Was Brokeback Mountain ever a novel? No? Then why was it filmed like it was?
Brokeback Mountain was of course the adaptation of the short story by Annie Proulx, which was in itself a stretch of the short story form. The story was quite long and spanned over twenty years with delicate and complex subplots throughout. The movie adaptation took this and ran, making the slightly more subtle drama between Ennis and his daughter Alma Jr into a very obvious subplot, for example. Or take the scene of the Thanksgiving dinner that has Jack and his family with all the drama that ensues between him and his wife's father. I don't even recall that in the story.
The film was a direct adaptation of the short story; everything that was in the story was in the film. But the additions to the film almost made it feel like the director was trying to add content to extend the running time of the film. Not that the scenes weren't done well. They were, and beautifully, which brings me to the photography and cinematography.
The film was bloody gorgeous. The best shot was of Ennis, fists at the ready, with a full fireworks display illuminating him. Wonderful shot! The mountains featured reminded me of last summer, when I spent around eight weeks in the Beartooth Mountains of Montana and the desert at there feet. In fact, I would wager that the images of Brokeback Mountain, with its twin peaks, are shots of the famous Pilot and Index Peaks in Beartooth Pass. The scenes featuring the mountains made me want to go back even more so. The director made sure to capture the bone-piercing cold of the alpine tundra in that part of Montana and Wyoming.
All in all, I would say that the film, while having beautiful shots of the most beautiful place on Earth, is not my cup of tea, or whiskey as the case may be. Though I feel the film was a great work of drama and a great work of romance, I don't really feel like I would want to ever voluntarily watch the film again. I enjoyed it, but I was not exactly excited to see how it would end.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Brokeback Mountain
I was reluctant to read the story. I admit it. I feared graphic descriptions and I feared that being a cowboy story, I would not even get into it. Well, my fears were justified in many regards, but the story itself, and I mean the core plot, is actually really, really nice and well done.
Brokeback Mountain is the story of two cowboys, Jack and Ennis who, while on a sheep herding job, fall in love with each other after a one night stand in the mountains described in vivid detail. The men part ways and get married. However, Jack reveals to Ennis that he would be coming into town. The men meet outside Ennis' apartment and passionately kiss, and all while Ennis' wife is watching. They have more sex after a night of drinking and, though they don't admit it, they fall in love with each other.
They end up meeting up for "fishing trips", and Ennis' wife gets fed up with the whole ordeal. She and Ennis divorce, and Ennis gets into a fierce arguement with Jack. Later on, Ennis sends a postcard to Jack, but it returns stamped DECEASED. Jack, it seems, was killed changing a tire which exploded, bashing in his face. But Ennis knows deep inside that he was probably murdered as he had seen the aftermath of a murder his own father had committed against an older homosexual man.
Ennis travels to request Jack's ashes which he willed would be scattered on Brokeback Mountain. Jack's parents refuse, or rather his father refuses. His mother invites him into Jack's old room where Ennis discovers two shirts tucked into one another: his own and Jack's. In the end, he sets up a little shrine to his lover with a postcard of the mountain and the shirts.
I am surprised how much I actually enjoyed the core plot. But the story was written in a way that it encompassed over twenty years, and Jack and Ennis are easily confused for one another. I had trouble keeping up with who was who.
I really don't think that it was necessary for the author to describe the sexual acts so vividly. It would have taken much less than what she wrote to convey the same things about the men.
I am definitely hesitant to see the film. Apparently, the story was adapted exactly as it was written. I hope the director had enough sense to use less graphic imagery.
Brokeback Mountain is the story of two cowboys, Jack and Ennis who, while on a sheep herding job, fall in love with each other after a one night stand in the mountains described in vivid detail. The men part ways and get married. However, Jack reveals to Ennis that he would be coming into town. The men meet outside Ennis' apartment and passionately kiss, and all while Ennis' wife is watching. They have more sex after a night of drinking and, though they don't admit it, they fall in love with each other.
They end up meeting up for "fishing trips", and Ennis' wife gets fed up with the whole ordeal. She and Ennis divorce, and Ennis gets into a fierce arguement with Jack. Later on, Ennis sends a postcard to Jack, but it returns stamped DECEASED. Jack, it seems, was killed changing a tire which exploded, bashing in his face. But Ennis knows deep inside that he was probably murdered as he had seen the aftermath of a murder his own father had committed against an older homosexual man.
