Adaptation of Brokeback Mountain from Short Story to Feature Film

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Recommended: Essay on literature adapted in films

Literature is a one track medium, invoking "unfixed" images that is, many specific details are supplied by the reader. On the other hand, film is a five track medium of fixed, specific images and sounds. Invariably, this fixed experience does not exactly mirror that invoked by the literary source material. Therefore, we cannot view an adaptation as a literal transposing, but should instead consider it as a kind of translation.

Yet even a casual "translation" of "Brokeback mountain`s short story " would not produce the expanded Brokeback mountain.

This is partly because any adaptation of a short story to a feature-length film will require additional material to bring it up to the required running time (Novels into Film 1957).

We can really say adapted works are less "original" than their source. He points out that many revered and respected works from such authors and auteur as Shakespeare, Copula, Kubrick, and Disney are based on earlier material, yet remain distinctly their own, unique works. Additionally, works in any media rely on the collective conventions established by their preceding works. Bluestone points out that we are rarely adapting only a single text at a time and even source texts are themselves intertexts. This intertextuality in Brokeback Mountain is most apparent when we consider its film Western elements.

Challenge of Adaptation from short story to feature film, (What is the Challenge for adapting Short story to film?)

The element of change that is most likely to strike the reader of the short story when watching the film is the fleshing out, Brokeback Mountain is faith full adaptation of Annie Proulx story into a feature film. Her’s story summarizes large portions of the lives and relationships of ...

... middle of paper ...

... Director Ang Lee is a romantic, and his realizations of the high country where the cowboys herd sheep and fall in love have a transformative effect on the story. He makes you believe those rough, crude guys might just possibly achieve passion and tenderness in those breathtaking locales.

Works Cited

Book to Movie - Brokeback Mountain - Adapting Annie Proulx's Short Story to Screenplay

http://www.suite101.com/content/book-to-movie-brokeback-mountain-a130981

Film Adaptation, Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Film_adaptation

Ralph Roughton, Psychology of the Self Online, the Significance of Brokeback Mountain

http://www.psychologyoftheself.com/newsletter/2007/roughton.htm

Suite101. Book to Movie - Brokeback Mountain (Adapting Annie Proulx's Short Story to Screenplay)

http://www.suite101.com/content/book-to-movie-brokeback-mountain-a130981

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