A Return to Brokeback Mountain: Photos and Interviews From the Historic Hollywood Premiere was published worldwide Sept. 21, 2013, on Kindle.
On Nov. 29, 2005, I was on the red carpet for the historic Hollywood premiere of Brokeback Mountain (which actually took place at the Mann National Theater in Westwood, Calif.). Everyone in attendance that night became a part of history, helping launch a movie that would transform the lives of countless people around the world because of its profound, heart-wrenching portrayal of the costs of the living in the closet.
Here are five quotations from A Return to Brokeback Mountain: Photos and Interviews From the Historic Hollywood Premiere that I think you'll enjoy.
Annie Proulx, author of the original short story:
I have had hundreds of letters, over the eight years since the story was written, from men who said, "This is my story; you've told my life"; from other men who have said, "This is why I left Wyoming"; and, most particularly moving, from fathers who've said, "Now I know the hell my son went through."
Director Ang Lee:
It's a great piece of American literature. It's only 30 pages long, but it wrenched my guts. It's very far away from me, but it really touched me. I just love the story, and I have to do it. I can't put that out of my mind.
Producer Diana Ossana, who wrote the screenplay with Larry McMurtry:
When we put it out into the world, five days later Gus Van Sant showed up at our door.
Composer Gustavo Santaolalla:
Here the most important thing is the relationship of these two souls that, at certain point in life, meet, connect in a spiritual way, and also in a physical way, but at the end of the movie, you really come to the conclusion that this movie is really about a love story, an impossible love, and how sometimes society can't deal with that, from the outside of the world to even their own side.
Jake Gyllenhaal, who portrays Jack Twist:
They said, "Uh, we have this gay cowboy script," and I said, "Absolutely not. I don't want to have anything to do with it." And when I learned Ang Lee was going to direct it ... and the kind of passion he approaches all of his projects with, I immediately wanted to do it. And I knew that it would be about so much more than the simplification that people can kind of throw out there and laugh at....
Brokeback Mountain would go on to become the most beloved, financially successful, and critically acclaimed gay-themed film ever made, conveying the deep, undeniable humanity of authentic love, as well as the reasons for and the costs of locking that love in the darkest closets.
The book is available worldwide on Kindle at this link and may be checked out for free by subscribers to Amazon Prime.
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