BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN Screenplay

 It's Sunday, Nov. 27th. Director Ang Lee's 2005 masterpiece, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, makes it premiere tonight -- uncut and commercial free -- at 10p ET on TCM (cable's Turner Classic Movies). It follows a brief discussion from the TCM host and a guest about the film's social impact and relevance. The screenplay is based on a short story by Annie Proulx, a story that first appeared in The New Yorker Magazine in 1997. I thought BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN would win the Oscar for Best Picture. I'm sure a lot of other people did too. It lost to CRASH. Ang Lee won for Best Director. His film took home Oscars for Best Adapted Screenplay, a screenplay co-written by Larry McMurtry. Novelist Larry McMurtry wrote HORSEMAN, PASS BY which became the basis for the movie, HUD, starring Paul Newman. He also wrote THE LAST PICTURE SHOW and TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, both novels turned into acclaimed films.,

I first heard about BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN from a guy at Crunch gym in my New York City neighborhood. He'd been on a treadmill reading the gym's copy of The New York Magazine, the publication in which the short story appeared. The short story had gotten lots of buzz. That came up in our brief chat. His comment on the story was, "Don't make the mistake I did. Don't read it in public. Read it at home." Of course, that made me curious. I bought a copy of the magazine, took it home and read Annie Proulx's short story. One can read the story within a half-hour. I got to a certain passage near the end of the engrossing tale of two men in love and burst out crying at one heartbreaking, unexpected revelation. Two men of minimal education in Wyoming in the 1960s and a love that continues as they enter into socially-approved traditional marriages that increase their emotional deprivation. The next time I saw that guy at the gym, I told him I wept reading the story. He smiled and replied "The same thing happened to me -- only I was sitting by myself in a diner."

To me, the screenplay is just as moving, just as brilliant as the short story. Annie Proulx did not work on the screenplay, by the way. Ang Lee's BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is in the category with TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD and THE ACCIDENTAL TOURIST -- movies that are faithful to their literary source. The way in which the BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN screenwriters expanded the story to show the 20 years that progressed in the lives of Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar is a master class in screenwriting. Not only is the screenplay faithful, it improves a small detail at the end with the placement of two shirts. That piece of visual business in the movie made me gasp. Such an inspired, memorable, subtle change. The film is brilliantly directed, acted and written.

When BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN was in theatrical release, there was a book available that contained the Annie Proulx short story and the film's screenplay. If that book is still available, if you're interested in being a screenwriter, get that book. See if you can purchase it or look for it in a library. For aspiring film writers, it's a great instructional item. It makes one wonder why Hollywood doesn't seek more good short stories to turn in new films.

Heath Ledger received an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Jake Gyllenhaal was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Michelle Williams was up for Best Supporting Actress. Gyllenhaal won the BAFTA (Britain's Oscar equivalent) for Best Supporting Actor.

Ledger, an extremely gifted Australian actor, followed that stunning performance by playing the Joker in the 2008 Batman story, THE DARK KNIGHT. We lost Ledger way too soon, at age 28. His performance in THE DARK KNIGHT brought him a posthumous Oscar for Best Supporting Actor.