The Ultimate Brokeback Forum

Poll

Which do you rate as 'better'?

The Film
209 (43.8%)
The Book
45 (9.4%)
Equal
198 (41.5%)
Haven't seen/read both yet
25 (5.2%)

Total Members Voted: 437

Author Topic: Film vs. Book -- Which was better?  (Read 292600 times)

Offline crcj

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Re: Poll: Film or Book -- Which was better?
« Reply #75 on: January 21, 2006, 07:55:22 AM »
I read the short story about a year ago.  It is a quick read, but was powerful.  I was emotionally very struck, but (like in the movie) the heart of the emotional hit comes in the closing sequences -- the postcard being returned, the phone call, the parents' ranch, the end.  It took me awhile to recover, and that (frankly) was the one thing that lingered most about the story.

I went to see the movie a week ago and was even more moved by seeing the visual representation.  I love to read, but visual cues are very powerful for me.  (I read an interview with Annie where she says she had finally managed to put Ennis and Jack to rest about 6 months after publishing the story in The New Yorker.  When they screened the movie for her, she said it all came rushing back and they were immediately back in her head in a powerful way.)  I have spent the past 9 days reeling a little and trying to understand my personal connection to the movie.

Last night, in preparation for a second viewing of the movie tonight, I re-read the story.  I was surprised by some of my reactions.  It was not as emotionally moving this time.  In the end, the story is a very direct telling of the most basic plot points from the movie.  The two storytelling mechanisms are very true to each other.  But (largely by requirement) the movie extrapolates a lot of the story.  The Cassie scenes are a line in the story.  Most of Jack's family life is drawn from small mentions in the story.  Jack driving to Wyoming after the divorce is sort of a one-line afterthought in the book.  The end of the story was still powerful, of course.  But I felt sort of like "okay, this is not quite how I reacted the first time."

I also had a very different reaction to the characters.  Ennis is more open and human in the story.  As people have pointed out elsewhere, he is more verbal in connecting with Jack.  When they are in the motel upon their reunion he tells him how much he missed Jack over the four years.  That he had sort of given up on ever seeing him again.  And most importantly, that he had taken a year to figure out that he "never should have let you out of my sight."  That may not have rang so true in the movie, but would have been a beautiful line of dialogue to include in the movie to help show how Ennis really did feel connected to Jack.

Jack was also less appealing to me in the story.  In the movie, Jake nails exactly how I want to think about Jack.  The subtle ways he tries to pry the lid off Ennis' resolve about being together.  The softer and more loveable ways he displays his emotions.  In the story, he is a bit more detached actually.  He has missed Ennis, but that has not kept him from sowing his oats all over.  He seems less a romantic character, and I got less a sense of his yearning for Ennis.

So, I love both, but will always find the movie version more in line with what I want the story to be.

Offline DaveL

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Re: Poll: Film or Book -- Which was better?
« Reply #76 on: January 21, 2006, 02:09:33 PM »
bbbmedia, desperadum, I largely agree.  I know the screenwriters have "needs".  The Cassie episode arguably changes the entire sense of Ennis' character.  In the book it is suggested the "woman in Riverton" and the "rancher's wife" are among the " lies" they tell each other by the campfire the third night of the final trip.  The heavy stuff comes in the trailhead parking lot confrontation at the end of that trip, and all the pretense to heterosexual conquests and keeping up the macho front are abandoned.  I've argued before that both E and J are faithful to each other during the 17 years, and the references they make to "Mexico" are spoken, not for their truth, but to provoke each other and test the limits of the relationship.  At the  parting, she states, they "torqued things back to almost where they had been...Nothing ended, nothing begun, nothing resolved.....And maybe, he thought, they'd never got  much further than that. Let be. let be."

The insertion of "Cassie" and "Randall"  create distortion of the characters of E and J, and are not just "extra scenes".  In a sense I've felt they diminish or at least blur the characters of E and J in the book.

And of course the film's ending is much "happier" than the book's.
« Last Edit: January 21, 2006, 02:12:36 PM by DaveL »
"Ennis del Mar wakes before five....The shirts hanging on a nail shudder slightly in the draft..It could be bad on the highway with the horsetrailer.He has to be packed and away from the place that morning...The wind strikes the trailer like a load of dirt coming off a dump truck, eases, dies...."

