Close Range

I was a confused, closeted, and in-denial 16-year-old when this movie came out, and didn't allow myself to come anywhere near it for a multitude of illogical and self-destructive reasons. I still haven't seen it, and everything I knew about it was just ascertained over the years through general pop culture and social media osmosis. Now that I'm a fully self-realized adult who isn't at war with himself and seeing that this year was the 20-year anniversary, I figured I'd finally see what the fuss was about. And oof... This got me good.

I had no idea the original source material was so short, not even a hundred pages long, but the author manages to fit an entire lifetime into those pages. The prose is pretty minimal and leaves space for a majority of the text to be direct dialogue between characters, which I'm always a fan of. These western accents were also (I'm guessing) fairly authentic because some lines were nigh incomprehensible to my northeast dialect. The central conflict is distinct and clear and ultimately insurmountable, but I'm not upset that these characters "failed" because I understand their fears and motivations on a personal level.

I could easily envision a more formal, fleshed-out version of this story lengthened into a novella or even a proper novel, but I can't help but be impressed at how efficiently the author accomplished what she did with the short runway she gave herself that I don't think lengthening it would've necessarily made it better. That I got so emotionally invested so quickly speaks to her skill as a writer.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to cry thinking about the bedroom closet scene again...

Ich wollte eigentlich die ganze Zeit vier Sterne geben, weil ich alle Geschichten gern gelesen habe und die Erzähltechnik gut fand, es wird nicht zu viel und nicht zu wenig gesagt. Bei den meisten hatte ich bis kurz vor dem Schluss noch keine Ahnung, wo die Geschichte hinsteuert und worum es letztlich gehen würde. Aber am Ende hatte ich doch die wortkargen Männer in karierten Hemden satt, und speziell "Brokeback Mountain", die letzte Geschichte im Buch, fand ich unplausibel, sowohl die "wahre ewige Liebe fürs Leben"-Idee als auch die Dialoge und dramatischen Gesten.