Ennis travels to request Jack's ashes which he willed would be scattered on Brokeback Mountain. Jack's parents refuse, or rather his father refuses. His mother invites him into Jack's old room where Ennis discovers two shirts tucked into one another: his own and Jack's. In the end, he sets up a little shrine to his lover with a postcard of the mountain and the shirts.
I am surprised how much I actually enjoyed the core plot. But the story was written in a way that it encompassed over twenty years, and Jack and Ennis are easily confused for one another. I had trouble keeping up with who was who.
I really don't think that it was necessary for the author to describe the sexual acts so vividly. It would have taken much less than what she wrote to convey the same things about the men.
I am definitely hesitant to see the film. Apparently, the story was adapted exactly as it was written. I hope the director had enough sense to use less graphic imagery.
Carver Menagerie
I am combining the two stories plus the movie into one blog.
I read the first short of the two Raymond Carver pieces and was nowhere near impressed. The title is "Jerry and Molly and Sam", and I have sudden flashbacks to Faulkner's "Tomorrow". What a useless title.
A man is having an affair, his kids drive him nuts, and the dog... The dog drives him over the edge. He decides to take the dog out and drop it off somewhere, but once home he has a sort of "What the hell am I doing" moment in which he goes back out after the dog. He sees the critter, tries to catch it, but it runs off anyway.
And that's it. No Jerry or Molly or Sam to speak of.
I understand Raymond Carver is one of the legends of the American short story, but I honestly don't see why. The writing style is a bit dry, and I could not really get into the story. Granted, I commend him for writing about Average Joe from Anytown, USA, but the stories are really not that interesting.
The next piece, "A Small, Good Thing", is interesting at first. But then, like a lead balloon, falls to the depths of depression. It starts out with a kid getting hit by a car, on the very day of his birthday. His mother and father are with him up to the point at which he passes away. The mother had prior to the accident ordered a birthday cake. Of course, she couldn't pick it up as her son was in the hospital. So, the baker calls the parents day and night in anger.
After the boy, Scotty, passes away, the parents realize who continuously calls them. They go to the bakery and confront the baker. They exchange some angry words, after which they reconcile and share hot rolls and coffee together with the baker, who tells them his own sap story in a very overdone monologue in which he begs forgiveness.
Carver lays it on pretty thick. I don't know why, perhaps its the depression of it all, but I must say that I liked the previous Carver bit better then this one. The way that he works the melodrama in like an angry baker kneading bread dough is too over-the-top for me to enjoy this work. The characters move from your everyday vernacular to well formed, grammatically meticulous sentences that make his Average Joe and Jane sound like an example from a textbook, and it seems Carver can't decide how his characters should speak.
And now we come to the big one. The single film encompassing nine of Raymond Carvers "Biggest Hits": Short Cuts.
The film is a compilation of a collection of Raymond Carver pieces shot in a way that all of the stories intertwine in one way or another. All the characters interact with other characters from other stories. This concept is pretty cool, and I thought that the screenwriter would bring it all together into a nice, smooth flick. However, there are so many stories with so many characters (twenty-two of them!) that the movie ends up being three hours of confusion. It would have been better off, I think, to have used only three or four stories rather than nine. The confusion would have been less, and the writers would have been able to expand upon the individual characters more thoroughly than director Robert Altman did. As it stands, the characters are not at all fleshed out and are pretty one-dimensional, something that I feel is a shame given the potential for making them into complex rather than confusing characters.
The film Short Cuts was set loose upon the general public in 1993, and it shows. The camera pans, the zooming for dramatic effect, that annoying thing I call the "soap opera stare". The opening sequence featering chemical-spraying helicopters is on its own a full-length motion picture, and it never seems to end. The emphasis on the "medfly" had me thinking that it would play some sort of major role in the story. It doesn't. They kill those off in the opening helicopter scenes, and no more medflys showed themselves in the rest of the movie.
The film features an all-star cast, even bringing in legend Jack Lemon. But the film time is so minimal for each actor due to there being so many of them that you only get short bits of screen time with them. Tom Waits' character, my favorite of the film, gets so much less than he could have had, likely producing, like I said, a much more one-dimensional character.