Offline Scott88

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Re: Poll: Film or Book -- Which was better?
« Reply #77 on: January 21, 2006, 02:43:34 PM »
Quote
The insertion of "Cassie" and "Randall"  create distortion of the characters of E and J, and are not just "extra scenes".

I would beg to differ and argue the screenplay's treatment is fully consistent with the story.  IMHO, they are distortions only if one subscribes to a reading of the text that necessitates some very improbable conclusions.  For instance, one would have to believe in the remarkable coincedence of both Jack and Jack's father, separately and at different points, "lying" about an affair with a ranch neighbor.  I simply don't buy that, nor do think Annie would expect us to.  The congruence of their stories is her way of confirming the truth the the story.

What Annie was getting at with the mention of these other affairs was the notion that Jack and Ennis were attempting to either cope with the unsatisfactory nature of their arrangement -- the pain, desperation and longing of being away from each other for 50 weeks of the year -- or, in Jack's case, potentially attempting to move on after so much heartache and disappointment.  This doesn't take away from their deep love in the slightest, as the final confrontation makes clear that their entire lives have revolved around each other.  They are spiritually and emotionally intertwined, despite the difficulties that life has imposed upon them. 

To make all of these other affairs "lies" would essentially gut Jack's speech to Ennis, where he lays his heart bare about how his love & longing for Ennis has caused him so much heartbreak and pain, and why it's led him to do things in spite of himself to abate the pain and loneliness.

IMO, the fact that Annie Proulx has given her whole-hearted approval of the film suggests that she felt the filmmakers faithfully adapted her story to the screen.  She may have minor quibbles, of course, but from interviews I've gotten the sense that she feels the basic elements of the story have been translated in a manner that she feels is respectful to her novella.

« Last Edit: January 21, 2006, 03:01:56 PM by Scott88 »

Offline Jakeforever

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Re: Poll: Film or Book -- Which was better?
« Reply #78 on: January 23, 2006, 05:47:34 AM »
In the book, Jack Twist and Ennis del Mar were really rather dull guys, and their family lives, when they were in the movie's flatlands (which was most of the time), were drearily miserable in predictable ways. Proulx merely touched contrastingly on that aspect of their existence and kept the focus on their increasingly tormented romance. She was a realist, not much interested in the glories of mountainous landscapes.

Ang Lee, on the other hand, is a romantic, and his realizations of the high country where the cowboys meet and fall in love have a transformative effect on the story. He makes you really believe those rough guys might just possibly achieve passion and tenderness in those breathtaking locales...

The book was better because of Proulx's simple, almost distant manner in which she proclaims the opinion that misfortune is not the exclusive concern of the affected.

Offline wjp58

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Re: Poll: Film or Book -- Which was better?
« Reply #79 on: January 23, 2006, 08:53:15 AM »
Jakeforever --

I voted for "equal", partly because the two have become fused in my mind, but I agree with you about the romanticism.  I think of the "second night in the tent" scene.  Annie had no "second night" per se.  Just "they both knew how it would be from then on ..." (not necessarily quoting verbatim here).  More realistic for two 19-year olds.
"There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe..."

patroclus

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Re: Poll: Film or Book -- Which was better?
« Reply #80 on: January 23, 2006, 04:51:55 PM »


And the last couple of paragraphs in the book get me everytime - "the pillow sometimes wet, sometimes the sheets." and "but nothing could be done about it, and if you can't fix it you've got to stand it." Technically brilliant writing (look at the positioning of those "sometimes") and emotionally gut wrenching.

Thanks for this. I've just noticed what Annie P says about what the relationship gave to Ennis 'the old sense of joy and release'. She's referring here to the sex between them. And that is really startling, putting 'joy and release' into the same sentence at Ennis! I don't think the movie really shows us this about the relationship because it won't follow through on the sexual passion. They end up a sort of good pals, not lovers. The movie only really shows us Ennis's joy in the reunion scene and maybe the motel. Thanks for making me re-read the end to see this for the first time.

Offline trcarr

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Re: Poll: Film or Book -- Which was better?
« Reply #81 on: January 23, 2006, 09:00:48 PM »
Film or Book -- which was better?  Always a tough question when comparing two things that attain excellence within their own totally different realms.

