Brokeback Mountain (short story)
Encyclopedia
"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 of the same name
, 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. The story was also published separately in book form.
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 the next 20 years.
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. Other than the title location, 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:
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.
. Regarding the setting, Proulx stated:
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, Proulx called the notion of falling in love with fictional characters "repugnant".
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 of Best Picture to Crash
was not generally expected, though predicted by some.
Proulx has praised the faithfulness of the adaptation of her story into a feature 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.
Nearly all of the dialogue 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 after starring in a "gay movie" (The Talented Mr. Ripley
) and a "cowboy movie" (All the Pretty Horses
).
and the New York City Opera
commissioned Charles Wuorinen
, an American composer, to set Proulx's story to music. The opera was going to follow the same storyline as the book and was due to premier during the City Opera's 2013 spring season. The opera was shelved after New York City Opera's Artistic Director, Gerard Mortier, resigned. The project was then again taken up by Mortier at the Teatro Real in Madrid where it is set to premiere in January 2014. City Opera of Vancouver
will produce the world premiere of this work, reconfigured as a chamber opera, one year later.
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
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
by American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
author Annie Proulx. It was originally published in The New Yorker
The New Yorker
The New Yorker is an American magazine of reportage, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons and poetry published by Condé Nast...
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
Close Range: Wyoming Stories
Close Range: Wyoming Stories is a 1999 collection of short stories written by E. Annie Proulx. The stories are set in the desolate landscape of rural Wyoming and detail the often grim lives of the protagonists....
. The story won an O. Henry Award
O. Henry Award
The O. Henry Award is the only yearly award given to short stories of exceptional merit. The award is named after the American master of the form, O. Henry....
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
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
in Fiction.
Screenwriters Larry McMurtry
Larry McMurtry
Larry Jeff McMurtry is an American novelist, essayist, bookseller and screenwriter whose work is predominantly set in either the old West or in contemporary Texas...
and Diana Ossana
Diana Ossana
Diana Lynn Ossana is an American writer who has collaborated on writing screenplays, teleplays, and novels with author Larry McMurtry since they first worked together in 1992, on the semi-fictionalized biography Pretty Boy Floyd...
adapted the story for the film of the same name
Brokeback Mountain
Brokeback Mountain is a 2005 romantic drama film directed by Ang Lee. It is a film adaptation of the 1997 short story of the same name by Annie Proulx with the screenplay written by Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry...
, 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. The story was also published separately in book form.
Synopsis
Two young men who meet in WyomingWyoming
Wyoming is a state in the mountain region of the Western United States. The western two thirds of the state is covered mostly with the mountain ranges and rangelands in the foothills of the Eastern Rocky Mountains, while the eastern third of the state is high elevation prairie known as the High...
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 the next 20 years.
Literary form
"Brokeback Mountain" is a story told by an omniscient narrator. The narrativeNarrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...
is realistic
Literary realism
Literary realism most often refers to the trend, beginning with certain works of nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary life and society "as they were." In the spirit of...
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. Other than the title location, the settings are actual locations in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, 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
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
or metaphysical
Metaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
allusions (while other of the "Wyoming Stories" do include passages of magical realism).
The story begins with the introduction of the two protagonists:
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.
Origins
According to Proulx, 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, who appeared to be watching only the men playing pool, which led her to consider the life of a typical western ranch hand who might be gayGay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
. Regarding the setting, Proulx stated:
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, Proulx called the notion of falling in love with fictional characters "repugnant".
Film adaptation
The film Brokeback MountainBrokeback Mountain
Brokeback Mountain is a 2005 romantic drama film directed by Ang Lee. It is a film adaptation of the 1997 short story of the same name by Annie Proulx with the screenplay written by Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry...
won numerous awards, including 2006 Academy Awards
Academy Awards
An Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
for Best Adapted Screenplay (McMurtry and Ossana), Best Director (Ang Lee
Ang Lee
Ang Lee is a Taiwanese film director. Lee has directed a diverse set of films such as Eat Drink Man Woman , Sense and Sensibility , Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon , Hulk , and Brokeback Mountain , for which he won an Academy...