I must say that, despite the negative qualities of the film, that it wasn't the worst thing I have ever seen. It could have been so much better though.
I read the first short of the two Raymond Carver pieces and was nowhere near impressed. The title is "Jerry and Molly and Sam", and I have sudden flashbacks to Faulkner's "Tomorrow". What a useless title.
A man is having an affair, his kids drive him nuts, and the dog... The dog drives him over the edge. He decides to take the dog out and drop it off somewhere, but once home he has a sort of "What the hell am I doing" moment in which he goes back out after the dog. He sees the critter, tries to catch it, but it runs off anyway.
And that's it. No Jerry or Molly or Sam to speak of.
I understand Raymond Carver is one of the legends of the American short story, but I honestly don't see why. The writing style is a bit dry, and I could not really get into the story. Granted, I commend him for writing about Average Joe from Anytown, USA, but the stories are really not that interesting.
The next piece, "A Small, Good Thing", is interesting at first. But then, like a lead balloon, falls to the depths of depression. It starts out with a kid getting hit by a car, on the very day of his birthday. His mother and father are with him up to the point at which he passes away. The mother had prior to the accident ordered a birthday cake. Of course, she couldn't pick it up as her son was in the hospital. So, the baker calls the parents day and night in anger.
After the boy, Scotty, passes away, the parents realize who continuously calls them. They go to the bakery and confront the baker. They exchange some angry words, after which they reconcile and share hot rolls and coffee together with the baker, who tells them his own sap story in a very overdone monologue in which he begs forgiveness.
Carver lays it on pretty thick. I don't know why, perhaps its the depression of it all, but I must say that I liked the previous Carver bit better then this one. The way that he works the melodrama in like an angry baker kneading bread dough is too over-the-top for me to enjoy this work. The characters move from your everyday vernacular to well formed, grammatically meticulous sentences that make his Average Joe and Jane sound like an example from a textbook, and it seems Carver can't decide how his characters should speak.
And now we come to the big one. The single film encompassing nine of Raymond Carvers "Biggest Hits": Short Cuts.
The film is a compilation of a collection of Raymond Carver pieces shot in a way that all of the stories intertwine in one way or another. All the characters interact with other characters from other stories. This concept is pretty cool, and I thought that the screenwriter would bring it all together into a nice, smooth flick. However, there are so many stories with so many characters (twenty-two of them!) that the movie ends up being three hours of confusion. It would have been better off, I think, to have used only three or four stories rather than nine. The confusion would have been less, and the writers would have been able to expand upon the individual characters more thoroughly than director Robert Altman did. As it stands, the characters are not at all fleshed out and are pretty one-dimensional, something that I feel is a shame given the potential for making them into complex rather than confusing characters.
The film Short Cuts was set loose upon the general public in 1993, and it shows. The camera pans, the zooming for dramatic effect, that annoying thing I call the "soap opera stare". The opening sequence featering chemical-spraying helicopters is on its own a full-length motion picture, and it never seems to end. The emphasis on the "medfly" had me thinking that it would play some sort of major role in the story. It doesn't. They kill those off in the opening helicopter scenes, and no more medflys showed themselves in the rest of the movie.
The film features an all-star cast, even bringing in legend Jack Lemon. But the film time is so minimal for each actor due to there being so many of them that you only get short bits of screen time with them. Tom Waits' character, my favorite of the film, gets so much less than he could have had, likely producing, like I said, a much more one-dimensional character.
I must say that, despite the negative qualities of the film, that it wasn't the worst thing I have ever seen. It could have been so much better though.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
"The Sky is Gray" PBS Version
Hey, not bad. Could be worse, I guess. The adaptation of Ernest Gaines' "The Sky is Gray" was described by one classmate as lackluster, but I think I have to disagree. It's just... gray.
The film was produced by PBS sometime in the '80s, but don't let the time period/producers fool you: the acting and overall appearance of the film aren't that bad. In fact, I was impressed by the adaptation of the short story to film.
The film is a nearly one to one adaptation. The characters are all there, and nearly every piece of dialogue is there in the order in which it is presented in the story. Minor details of the story are even presented, such as the fact that the three white men in the hardware store are speaking French Creole. The people are portrayed in almost the same way as in the story, with some of the clothing being different, and the birds in the traps are not redbirds, either. The town name Bayonne I believe is not mentioned, and it isn't actively sleeting in the film. That pretty much covers all of the differences. This is truly a one to one adaptation, something I have really never experienced.
