Brokeback Mountain Forum @ ennisjack.com
The Movie & Story => News Coverage, Reviews & Awards => Topic started by: Sitaram on Feb 13, 2006, 06:21 AM
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My friend in Portugal just sent me this.
Dont know much about it, but posting here, for your review:
http://imagehost.vendio.com/bin/viewimage.x/00000000/jackensack/ADVOCATEBBMFEB2006A.jpg?allow_track_link=1&track=0232c370f1-e657&sp=1
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(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimagehost.vendio.com%2Fbin%2Fimageserver.x%2F00000000%2Fjackensack%2FADVOCATEBBMFEB2006A.jpg&hash=3942b4af35275e9f6363ebb3f258f7aa9df291a8)
Thankx for posting
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Thanks for posting.
Is this the next issue of Advocate? Feb 28
I look forward to getting this in my mail. :) Another BBM collection.
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Well it is the date that's written on the magazine...can u scan it and share it with us when u get it..not all of it, but the best bits and pix?
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D Plizzzzzzzzzzz
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I will as soon as I get the magazine.
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i have the one with heath on the advocate, i forgot which month but they're doing another brokeback-people-related Front-Cover again? this feb? they just had heath on the front cover not too long ago
Time to head to the Barnes and noble's magazine stand again!
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(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fadvocate.com%2FuploadedImages%2Fadvocate%2Feditorial%2Fissue_covers%2FA954x300.jpg&hash=47de33874e134add94b668a9917401a88c584bba)
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Thank you very much for posting this. I am a subscriber of advocate and have not received the issue yet.
I modified the title of the topic and move it to the News Coverage. I hope it is okay with you.
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thank you
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Well it is the date that's written on the magazine...can u scan it and share it with us when u get it..not all of it, but the best bits and pix?
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D Plizzzzzzzzzzz
Want me to get 2 copies? One for me, one for U. I'll mail yours. :-*
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Well it is the date that's written on the magazine...can u scan it and share it with us when u get it..not all of it, but the best bits and pix?
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D Plizzzzzzzzzzz
Want me to get 2 copies? One for me, one for U. I'll mail yours. :-*
:-* :-* :-* :-* :-* :-* :-* :-* :-* :-* :-* :-* :-* :-* :-* :-* :-* :-* :-* :-* :-*
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Why dont we all support the gay press and buy this issue instead of depending
on someone to post the highlights?
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Why dont we all support the gay press and buy this issue instead of depending
on someone to post the highlights?
Great idea...erm..I'd love to, but they aren't selling it here ::) !
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Why dont we all support the gay press and buy this issue instead of depending
on someone to post the highlights?
Great idea...erm..I'd love to, but they aren't selling it here ::) !
I guess you missed my previous answer sister:
Want me to get 2 copies? One for me, one for U. I'll mail yours.
Just let your big bro know. Anyway's I will already have something to mail you shortly. :-*
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I guess you missed my previous answer sister:
no no I read it thank you...again :-*
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(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimagehost.vendio.com%2Fbin%2Fimageserver.x%2F00000000%2Fjackensack%2FADVOCATEBBMFEB2006A.jpg&hash=3942b4af35275e9f6363ebb3f258f7aa9df291a8)
Thankx for posting
Such a beautiful cover :) Can't wait to buy this.
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This is an extract from the cover story:
http://www.advocate.com/currentstory1_w_ektid25377.asp
The Brokeback Mountain effect
The historic cultural success of Brokeback Mountain owes much to the film’s quality and emotional power—and a little to George W. Bush and the antigay Right. But can a movie advance gay equality?
By Adam B. Vary
Excerpted from The Advocate, February 28, 2006
Brokeback Mountain
Brokeback Mountain landing page at Advocate.com
NGLTF
GLAAD
West Hollywood, Calif., resident Doug Eichler strolled into Regal Cinemas’ Avenue 13 multiplex the day after Christmas, keen to see the film his friends and neighbors (including this writer) had been raving about—the so-called gay cowboy flick Brokeback Mountain. Visiting his in-laws for the holidays, Eichler had no reason to think it would be difficult to find a seat: The Avenue 13 is in Rolling Hills Estates, a posh bedroom community on the Palos Verdes peninsula 20-odd miles south and a world away from the liberal gay enclave of West Hollywood. Voters here in 2004 favored George W. Bush by 15 percentage points.
