http://www.annieproulx.com/FAQs
Where did the story come from?I write almost exclusively about rural North America and rural social situations. 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.
How did you reach deep understanding of the inner characters Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar? Are Jack and Ennis based on real people you know?Again, observation, but also this writer's main card - imagination. Jack and Ennis are purely imaginary and have no connection to anyone I know. 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.
How long did it take to write the story?Roughly six months, about twice as long as it takes to write a novel.
How do you feel about the film being shot in Alberta instead of Wyoming?O.k. The Production Designer, Judy Becker, spent considerable time touring Wyoming and Texas and taking photographs that were then duplicated as much as possible by landscape in Alberta. It is cheaper to make films in Canada, and Wyoming, the least populated state, does not have the infrastructure to support a film crew with its many needs that range between contemporary technologies and good housing and transportation. It is impossible to tell the film was not made in Wyoming.
How did you feel on first seeing the film?Knocked for a loop. I had no idea of what to expect as I had had no input into the making of the film beyond some conversation with Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry when they were writing the screenplay, and a letter to Focus president James Schamus and Ang Lee begging them to keep the language of the story intact. I did not visit the set. I feared the landscape on which the story rests would be lost, that sentimentality would creep in, that explicit sexual content would be watered down. None of that happened. The film is huge and powerful. I may be the first writer in America to have a piece of writing make its way to the screen whole and entire. 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, for (hence the lie in Missouri Review ) I thought I had successfully banished them over the years. Wrong.