It's rather like being forced to choose between Mozart or Monet;  Frank Lloyd Wright vs. Maria Callas; a perfect diamond or a gorgeous sunset.

So I dodged this (fanciful but meaningless) comparison and voted for an emphatic EQUAL.

Offline Dal

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Re: Poll: Film or Book -- Which was better?
« Reply #82 on: January 23, 2006, 11:56:53 PM »
And the last couple of paragraphs in the book get me everytime - "the pillow sometimes wet, sometimes the sheets." and "but nothing could be done about it, and if you can't fix it you've got to stand it." Technically brilliant writing (look at the positioning of those "sometimes") [...]
The writing is just sheer pleasure, page after page.    Another example -- after waiting all day for his old friend, Ennis gets his first look at Jack in four years, and "A hot jolt scalded Ennis."  "Hot Jolt."  Like a pair of hard heartbeats in double-time.  Proulx is just a master.

Quote
[...] and emotionally gut wrenching.

She doesn't manipulate us or get maudlin, but she doesn't pull any punches either.

Dal
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Of course honey, any American can -- thanks to President Obama!!

Offline Chance

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Re: Poll: Film or Book -- Which was better?
« Reply #83 on: January 24, 2006, 07:12:28 AM »
The majesty of Annie Prouix's measured words has been equalled by the vision that Ang Lee brought to it.
One feeds into the other. Much thanks to McMurtry and Osanna who maintained the true quality of Ms Prouix's writing but expanded upon it to make the story move across the screen.

I have read the story half a dozen times. And seen the movie on 3 occasions.  Each journey to each space - book or theatre - paragraph or page - have become integrated. So that when I see the film, I think of Ms Prouix's words about the motel room that " stank of semen and smoke and sweat and whiskey, of old carpet and sour hay, saddle leather, shit and cheap soap."

And when I see Ennis in the film - at last alone with the Brokeback Mountain postcard and his beloved's shirt mingled with his, I hear within me the lines from the printed page, "Around that time Jack began to appear in his dreams, Jack as he had first seen him, curly-headed and smiling and bucktoothed, talking about getting up off his pockets and into the control zone, but the can of beans with the spoon handle jutting out and balanced on the log was there as well, in a cartoon shape and lurid colors that gave the dreams a flavor of comic obscenity. The spoon handle was the kind that could be used as a tire iron. And he would wake sometimes in grief, sometimes with the old sense of joy and release; the pillow sometimes wet, sometimes the sheets."

Both are brilliant. Film & Movie. It's a tie.



helen_uk

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Re: Poll: Film or Book -- Which was better?
« Reply #84 on: January 24, 2006, 08:34:49 AM »
Have to say the story left me completely unmoved, so the movie wins out for me.

Offline kappadappa

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Re: Poll: Film or Book -- Which was better?
« Reply #85 on: January 24, 2006, 09:35:30 AM »
The majesty of Annie Prouix's measured words has been equalled by the vision that Ang Lee brought to it.
One feeds into the other. Much thanks to McMurtry and Osanna who maintained the true quality of Ms Prouix's writing but expanded upon it to make the story move across the screen.

I have read the story half a dozen times. And seen the movie on 3 occasions.  Each journey to each space - book or theatre - paragraph or page - have become integrated. So that when I see the film, I think of Ms Prouix's words about the motel room that " stank of semen and smoke and sweat and whiskey, of old carpet and sour hay, saddle leather, shit and cheap soap."

And when I see Ennis in the film - at last alone with the Brokeback Mountain postcard and his beloved's shirt mingled with his, I hear within me the lines from the printed page, "Around that time Jack began to appear in his dreams, Jack as he had first seen him, curly-headed and smiling and bucktoothed, talking about getting up off his pockets and into the control zone, but the can of beans with the spoon handle jutting out and balanced on the log was there as well, in a cartoon shape and lurid colors that gave the dreams a flavor of comic obscenity. The spoon handle was the kind that could be used as a tire iron. And he would wake sometimes in grief, sometimes with the old sense of joy and release; the pillow sometimes wet, sometimes the sheets."