I have seen better acting, but this is pretty fair. The personalities that Gaines imbibes his characters with are well portrayed by the actors. In fact, the actress portraying James' mother made her even more imposing than in the story, with the way she holds herself, her mannerisms. James also, is done well in my opinion, though it would have been nice to have heard some of his internal dialogue.
I am having a hard time deciding which scenes I would deem my favorites. It is a three-way-draw between the bird scene, Monsieur Bayonne's Catholic Cure scene, and the dentist scene. I like the dentist scene in particular as it portrays not only the thoughts of African Americans of the day, but it also fits well in our own contemporary culture, in which close-mindedness has been rife and people have been trying to turn away from it.
This film isn't on my "Gotta Have It" list, but it's not a bad film by a long shot. In fact, it's really quite good.
The film was produced by PBS sometime in the '80s, but don't let the time period/producers fool you: the acting and overall appearance of the film aren't that bad. In fact, I was impressed by the adaptation of the short story to film.
The film is a nearly one to one adaptation. The characters are all there, and nearly every piece of dialogue is there in the order in which it is presented in the story. Minor details of the story are even presented, such as the fact that the three white men in the hardware store are speaking French Creole. The people are portrayed in almost the same way as in the story, with some of the clothing being different, and the birds in the traps are not redbirds, either. The town name Bayonne I believe is not mentioned, and it isn't actively sleeting in the film. That pretty much covers all of the differences. This is truly a one to one adaptation, something I have really never experienced.
I have seen better acting, but this is pretty fair. The personalities that Gaines imbibes his characters with are well portrayed by the actors. In fact, the actress portraying James' mother made her even more imposing than in the story, with the way she holds herself, her mannerisms. James also, is done well in my opinion, though it would have been nice to have heard some of his internal dialogue.
I am having a hard time deciding which scenes I would deem my favorites. It is a three-way-draw between the bird scene, Monsieur Bayonne's Catholic Cure scene, and the dentist scene. I like the dentist scene in particular as it portrays not only the thoughts of African Americans of the day, but it also fits well in our own contemporary culture, in which close-mindedness has been rife and people have been trying to turn away from it.
This film isn't on my "Gotta Have It" list, but it's not a bad film by a long shot. In fact, it's really quite good.
Ernest Gaines' "The Sky is Gray"
So maybe it was the opening dialog's way of putting the dialect of English spoken in the South. Or perhaps I was still getting over the trauma of Faulkner's "Tomorrow". Whatever the case may be, when I read the first sentences of this awesome work, I gave up on it. Prematurely in fact. I guess I was afraid of reading more "Suth'n" material.
I picked the piece up again at about ten at night. Needed to get it read for the next days class in any event. Now, I didn't know anything of Ernest Gaines. Hadn't heard of the man or his works. Ignorance certainly isn't bliss. As I read through, I kept getting more and more drawn into the story, and before I knew it, it was over. "Huh," I thought. "Is that it? Isn't there anymore?" Nope. that was it. And I was disappointed.
So anyway, this is a great short story. The way it is written in the particular dialect it is written in is really quite amazing. You really never read anything written in anything other than Standard American English these days, but Gaines pulls it off quite nicely.
I like this one, and I must say I think I like it better than "Memento Mori".
I picked the piece up again at about ten at night. Needed to get it read for the next days class in any event. Now, I didn't know anything of Ernest Gaines. Hadn't heard of the man or his works. Ignorance certainly isn't bliss. As I read through, I kept getting more and more drawn into the story, and before I knew it, it was over. "Huh," I thought. "Is that it? Isn't there anymore?" Nope. that was it. And I was disappointed.
So anyway, this is a great short story. The way it is written in the particular dialect it is written in is really quite amazing. You really never read anything written in anything other than Standard American English these days, but Gaines pulls it off quite nicely.
I like this one, and I must say I think I like it better than "Memento Mori".
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.
And I thought the short story that this movie was based on was boring...
Here we have the same plot as the short story, plus an additional hour of the main character, Jackson Fentry, and his daily life, plus the relationship that he builds with homely Sarah (or "Sayrah", as he puts it.) The climax comes when the Sarah's "kin" comes to take away the boy, JacksonAndLongstreet Fentry.
