Long Annie Proulx piece on how she felt about her short story “Brokeback Mountain” being made into a film.
On Ang Lee: “I was nervous about meeting Ang Lee, despite his reputation as a brilliant and highly skilled. Would we have anything to say to each other? Were the cultural gaps surmountable? … Later, there were some disagreements. In the written story the motel scene, after a four-year hiatus, stood as central. During their few hours in the Motel Siesta, Jack’s and Ennis’s paths were irrevocably laid out. In the film that Ang Lee already had shaped in his mind, the emotional surge contained in that scene would be better shifted to a later point and melded with the men’s painful last meeting. I didn’t understand this until I saw the film in September 2005 and recognised the power of this timing.”
And on seeing the film for the first time: “Here it was, the point that writers do not like to admit; film can be more powerful than the written word. I realised that if Ang Lee had been born in Barrow or Novosibirsk it would likely have been the same. He understands human feelings and is not afraid to walk into dangerous territory.”