And yet when Eichler walked into a large stadium-style theater showing Brokeback, it was absolutely packed. Eichler saw families, older married women and men, groups of teenage girls, and straight high schoolers on dates. He saw precisely one gay male couple. And he saw that the only seats left were literally in the front row. As Eichler settled in for the trailers, he couldn’t help but wonder if these people had any idea what they were about to see.
He needn’t have worried. There were no groans, no inappropriate titters, no popcorn thrown at the screen. The audience watched ranch hands Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) fall in love while herding sheep in the Wyoming mountains in 1963—and then furtively continue their romance over 20 years while marrying women and building separate families—with rapt attention. Well, save for one moment. When Ennis and Jack engaged in their first sexual encounter in a pup tent on a cold Wyoming night, a teenager sitting directly behind Eichler turned to his girlfriend and whispered, “Oh, man, he’s getting it in the butt.” His date immediately shushed him: “Shut up! It’s art.”
As the film concluded and the credits began to roll, the audience even broke into applause.
Never before has a gay-themed film been as written about, reviewed, lauded, awarded, discussed, dissected, parodied, and hyped as Brokeback Mountain, so it’s easy to forget amid this din that the film is deeply moving millions nationwide one theater and one screen at a time, communities sitting together in the dark and emotionally connecting with this story. And not just where one would expect. A theater manager in Mason City, Iowa, reported receiving a petition asking him to bring the film to his screens (he was planning to anyway). The AMC Southroads 20 in Tulsa, Okla., received thank-you calls after it started screening Brokeback on January 6; there was so much demand, in fact, the theater had to add a screen for the first few showings. Newspapers from Columbus, Ohio, to Tallahassee, Fla., to small-town Joplin, Mo., have all run stories essentially saying the same thing: Good news, folks, Brokeback Mountain is coming to town!
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Mods, please place this thread where it seems most appropriate, or link if I've missed another identical thread, or delete if inappropriate:
http://www.advocate.com/currentstory1_w.asp?id=25277 <-- and hell yes, go buy yourself multiple copies of this magazine
|| The Hollywood Issue ||
Brokeback's big secrets
Was Jack really gay-bashed? Will Ennis love again? What was Heath Ledger’s inspired addition to the script? Screenwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana take us inside their runaway hit
By Anne Stockwell
From The Advocate, February 28, 2006
If not for Diana Ossana, it’s highly doubtful we’d be cheering Brokeback Mountain on the screen. Deeply moved by Annie Proulx’s 1997 story, Ossana shared it with her celebrated writing partner Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove, The Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment, and so on). The two optioned Proulx’s work and, within weeks, finished a screenplay. Then they embarked on years of meetings with Hollywood types who said the movie would never be made. As everyone knows, Ossana and McMurtry won that battle. As awards season heads into the home stretch, they’re still winning. Speaking with The Advocate in Los Angeles—the acerbic McMurtry punctuating throughout—Ossana insists, “Larry and I never lost faith in our screenplay. I would get frustrated at times when people would tell us, ‘It’s the best script I’ve ever read.’ If that’s true, I’d think, then commit. Come on! Let’s do this thing.”
Are you surprised by audiences’ reactions to this film?
Ossana: It just makes me really happy that so many people are going to see the film and that so many are moved by it. The farther the film seems to go on the northern plains, into Sioux Falls, S.D., and Fargo, N.D., the quieter the audiences become. That’s some of the most conservative parts of the country. And those folks are going in just wanting to see a good story, and they’re just riveted to the screen. I mean, that was the point when I first read that story in 1997. I wanted to get it out in the world in some major way, and have people feel the things I felt when I read that story.
In the new annotated edition, Annie Proulx describes the man who inspired Ennis—an aging ranch hand she saw one night alone in a bar watching the young cowboys play pool. She writes, “Something in his expression, a kind of bitter longing…made me wonder if he was country gay.” In your growing up, were there people who were country gay?