The acting is, how should I put this, not up to par with what was being produced at the time. Robert Duvall, as Jackson Fentry, has said that this was his favorite role. Well, it may have been his favorite, but it certainly wasn't the best. The Deep Southern accent is so over-the-top, so over done, so overly, well, Southern, that I couldn't take anything in this flick seriously. Now if the voices that actors utilize in a film turn you off to it, this isn't good. The actors tried their damnedest to pull it off, I could tell. However, they failed. In my opinion that is...
The music, when here was any, didn't seem to fit. Sure it was southern, but why substitute quality for substance? A simple guitar would have sufficed instead of "Dueling Banjos Redux". The film could also have done with music in the dull middle bits of the film to at least give it something to pay attention to. Speaking of which, what happened to the narration? The beginning and end are rife with it, but that dastardly middle has nothing. No hint of it.
At least this version explains the title. Experiencing the hard life, day in, day out. "Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow."
Here we have the same plot as the short story, plus an additional hour of the main character, Jackson Fentry, and his daily life, plus the relationship that he builds with homely Sarah (or "Sayrah", as he puts it.) The climax comes when the Sarah's "kin" comes to take away the boy, JacksonAndLongstreet Fentry.
The acting is, how should I put this, not up to par with what was being produced at the time. Robert Duvall, as Jackson Fentry, has said that this was his favorite role. Well, it may have been his favorite, but it certainly wasn't the best. The Deep Southern accent is so over-the-top, so over done, so overly, well, Southern, that I couldn't take anything in this flick seriously. Now if the voices that actors utilize in a film turn you off to it, this isn't good. The actors tried their damnedest to pull it off, I could tell. However, they failed. In my opinion that is...
The music, when here was any, didn't seem to fit. Sure it was southern, but why substitute quality for substance? A simple guitar would have sufficed instead of "Dueling Banjos Redux". The film could also have done with music in the dull middle bits of the film to at least give it something to pay attention to. Speaking of which, what happened to the narration? The beginning and end are rife with it, but that dastardly middle has nothing. No hint of it.
At least this version explains the title. Experiencing the hard life, day in, day out. "Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow."
Tomorrow
Wow. How very... dull.
This may sound harsh, but I think the best way to describe William Faulkner's "Tomorrow" is that it is the lovechild of "Judge Judy" and "Beverly Hillbillies". Granted, that is a very immature way of putting it, but give me a break.
To summarize, it is sort of a courtroom drama concerning a young lass whose husband gets her pregnant and scrams. A local farmer feels pity on her and takes her in. She dies soon after childbirth, and he takes care of the child, whom he raises. The kid grows up, gets in trouble, and here we have "Tomorrow". Not very complex, is it?
This is one of the most boring stories I have ever set eyeballs to. Again, I am being harsh I think, but William Faulkner came up with better, I'm sure. I haven't read anything else of his (see also Ernest Hemingway), but I am positive he wrote something a bit more engaging.
"Tomorrow". What's in a name? For this tale, apparently nothing. This is perhaps the most arbitrary title for a story I have ever seen. I can see no reason to call the it thus, though I see no reason not to. Maybe William Faulkner thought "Huh. I guess I'll need to write a better story tomorrow."
This may sound harsh, but I think the best way to describe William Faulkner's "Tomorrow" is that it is the lovechild of "Judge Judy" and "Beverly Hillbillies". Granted, that is a very immature way of putting it, but give me a break.
To summarize, it is sort of a courtroom drama concerning a young lass whose husband gets her pregnant and scrams. A local farmer feels pity on her and takes her in. She dies soon after childbirth, and he takes care of the child, whom he raises. The kid grows up, gets in trouble, and here we have "Tomorrow". Not very complex, is it?
This is one of the most boring stories I have ever set eyeballs to. Again, I am being harsh I think, but William Faulkner came up with better, I'm sure. I haven't read anything else of his (see also Ernest Hemingway), but I am positive he wrote something a bit more engaging.
"Tomorrow". What's in a name? For this tale, apparently nothing. This is perhaps the most arbitrary title for a story I have ever seen. I can see no reason to call the it thus, though I see no reason not to. Maybe William Faulkner thought "Huh. I guess I'll need to write a better story tomorrow."
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