Went to the AIF screening of Brokeback Mountain in Los Angeles tonight, after which Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana spoke and answered questions. Larry is fairly quiet, leaving Diana to do most of the talking. It's late, so I'm only going to relate the most interesting bits I can remember:
* Took years for the film to get made. Not unusual, in Hollywood. They could get directors and they could get funding, but they could never get both Jack and Ennis cast at the same time. Young actors would read the script, let them know they loved it, but then just sort of drift away. Diana thinks their agents scared them off. Joaquin Phoenix was attached to the project for awhile as Jack, but they couldn't cast an Ennis.
* Diana was watching Monster's Ball one night, and thought Heath would make a perfect Ennis. She convinced Larry to watch the film (he seldom watches films anymore), he watched the movie thru Heath's last scene, then turned it off after he agreed they'd found Ennis. Diana says it's something that goes on behind his eyes that makes him Ennis, which I agree with.
* One audience member said they couldn't see how Jack could feel loved by Ennis. Diana said she felt the love was obvious, plain as daylight, if you know how to read a man like Ennis. I couldn't agree more with this statement. I've also seen people say they couldn't see the love between Ennis and Jack. For me watching the film tonight, I could see it with every twitch of Ledger's face, every glance of his eyes. The love, the fear, the shame . . . it's as brilliant as the 4th of July fireworks. It amazes me there are people in this world who can't see it - it's like they're emotionally blind and don't know it. All I could think was how awful it must be to go thru life that way!
* Another question concerned Jack's death. Was it an accident, or was he murdered. Diana conclusively stated that the flash we see in the film was what Ennis imagined in his head. She'd like to believe Jack truly was killed by the exploding tire, but even she and Larry don't know for certain. Ennis may well have been correct to suspect the worst.
* On a related note, Jack was not killed by his father in law or his wife or any other character we knew in the film. Both Larry and Diana asserted that the father in law was dead already by the time Jack died. Amateur Jessica Fletchers can put away their notepads.
* An older gay man in the audience asked Larry and Diana how they so perfectly understood what it could be like to grow up gay in a rural community 40 years ago, as he felt they'd documented the experience perfectly. Larry indicated they hadn't done any research, and Diana said they'd drawn on their own rural western experience and let the characters and the story take them where they logically thought they should (which is much the same as Prolux has related in her interviews). As the old saying goes, artists have their insights.
It was an interesting evening. My third viewing of the film was bittersweet – I'm touched by different scenes now than I was on my prior two viewings. Teared up quite a bit for example during the scene where Jack and Ennis first talk on the mountain and Jack imitates a rodeo cowboy. I guess it comes from knowing how their life and light and liveliness is slowly, bitterly snuffed out over the course of the next 20 years by the fear and shame Ennis lets choke his heart and Jack's. I'm bringing less and less external baggage to the film now as well, instead just letting it tell its own story on its own terms. Surprisingly, the film seems to pass by faster with each viewing – the opposite of what one might expect.