McMurtry: When I was a little boy I had a cousin who was gay who was a rodeoer. I didn’t see all that much of Cousin X—
Cousin X? [Anne laughs]
McMurtry: Yes. He lived with a schoolteacher in one of the towns in Texas, near where we set Jack’s life in the film. And the first vibe I ever got, I suppose, having to do with homosexuality was when we’d go up to family reunions, my father and mother would say, “Now, please be very polite to Cousin X’s gentleman friend.” We had no reason not to be. The gentleman friend was perfectly nice. And yet there was some anxiety in my parents that somehow there would be an awkwardness or something like that. There never was. I don’t even know what happened to Cousin X and his gentleman friend. They’re old enough to have died by now.
No sense of “Be careful, Cousin X’s gentleman friend is liable to get you in a corner ”?
McMurtry: [A near-smile] The reunions were held outdoors on the great plains. There were no corners where anybody could have got us.
Ossana: I grew up in St Louis, and there were gay people in my high school. There’s an incident I remember very well. It really affected me. There were these two girls in my class. They were both very athletic, very nice girls, and they were together all the time. We just assumed they were best friends. But they did get made fun of for being queer. That’s the word everybody used back then. One girl it didn’t bother so much. The other girl, in my senior year she committed suicide.
Proulx writes that she still gets letters from people who personally relate to the characters in her story.
McMurtry: We just got a letter, very sad, from an Arizona cowboy.
Ossana: He wanted to thank us and Heath and Jake for making this film. He said he felt like he was watching his story up on the screen. He said, “You know, I’m gonna be 70, and I feel full of regret. There were a couple of men that I loved, one of whom was married and had three children. We never followed through on any of it. We just didn’t feel free to do it.”
According to Proulx, Wyoming has the highest suicide rate in the country—and most of those suicides are elderly single men. Did you two imagine Ennis’s future at all?
Ossana: I think Annie has a story somewhere about Ennis as an older man, and he winds up moving in with Alma Jr.
McMurtry: I don’t think Ennis would kill himself.
Ossana: He’s too tough. That would be a sign of weakness, and it would leave a memory of him as being weak, and I don’t think he would want that. But I do think that Ennis knows that people probably know that he’s homosexual, and emotionally [at the end of the film] I think he makes a tiny bit of progress, because he agrees to attend Alma Jr.’s wedding. Finally he compromises—
McMurtry: And doesn’t disappoint a woman.
Ossana: It’s the first time in the film that he doesn’t disappoint someone, male or female. It’s a tiny baby step, but he does it. I just don’t know how much [more] he’s capable of changing. I think if anything, he might become even more homophobic and bitter because of what he did, what he gave up, what he lost, what he’ll never have.
Ennis is convinced that Jack was murdered with a tire iron. I don’t necessarily believe it.
McMurtry: It’s what Ennis is feeling at the moment. But Lureen’s explanation is just as good. A lot of tires blow up and kill people.
Do people hope Jack wasn’t murdered? What do they believe?
Ossana: We’ve been asked that [in every interview]. You can’t believe the things we’ve heard—for example, did Lureen’s father have him killed? A reporter walked up to me and said, “What really happened? I need to know.” I said, “What do you think?” He told me, and I said, “Well, if that works for you, then good.”
Oh, that’s the most hateful writer answer.
Ossana: But even Annie will tell you it’s ambiguous to her. When you see that [flash] on the screen, we tell people that [we don’t know] what actually happened to Jack. But it’s what Ennis thinks, and he’s been set up to think that by his entire past. This was his biggest fear, that something would happen. And the tragedy is multilayered. If Jack was killed that way, the guilt that Ennis must feel—maybe if he’d taken him up on it, this wouldn’t have happened. But also the fact that he’s not sure. What is more tragic than not knowing how your loved one has died?
There’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” for you.
Ossana: So when he goes to Jack’s parents’—
McMurtry: It’s when Ennis goes there that it becomes a great movie, that it becomes a tragedy.
Ossana: The father’s talking about Jack—“Ennis Del Mar, he used to say.” The camera turns to Ennis and you see this little faint smile on his face, ’cause Jack was talking about him. Then the father says, “And then Jack was gonna bring another fellow up here.” And you go back to Ennis and his smile is gone. That’s when he realizes there was somebody else. That hurts too. But he knows in his innards that it’s his own fault. He can’t blame Jack for that anymore. And then he goes up to Jack’s room and he finds his old shirt hanging tucked inside Jack’s, and he realizes how much that man loved him—how deeply he loved him from the get-go.
