Did you know that the Brokeback Mountain movie is based on a 28 page short story? What a story it is! I felt I had to hold myself back, slow myself down and read with a heightened state of awareness. Each word is purposeful and deft, creating powerful images in my mind. This isn't a story of two gay cowboys. Instead it is about the impossibility of homosexual relations in certain circles and cultures. It is two men discovering love for the first time, having not known its existence beforehand. It is about unrequited emotions, extreme homophobia and death.
This version, with essays by the author and each of the two screenwriters, was powerful. Each of their perspectives is so important in how the story came to be a movie at a time when the public was not ready for the topic. How delicately it had to be done. But how well the movie adhered to the short story. Proulx is a master.