A new book of essays on
Brokeback Mountain is apparently due to come out in May. Here is some information about it:
The Brokeback Book: From Story to Cultural Phenomenon
Edited by William R. Handley
paperback
2011. 400 pp.
13 illustrations
978-0-8032-2664-7
$24.95 t
Expected Availability 5/1/2011
http://www.nebraskapress.unl.edu/product/Brokeback-Book,674771.aspx An American Western made by a Taiwanese director and filmed in Canada, Brokeback Mountain was a global cultural phenomenon even before it became the highest grossing gay-themed drama in film history. Few films have inspired as much passion and debate, or produced as many contradictory responses, from online homage to late-night parody. In this wide-ranging and incisive collection, writers, journalists, scholars, and ordinary viewers explore the film and Annie Proulx’s original story as well as their ongoing cultural and political significance. The contributors situate Brokeback Mountain in relation to gay civil rights, the cinematic and literary Western, the Chinese value of forbearance, male melodrama, and urban and rural working lives across generations and genders.
The Brokeback Book builds on earlier debates by novelist David Leavitt, critic Daniel Mendelsohn, producer James Schamus, and film reviewer Kenneth Turan with new and noteworthy interpretations of the Brokeback phenomenon, the film, and its legacy. Also appearing in print for the first time is Michael Silverblatt’s interview with Annie Proulx about the story she wrote and the film it became.
William R. Handley is an associate professor of English at the University of Southern California. He is the author of Marriage, Violence, and Nation in the American Literary West and the coeditor, with Nathaniel Lewis, of True West: Authenticity and the American West, available in a Bison Books edition.
Contributors: Martin Aguilera, Calvin Bedient, Colin Carman, Alan Dale, Jon Davies, Chris Freeman, Judith Halberstam, William R. Handley, Gregory Hinton, Andrew Holleran, Alex Hunt, David Leavitt, Mun-Hou Lo, Susan McCabe, Daniel Mendelsohn, James Morrison, Vanessa Osborne, Annie Proulx, James Schamus, Michael Silverblatt, Adam Sonstegard, Noah Tsika, Kenneth Turan, Patricia Nell Warren, and David Weiss.
“There’s a Chinese saying, that you throw a brick to attract jade. So it is that the most precious thing about filmmaking—the reactions of the viewers—is entirely out of the hands of the filmmakers. We set out to make one film with Brokeback Mountain, and in return, we got an overwhelming number of reactions that we never expected from moviegoers who saw themselves, or the other, or both, reflected on the big screen. There is a whole range of Brokeback Mountains, many of which are explored in the fascinating, sometimes contradictory, and always passionate essays in this book.”—Ang Lee, Academy Award–winning director of Brokeback Mountain
“Enlightening and provocative, The Brokeback Book is an outstanding collection of personal and scholarly essays. It’s an indispensable guide to a cultural milestone of our time.”—Robert Sklar, author of Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies
“This extraordinary collection allows us to understand Brokeback Mountain as a social phenomenon, a revisionist Western, a classic love story, and a deeply transformative experience for millions of gay and lesbian viewers. The best movies do more than entertain—they alter the course of cultural history. The Brokeback Book shows us how and why Brokeback Mountain achieved just that.”—Christopher Kelly, film critic for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and Texas Monthly
“This book itself is a cultural phenomenon. William Handley has assembled a stellar cast of hard-riding contributors and a rich array of takes on the story, film, and ‘event.’ Two dozen essays and a multitude of points of view—from Marxist to genderqueer to creative insider, shaped both in the immediacy of the film’s release and with analytic hindsight—demonstrate eloquently why American culture won’t know how to quit this momentous narrative for many generations to come.”—Thomas Waugh, Research Chair in Sexual Representation and Documentary, Concordia University, Montreal Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema.