I had to see the movie twice before I realized that later on, when Ennis had those shirts hanging in his trailer, he’d tucked Jack’s inside his. Did you two come up with that?
Ossana: No. That was Heath.
What’s the stupidest question you’ve been asked so far?
McMurtry: Somebody asked us if we could see ourselves writing a sequel about Ennis which has a happy ending.
Ossana: We’ve been asked so many questions, some of which have raised the hair on the back of my neck. The first time we were asked if we felt brave for doing this, I was startled. The only time I felt any fear was when my daughter was in Laramie, Wyo., when they found Matthew Shepard. This was a year after we wrote the script, and it just hit home again, how from 1963 to the late ’90s it was the same. It wasn’t any different.
Some conservative pundits are saying your film attacks the myth of the cowboy. Larry, you ought to know: Does the myth of the cowboy need preserving?
McMurtry: I’ve discovered that it’s very hard to demythicize the cowboy. It’s the most iconic American figure of all.
Ossana: To say that we’ve attacked this masculine icon just seems silly. John Wayne and his movies will always be there.
You both live in red states. When you were working on this film, did you ever think about political aftermath?
McMurtry: Never.
Ossana: People are people. We all feel emotion. Every single person on this planet, and they’d be lying if they denied it, has felt loneliness in their lives.
McMurtry: The gratifying thing is that this movie has played well in all color states, red and blue. It draws them in because millions and millions of families have some gay member, involvement, problem, something. And I think people are seeking understanding in coming to this film. We’ve tapped into the zeitgeist somehow or other. It’s something you can’t really plan—it either happens or it doesn’t happen. The zeitgeist was waiting there out of sight and we didn’t know.
Who was the Texas-hairdo consultant?
Ossana: Ang Lee and the production designer came to Texas. We took them to Wichita Falls. And Ang saw people that still looked like that, so that stayed in his and Judy Becker’s minds, I’m sure.
Let me ask you about attending the Golden Globes. Larry, I know this is not your first time at that rodeo—
McMurtry: Yes, it was my first time. I’ve never been to an awards show of any kind until then. I’ve been nominated for Oscars and stuff; I just didn’t go. I never wanted to go. Still don’t, actually. [All laugh] But this movie is special. It’s up there with Terms of Endearment—at least as good, maybe better.
When you and Diana won for Best Screenplay, you thanked your typewriter for keeping you out of the “dry embrace of the computer.” It was the most original acceptance speech I’ve heard in a long time.
McMurtry: Thank you. I’ve got a better one if we win the Oscar.
I love these people! ::Go HEATH!::
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Mods, please place this thread where it seems most appropriate, or link if I've missed another identical thread, or delete if inappropriate:
I love these people! ::Go HEATH!::
Thankx for posting this...I really liked reading their answers!
x
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Yeah, very very good post! I'll have to pay yet-another-extra attention to Heath's facial expression when Jack's dad is talking to Ennis in the kitchen next time!
I'm just glad that Ennis didn't go sour or hatred when he heard "another man". It'd really kill me if he ever blames Jack for this...
(Well, if Jack is still alive, that's another story...)
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Jack's dead. Trust me. :sad:
DO pay attention to that scene at the Twist residence. Ledger's work is riveting - his cheek twitches, his eyes well up, his lips have subtle movements, his nostrils flare, all tied to the words Ennis is hearing. THAT deserves an Oscar.
-btb
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Was Jack really gay-bashed? Will Ennis love again? What was Heath Ledger’s inspired addition to the script? Screenwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana take us inside their runaway hit.
By Anne Stockwell
From The Advocate, February 28, 2006
If not for Diana Ossana, it’s highly doubtful we’d be cheering Brokeback Mountain on the screen. Deeply moved by Annie Proulx’s 1997 story, Ossana shared it with her celebrated writing partner Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove, The Last Picture Show, Terms of Endearment, and so on). The two optioned Proulx’s work and, within weeks, finished a screenplay. Then they embarked on years of meetings with Hollywood types who said the movie would never be made. As everyone knows, Ossana and McMurtry won that battle. As awards season heads into the home stretch, they’re still winning. Speaking with The Advocate in Los Angeles—the acerbic McMurtry punctuating throughout—Ossana insists, “Larry and I never lost faith in our screenplay. I would get frustrated at times when people would tell us, ‘It’s the best script I’ve ever read.’ If that’s true, I’d think, then commit. Come on! Let’s do this thing.”