Both are brilliant. Film & Movie. It's a tie.

I couldn't have said it better myself.  I completely agree.
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Offline Lola

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Re: Poll: Film or Book -- Which was better?
« Reply #86 on: January 24, 2006, 11:42:16 AM »
http://pviktor.co.uk/p_viktor_/files/brokeback_mountain.pdf

Sorry I just read that and it left me totally cold!   :-\
 
FUNGURL

Offline garyd

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Re: Poll: Film or Book -- Which was better?
« Reply #87 on: January 24, 2006, 12:27:19 PM »
I believe the film is truly a masterpiece with not one false scene and incredibly faithful to the short story.  It is absolutely a triumph as a cinematic adaptation of a literary masterwork.  That being said, I do question the artistic choice of Mr. McMurtry and Ms. Ossana to exclude the prologue and, in its place, write the final Alma Jr./Ennis scene.  The prologue is so important to the story in that it leaves no ambiguity as to the fate of Ennis.  He is much older, his hair has gone gray, (everywhere), he is surely clinically depressed, disheveled, urinates in the sink, warms up yesterday's coffee.  He is alone, wasting away, working at deadend jobs in an industry that is also slowly wasting away.
He has no plans for the future except to go live with Alma until he can find another job. His sole source of pleasure are the memories of his time with Jack and even those memories are only pleasurable because he has taught himself to keep them on the periphery of his consciousness. He knows that if he focuses on more than just a "panel" of those memories, the "suffusion" of pleasure will be washed away by the torment and anguish that those memories also contain.  This is how he has managed to "stand it" for all these years.
 Furthermore, the Alma Jr. scene does not satisfactorily resonate with the last lines of the short story.  The "openness" between what he knows and what he tries to believe is so important to understanding the tragedy of the story.  Ennis "knows" that he and Jack could never have created a life together.  He can give one piece of evidence after another of how impossible that would have been.  He knows that they could only exist up on Brokeback high above the eagles, the crawling car lights and the tame ranch dogs.  On the other hand, he tries desperately to believe that, if given a second chance, he swears he would have at least tried to create that life.  It might not have been as Jack described but it could not have been worse than the living hell he is now forced to endure.  That second chance, however, is just a dream, a broken dream which he is not able to fix.   Brokeback and the bigotry of the society in which they lived got them both good.

Offline kappadappa

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Re: Poll: Film or Book -- Which was better?
« Reply #88 on: January 24, 2006, 01:28:07 PM »
I do question the artistic choice of Mr. McMurtry and Ms. Ossana to exclude the prologue and, in its place, write the final Alma Jr./Ennis scene.

Two things here -

First, when the story was originally printed in the New Yorker, the prologue was not included.  I'm not sure why that choice was made, but it does go to show that the story still holds up without it.

Second, the prologue is crushingly beautiful on the page, but to transform it to film would be impossible.  Film lets us see people's actions and the emotions in their eyes, but not subtleties like focusing on a panel of a dream so that it does not stoke the day.  We would be left with a vision of a depressed disheveled man shuffling around and urinating in a sink, but his actions would not resonate because film can't show us his mind.  Granted, there could be a voice over or some similar device, but I can't even imagine how out of place that would seem.


I'm not sure how I feel about the Alma scene.  Part of me loves it because it allows Ennis some slight redemption in that he has learned that he needs to make time for the people most important to him.  And Alma's romance at 19 echoes Ennis's romance with Jack at 19.  But I'm not sure I fully embrace it.  It does seem a tiny bit "Hollywood."  But in the end, I'm leaning toward liking it.
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Offline garyd

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Re: Poll: Film or Book -- Which was better?
« Reply #89 on: January 24, 2006, 01:36:42 PM »
Kappadappa, Yes it would have been difficult.  Perhaps as the first scene with the rest of the movie as a flashback.  I don't know, I certainly do not pretend to be a screen writer.  I too, enjoy the Alma scene.  It is almost a must since the decision was made to flesh out the stories of the wives and children.  I do believe, however, that it suggests much more optimism than the story and, therefore, dilutes the tragedy in that it gives the impression that Ennis might be able to change on his own when, in fact, society as a whole must change or we will continue to tragically marginalize the Enis'/Jack's of the world.