children, and jobs, they reunite for brief liaisons on camping trips in remote settings
over the course of 20 years.
Literary form
Collection of Proulx's short stories including
Brokeback Mountain.
Brokeback Mountain is a story told by an omniscient narrator. The narrative is realistic in tone and employs description, metaphor and
dialogue to examine the actions, thoughts, emotions, and
motivations of its main characters.
The narrative is mostly linear; the story describes events in sequence from a beginning point in time, the year
1963 when the characters are introduced, to the end of the story some 20 years later. The settings
are actual locations in the United States, and the characters are described as real people
living in a specific milieu. The story adheres to conventions of modern dramatic
fiction; its literary devices serve to present a portrait of recognizable people in familiar situations, without supernatural or metaphysical allusions (while other of the "Wyoming
Stories" do include passages of magical realism).
The story begins with the introduction of the two protagonists:
"They were raised on small, poor ranches in opposite corners of the state, Jack Twist in Lightning Flat, up on the Montana
border, Ennis del Mar from around Sage, near the Utah line, both high school drop out country boys with no prospects, brought up
to hard work and privation, both rough mannered, rough spoken, inured to the stoic life."
From there, the story is an episodic examination of conflicts arising from the characters' interaction with each other and
other people in their lives. The story condenses passing years and significant events into brief passages, and employs dialogue
to reveal character and conflict.
"They never talked about the sex, let it happen, at first only in the tent at night, then in the full daylight with the hot
sun striking down, and at evening in the fire glow, quick, rough, laughing and snorting, no lack of noises, but saying not a
goddam word except once Ennis said, "I'm not no queer," and Jack jumped in with "Me neither. A one shot thing. Nobody's business
but ours."
Origins
During the promotion of the film of Brokeback Mountain, Proulx spoke about the origins and development of her story. In
a FAQ posted on her website, Annie Proulx, she
wrote that "Brokeback began as an examination of country homophobia in the land of the Great Pure Noble Cowboy. Years of
accumulated observation went into the story."
She worked on the story for roughly six months, about twice as long as the time she spends to write a novel, she said.
According to the author, her inspiration for the characters did not come from real life, though she mentioned one incident in
which she noticed a middle-aged man in a bar, which led her to consider the life of a typical western ranch hand who might be
gay. "The work of imagining, thinking, picturing, describing how things would have been for two
19-year old rough, uneducated young men in 1963 Wyoming was slow, difficult and arduous."[3]
Regarding the setting, Proulx said, "Rural North America, regional cultures, the images of an ideal and seemingly attainable
world the characters cherish in their long views despite the rigid and difficult circumstances of their place and time interest
me and are what I write about. I watch for the historical skew between what people have hoped for and who they thought they were
and what befell them."[4][5]
About the story's main characters, Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, Proulx said they affected her long after the story was
published, and the film version rekindled her feelings for them — an attachment that she had previously rejected. In an interview
in the Missouri Review[6], Proulx called the notion of
falling in love with fictional characters "repugnant," but in a note on her website[3] she reconsidered her earlier assertion:
"There is one lie in [the Missouri Review] interview where I said I had never fallen in love with any of my characters. I
think I did fall in love with both Jack and Ennis, or some other strong feeling of connection which has persisted for the eight
years since the story was written."
Film adaptation
-
The film Brokeback Mountain won numerous awards, including 2006 Academy Awards for Best Adapted
Screenplay (McMurtry and Ossana), Best Director (Ang Lee), and Best Original Score
(Gustavo Santaolalla). It was nominated for a total of eight awards (the most that
year), including Best Picture. Its loss to Crash was considered to be
exceptionally surprising for many. See also: Brokeback Mountain
awards.
Proulx has praised the faithfulness of the adaptation of her story into a film. Before the movie
was made, she called McMurtry and Ossana's adaptation "an exceptionally fine screenplay." Later, she praised the film as "huge
and powerful," writing that she was "knocked for a loop" when she first saw it.
"I may be the first writer in America to have a piece of writing make its way to the screen whole and entire," she said. "And,
when I saw the film for the first time, I was astonished that the characters of Jack and Ennis came surging into my mind
again..."
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.
Before Lee's adaptation, Gus Van Sant had wished to make an adaptation starring
Matt Damon and Joaquin Phoenix. Among the reasons it
never made it to production included Damon's refusal to make a "gay-cowboy movie" immediately following starring in a
"gay movie" and a "cowboy
movie."[7]
References
Further reading
- Brokeback Mountain: Story to Screenplay (includes the short story and film screenplay), New York: Scribner, 2005. ISBN
0-7432-9416-5; ISBN 978-0-7432-9416-4.
- Proulx, Annie (1997, 1999, 2006). Close Range: Brokeback Mountain and Other Stories. London, New York, Toronto and
Sydney: Harper Perennial. ISBN 0-00-720558-9; ISBN 978-0-00-720558-5.
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