Are you surprised by audiences’ reactions to this film?
Ossana: It just makes me really happy that so many people are going to see the film and that so many are moved by it. The farther the film seems to go on the northern plains, into Sioux Falls, S.D., and Fargo, N.D., the quieter the audiences become. That’s some of the most conservative parts of the country. And those folks are going in just wanting to see a good story, and they’re just riveted to the screen. I mean, that was the point when I first read that story in 1997. I wanted to get it out in the world in some major way, and have people feel the things I felt when I read that story.
In the new annotated edition, Annie Proulx describes the man who inspired Ennis—an aging ranch hand she saw one night alone in a bar watching the young cowboys play pool. She writes, “Something in his expression, a kind of bitter longing…made me wonder if he was country gay.” In your growing up, were there people who were country gay?
McMurtry: When I was a little boy I had a cousin who was gay who was a rodeoer. I didn’t see all that much of Cousin X—
Cousin X? [Anne laughs]
McMurtry: Yes. He lived with a schoolteacher in one of the towns in Texas, near where we set Jack’s life in the film. And the first vibe I ever got, I suppose, having to do with homosexuality was when we’d go up to family reunions, my father and mother would say, “Now, please be very polite to Cousin X’s gentleman friend.” We had no reason not to be. The gentleman friend was perfectly nice. And yet there was some anxiety in my parents that somehow there would be an awkwardness or something like that. There never was. I don’t even know what happened to Cousin X and his gentleman friend. They’re old enough to have died by now.
No sense of “Be careful, Cousin X’s gentleman friend is liable to get you in a corner ”?
McMurtry: [A near-smile] The reunions were held outdoors on the great plains. There were no corners where anybody could have got us.
Ossana: I grew up in St Louis, and there were gay people in my high school. There’s an incident I remember very well. It really affected me. There were these two girls in my class. They were both very athletic, very nice girls, and they were together all the time. We just assumed they were best friends. But they did get made fun of for being queer. That’s the word everybody used back then. One girl it didn’t bother so much. The other girl, in my senior year she committed suicide.
Proulx writes that she still gets letters from people who personally relate to the characters in her story.
McMurtry: We just got a letter, very sad, from an Arizona cowboy.
Ossana: He wanted to thank us and Heath and Jake for making this film. He said he felt like he was watching his story up on the screen. He said, “You know, I’m gonna be 70, and I feel full of regret. There were a couple of men that I loved, one of whom was married and had three children. We never followed through on any of it. We just didn’t feel free to do it.”
According to Proulx, Wyoming has the highest suicide rate in the country—and most of those suicides are elderly single men. Did you two imagine Ennis’s future at all?
Ossana: I think Annie has a story somewhere about Ennis as an older man, and he winds up moving in with Alma Jr.
McMurtry: I don’t think Ennis would kill himself.
Ossana: He’s too tough. That would be a sign of weakness, and it would leave a memory of him as being weak, and I don’t think he would want that. But I do think that Ennis knows that people probably know that he’s homosexual, and emotionally [at the end of the film] I think he makes a tiny bit of progress, because he agrees to attend Alma Jr.’s wedding. Finally he compromises—
McMurtry: And doesn’t disappoint a woman.
Ossana: It’s the first time in the film that he doesn’t disappoint someone, male or female. It’s a tiny baby step, but he does it. I just don’t know how much [more] he’s capable of changing. I think if anything, he might become even more homophobic and bitter because of what he did, what he gave up, what he lost, what he’ll never have.
Ennis is convinced that Jack was murdered with a tire iron. I don’t necessarily believe it.
McMurtry: It’s what Ennis is feeling at the moment. But Lureen’s explanation is just as good. A lot of tires blow up and kill people.
Do people hope Jack wasn’t murdered? What do they believe?
