The past few years have offered several examples of high-quality book to film adaptations that have gone on to be nominated for prestigious awards--there's even a special Oscar category for a movie that's been adapted from another narrative form. One of these adaptations is Brokeback Mountain (2005).
Short Story to Screenplay
Brokeback Mountain began life as a short story at the end of Annie Proulx's omnibus collection Wyoming Stories. Briefly told, the story nevertheless contains considerable opportunity for expansion and additional narrative detail without straying from the basic storyline. In their screenplay adaptation, this is exactly what Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana did.
The challenges of adapting a short story into a two-hour (or longer) movie are almost the opposite of those faced when adapting a novel. The story told in a novel can be complex, with many plotlines weaving in and out of each other, providing the screenwriter with an often difficult choice of what to cut and what to leave in. Streamlining a novel to fit into the constraints of a screenplay-length narrative is usually an exercise in almost brutal condensation.
Short stories, on the other hand, offer much less source material to start with. Proulx's story summarizes large portions of the lives and relationships of Jack and Ennis, leaving much to the reader's imagination. In the screenplay, many of these incidents are spelled out in more detail. The men's marriages and relationships with their wives and wives' families, Jack's sojourns to Mexico, and other elements of their lives when they're not together are given more attention in the movie. Still, the screenplay stays on track with the story as Proulx presents it. Some details are extrapolated or added, but for the most part the screenplay expansion grows organically from the source material. Because Proulx leaves a clear road map for her characters, McMurtry and Ossana were able to fill in the details along that throughline, and did a compelling job of it.
Industry Awards and Accolades
The high quality of this screen adaptation didn't escape the notice of moviegoers or the industry. Brokeback grossed $178 million worldwide, and received a total of 71 awards and another 52 nominations. These awards included:
- Oscars for Best Director, Best Score, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Brokeback was nominated for best picture but this award went to the ensemble film Crash.
- Golden Globes for Best Motion Picture--Drama, Best Song, Best Screenplay and Best Director
- BAFTA Awards for Best Director, Best Film, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor for Jake Gyllenhaal
Overall, Brokeback Mountain is a prime example of not only a high quality and extremely well-produced movie, but of a successful faithful adaptation of its source material.
Related Articles: Book to Movie--Benjamin Button