), and Best Original Score (Gustavo Santaolalla
Gustavo Santaolalla
Gustavo Alfredo Santaolalla is an Argentine musician, film composer and producer. He has won two Academy Awards for Best Original Score in two consecutive years, for Brokeback Mountain in 2005 and Babel in 2006.-Life and career:...
). It was nominated for a total of eight awards (the most that year), including Best Picture. Its loss of Best Picture to Crash
Crash (2004 film)
Crash is a 2004 American drama film co-written, produced, and directed by Paul Haggis. The film is about racial and social tensions in Los Angeles, California. A self-described "passion piece" for Haggis, Crash was inspired by a real life incident in which his Porsche was carjacked outside a video...
was not generally expected, though predicted by some.
Proulx has praised the faithfulness of the adaptation of her story into a feature film
Feature film
In the film industry, a feature film is a film production made for initial distribution in theaters and being the main attraction of the screening, rather than a short film screened before it; a full length movie...
. 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.
Nearly all of the dialogue 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
Gus Van Sant
Gus Green Van Sant, Jr. is an American director, screenwriter, painter, photographer, musician, and author. He is a two time nominee of the Academy Award for Best Director for his 1997 film Good Will Hunting and his 2008 film Milk, both of which were also nominated for Best Picture, and won the...
had wished to make an adaptation starring Matt Damon
Matt Damon
Matthew Paige "Matt" Damon is an American actor, screenwriter, and philanthropist whose career was launched following the success of the film Good Will Hunting , from a screenplay he co-wrote with friend Ben Affleck...
and Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Phoenix
Joaquin Rafael Phoenix , formerly credited as Leaf Phoenix, is an American film actor. He was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and his family returned to the continental United States four years later...
. Among the reasons it never made it to production included Damon's refusal to make a "gay-cowboy movie" immediately after starring in a "gay movie" (The Talented Mr. Ripley
The Talented Mr. Ripley (film)
The Talented Mr. Ripley is a 1999 American psychological thriller written for the screen and directed by Anthony Minghella. It is an adaptation of the Patricia Highsmith 1955 novel of the same name, which was previously filmed as Plein Soleil .The film stars Matt Damon as Tom Ripley, Gwyneth...
) and a "cowboy movie" (All the Pretty Horses
All the Pretty Horses (film)
All the Pretty Horses is a 2000 American romance western film, directed by Billy Bob Thornton and based on the novel of the same title by author Cormac McCarthy. It stars Matt Damon and Penélope Cruz...
).
Opera
Gerard MortierGérard Mortier
Gerard Alfons August, Baron Mortier is a Belgian opera director and administrator of Flemish origin.Mortier has served as general director of La Monnaie and of the Salzburg Festival...
and the New York City Opera
New York City Opera
The New York City Opera is an American opera company located in New York City.The company, called "the people's opera" by New York Mayor Fiorello La Guardia, was founded in 1943 with the aim of making opera financially accessible to a wide audience, producing an innovative choice of repertory, and...
commissioned Charles Wuorinen
Charles Wuorinen
Charles Peter Wuorinen is a prolific Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. His catalog of more than 250 compositions includes works for orchestra, opera, chamber music, as well as solo instrumental and vocal works...
, an American composer, to set Proulx's story to music. The opera was going to follow the same storyline as the book and was due to premier during the City Opera's 2013 spring season. The opera was shelved after New York City Opera's Artistic Director, Gerard Mortier, resigned. The project was then again taken up by Mortier at the Teatro Real in Madrid where it is set to premiere in January 2014. City Opera of Vancouver
City Opera of Vancouver
City Opera of Vancouver is a professional chamber opera company founded in 2005. It was the lead company in efforts to restore Vancouver's Pantages Theatre, built by Alexander Pantages in 1907. The 650 seat building was considered to be the oldest remaining vaudeville theatre in Canada...
will produce the world premiere of this work, reconfigured as a chamber opera, one year later.
Further reading
Brokeback Mountain: Story to Screenplay (includes the short story and film screenplay), New York: Scribner, 2005. ISBN 0-7432-9416-5; ISBN 978-0-7432-9416-4Proulx, 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