Ossana: We’ve been asked that [in every interview]. You can’t believe the things we’ve heard—for example, did Lureen’s father have him killed? A reporter walked up to me and said, “What really happened? I need to know.” I said, “What do you think?” He told me, and I said, “Well, if that works for you, then good.”
Oh, that’s the most hateful writer answer.
Ossana: But even Annie will tell you it’s ambiguous to her. When you see that [flash] on the screen, we tell people that [we don’t know] what actually happened to Jack. But it’s what Ennis thinks, and he’s been set up to think that by his entire past. This was his biggest fear, that something would happen. And the tragedy is multilayered. If Jack was killed that way, the guilt that Ennis must feel—maybe if he’d taken him up on it, this wouldn’t have happened. But also the fact that he’s not sure. What is more tragic than not knowing how your loved one has died?
There’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” for you.
Ossana: So when he goes to Jack’s parents’—
McMurtry: It’s when Ennis goes there that it becomes a great movie, that it becomes a tragedy.
Ossana: The father’s talking about Jack—“Ennis Del Mar, he used to say.” The camera turns to Ennis and you see this little faint smile on his face, ’cause Jack was talking about him. Then the father says, “And then Jack was gonna bring another fellow up here.” And you go back to Ennis and his smile is gone. That’s when he realizes there was somebody else. That hurts too. But he knows in his innards that it’s his own fault. He can’t blame Jack for that anymore. And then he goes up to Jack’s room and he finds his old shirt hanging tucked inside Jack’s, and he realizes how much that man loved him—how deeply he loved him from the get-go.
I had to see the movie twice before I realized that later on, when Ennis had those shirts hanging in his trailer, he’d tucked Jack’s inside his. Did you two come up with that?
Ossana: No. That was Heath.
What’s the stupidest question you’ve been asked so far?
McMurtry: Somebody asked us if we could see ourselves writing a sequel about Ennis which has a happy ending.
Ossana: We’ve been asked so many questions, some of which have raised the hair on the back of my neck. The first time we were asked if we felt brave for doing this, I was startled. The only time I felt any fear was when my daughter was in Laramie, Wyo., when they found Matthew Shepard. This was a year after we wrote the script, and it just hit home again, how from 1963 to the late ’90s it was the same. It wasn’t any different.
Some conservative pundits are saying your film attacks the myth of the cowboy. Larry, you ought to know: Does the myth of the cowboy need preserving?
McMurtry: I’ve discovered that it’s very hard to demythicize the cowboy. It’s the most iconic American figure of all.
Ossana: To say that we’ve attacked this masculine icon just seems silly. John Wayne and his movies will always be there.
You both live in red states. When you were working on this film, did you ever think about political aftermath?
McMurtry: Never.
Ossana: People are people. We all feel emotion. Every single person on this planet, and they’d be lying if they denied it, has felt loneliness in their lives.
McMurtry: The gratifying thing is that this movie has played well in all color states, red and blue. It draws them in because millions and millions of families have some gay member, involvement, problem, something. And I think people are seeking understanding in coming to this film. We’ve tapped into the zeitgeist somehow or other. It’s something you can’t really plan—it either happens or it doesn’t happen. The zeitgeist was waiting there out of sight and we didn’t know.
Who was the Texas-hairdo consultant?
Ossana: Ang Lee and the production designer came to Texas. We took them to Wichita Falls. And Ang saw people that still looked like that, so that stayed in his and Judy Becker’s minds, I’m sure.
Let me ask you about attending the Golden Globes. Larry, I know this is not your first time at that rodeo—
McMurtry: Yes, it was my first time. I’ve never been to an awards show of any kind until then. I’ve been nominated for Oscars and stuff; I just didn’t go. I never wanted to go. Still don’t, actually. [All laugh] But this movie is special. It’s up there with Terms of Endearment—at least as good, maybe better.
When you and Diana won for Best Screenplay, you thanked your typewriter for keeping you out of the “dry embrace of the computer.” It was the most original acceptance speech I’ve heard in a long time.
McMurtry: Thank you. I’ve got a better one if we win the Oscar.
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AWW... that was great...
Heath amazes me more and more... wow..
These writers seem so cool...
Thanks for posting
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It's a great interview and confirms my feelings about how Jack died. The gay bashing was a figment of Ennis's imagination based on traumatic events in his life. Tire accidents are much more common than I thought until I did some research.
Lureen's "cold as ice" response to Ennis could just be grief. She lost the two men in her life, her father and then her husband. I'm not convinced she knew about Jack and Ennis.
A great piece of literature and/or a great movie keeps us asking questions. And from those questions we develop our own theories about the characters and events.
Just my two cents.
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Yes very good interview. I am looking forward to the better one part at the Oscar from Larry.
Thanks for posting these.
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Hey Ya'll, just read an interview that Larry McMurty and Diana Ossana gave in the 28 Feb 2006, issue of "The Advocate". In it, Anne Stockwell (article writer) asked them, "I had to see the movie twice before I realized that later on, when Ennis had those shirts hanging in his trailer, he'd tucked Jack's inside his. Did you two come up with that? Ossana: "No. That was Heath." - Like wow - I know he did an excellent job acting in the movie - but I would never have credited him with coming up with something like that. Amazing.
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"I had to see the movie twice before I realized that later on, when Ennis had those shirts hanging in his trailer, he'd tucked Jack's inside his. Did you two come up with that? Ossana: "No. That was Heath." - Like wow - I know he did an excellent job acting in the movie - but I would never have credited him with coming up with something like that. Amazing
Yup! Not only an actor, a poet too. Man, I love this guy! I'm glad Ang sticked to the idea... another poet! This little detail just got me :-\
O.k. here I go :'( :'( :'(
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Wow, I am so impressed that Heath was the one who thought about doing the shirt reversal angle. That man never ceases to impress me.
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[[/quote]
Not sure who originally posted the Advocate article,but it's an excellent read.Thankyou for sharing.I really enjoyed it and that little insight about the shirts being Heath's idea makes me love him even more.
Jennis.x
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It's a great interview and confirms my feelings about how Jack died. The gay bashing was a figment of Ennis's imagination based on traumatic events in his life. Tire accidents are much more common than I thought until I did some research.
Lureen's "cold as ice" response to Ennis could just be grief. She lost the two men in her life, her father and then her husband. I'm not convinced she knew about Jack and Ennis.
A great piece of literature and/or a great movie keeps us asking questions. And from those questions we develop our own theories about the characters and events.
Just my two cents.
I agree whole heartedly. I have another thought too about Lureen's being "cold as ice"--there is a distinct possibility that she knew or Jack had actually brought up leaving her and TX to go back to WY--even if he didn't tell her that he had someone else--or a local someone else---the very fact that if she felt she was losing him anyway, that would contribute to the bitterness of her attitude, and if she had any inkling it was for another man--that would really turn her off.
Anytime a marriage fails for whatever reason--it is period of major adjusting, and anger/bitterness--and then him getting killed and leaving her to raise the son alone,(which I never got the feeling she was really"into" ---my voice would sound as cold as ice discussing it too.
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I still don't quite see the "it was an accident" - I guess I believe Ennis too much. But the interview didn't really settle much, except that it IS ambiguous:
Ennis is convinced that Jack was murdered with a tire iron. I don’t necessarily believe it.
McMurtry: It’s what Ennis is feeling at the moment. But Lureen’s explanation is just as good. A lot of tires blow up and kill people.
** That's not a clear answer, especially if he adds that Lureen's is just as good. DO a lot of tires blow up and kill people?
Do people hope Jack wasn’t murdered? What do they believe?
Ossana: We’ve been asked that [in every interview]. You can’t believe the things we’ve heard—for example, did Lureen’s father have him killed? A reporter walked up to me and said, “What really happened? I need to know.” I said, “What do you think?” He told me, and I said, “Well, if that works for you, then good.”
**She didn't answer the question, did she?
Oh, that’s the most hateful writer answer.
**Exactly.
Ossana: But even Annie will tell you it’s ambiguous to her. When you see that [flash] on the screen, we tell people that [we don’t know] what actually happened to Jack. But it’s what Ennis thinks, and he’s been set up to think that by his entire past. This was his biggest fear, that something would happen.
**Annie does agree it's ambiguous, as does nearly every person I've talked to. Ossana doesn't know, and she kept that point ambiguous in the screenplay very well.
**Indeed. It's Ennis's conclusion, and he reaches it twice in the book, once in the movie. It may or may not have happened as he imagines, but to assume that it didn't because that makes you feel better? That's puzzling to me. To assume that it did, because that makes you hurt 'better' is also puzzling.
And the tragedy is multilayered. If Jack was killed that way, the guilt that Ennis must feel—maybe if he’d taken him up on it, this wouldn’t have happened. But also the fact that he’s not sure. What is more tragic than not knowing how your loved one has died?
**This is the 'it adds to the tragedy' line of thought that I personally favor, irrational as it is.
-backtobrokeback
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I still don't quite see the "it was an accident" - I guess I believe Ennis too much. But the interview didn't really settle much, except that it IS ambiguous:
Ennis is convinced that Jack was murdered with a tire iron. I don’t necessarily believe it.
McMurtry: It’s what Ennis is feeling at the moment. But Lureen’s explanation is just as good. A lot of tires blow up and kill people.
** That's not a clear answer, especially if he adds that Lureen's is just as good. DO a lot of tires blow up and kill people?
Do people hope Jack wasn’t murdered? What do they believe?
Ossana: We’ve been asked that [in every interview]. You can’t believe the things we’ve heard—for example, did Lureen’s father have him killed? A reporter walked up to me and said, “What really happened? I need to know.” I said, “What do you think?” He told me, and I said, “Well, if that works for you, then good.”
**She didn't answer the question, did she?
Oh, that’s the most hateful writer answer.
**Exactly.
Ossana: But even Annie will tell you it’s ambiguous to her. When you see that [flash] on the screen, we tell people that [we don’t know] what actually happened to Jack. But it’s what Ennis thinks, and he’s been set up to think that by his entire past. This was his biggest fear, that something would happen.
**Annie does agree it's ambiguous, as does nearly every person I've talked to. Ossana doesn't know, and she kept that point ambiguous in the screenplay very well.
**Indeed. It's Ennis's conclusion, and he reaches it twice in the book, once in the movie. It may or may not have happened as he imagines, but to assume that it didn't because that makes you feel better? That's puzzling to me. To assume that it did, because that makes you hurt 'better' is also puzzling.
And the tragedy is multilayered. If Jack was killed that way, the guilt that Ennis must feel—maybe if he’d taken him up on it, this wouldn’t have happened. But also the fact that he’s not sure. What is more tragic than not knowing how your loved one has died?
**This is the 'it adds to the tragedy' line of thought that I personally favor, irrational as it is.
-backtobrokeback
Since there is no resolution to Jack's death, we're left with a high level of angst. And we are left with our own theories and mine is based on the short story. The film is the screenwriters interpretation and I'd rather work with the source material that they used.
You're right, even Ennis has doubts about his own interpretation:
He didn’t know which way it was, the tire iron or a real accident, blood choking down Jack’s throat and nobody to turn him over. Under the wind drone he heard steel slamming off bone, the hollow chatter of a settling tire rim.
And the last sentence:
There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe, but nothing could be done about it, and if you can’t fix it you’ve got to stand it.
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I agree, go with the short story --- I didn't quite believe it myself until this part:
Then, this spring he's got another one's goin a come up here with him and build a place and help run the ranch, some ranch neighbor a his from down in Texas. He's goin a split up with his wife and come back here. So he says. But like most a Jack's ideas it never come to pass."
So now he knew it had been the tire iron.
Still ambiguous, sure. But I choose to believe Ennis.
btb
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[quote
Ossana: The father’s talking about Jack—“Ennis Del Mar, he used to say.” The camera turns to Ennis and you see this little faint smile on his face, ’cause Jack was talking about him. Then the father says, “And then Jack was gonna bring another fellow up here.” And you go back to Ennis and his smile is gone. That’s when he realizes there was somebody else. That hurts too. But he knows in his innards that it’s his own fault. He can’t blame Jack for that anymore. And then he goes up to Jack’s room and he finds his old shirt hanging tucked inside Jack’s, and he realizes how much that man loved him—how deeply he loved him from the get-go.
I saw that smile disappear the first time I saw the movie had to see it 2 more times to be sure. Ossana just confirmed what I thought. The subtle expressions in this movie speak volumes. Again what a film.