BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
A Screenplay
Adapted from an Annie Proulx Story
By
Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana
February 1,
EXT: HIGHWAY: NIGHT (NEAR DA’I\’N): ;1963:
A cattle truck, running empty, tops a ridge on a lonely
western highway.
To the east, the first faint flush of light.
Across the plain, perhaps yet some twenty miles away, a
spri~kle of lights like fallen stars on the vast dark plain.
The truck roars on.
INT: TRUCK CAB: NIGHT: CONTINUOUS:
It is lighter now, but the light is high, and the olain still
mainly dark, the lights of Signal, Wyoming vivid, closer now,
perhaps five miles ahead.
Patsy Cline’s “WALKIN’ AFTER MI~NIGHT” on the radio. The
TRUCKER, inscrutable, barrels on. Cabin is hazy \dth
cigarette smoke.
In profile, WE SEE the passenger take an old mashed-up
Stetson off the dashboard.
This is ENNIS DEL MAR: not yet t”enty, but nonetheless
compelling, not light or frivolous in disposition, appearance
or manner, uncommonly quick reflexes–a high-school drop-out
country boy with no prospects, brought up to hard work and
privation, rough-mannered, rough-spoken, inured to the stoic
life. Has outgrown his faded denirr. cowboy shirt, his wrists
stick well out of the sleeves, the buttons gap.
ENNIS
(straightens the creases of the
hat, sets it on his head)
That’s Signal, ain’t it?
TRUCKER
(no conversationalist)
\vas the last time I come this way.
ENNIS looks straight ahead at the lights.
EXT: HAIN STREET: SIGNAL, WYO!HNG: DAY (LATER):
Lighter stilL
The truck stops with a screech of air brakes in front of a
service station just open:1ng for the day. An OLD MAN is
rolling a tractor tire as big as he is into the garage.
ENNIS steps out of the truck, no suitcase, just a grocery
sack stuffed wit.h his only other shirt and pair of Levi’s.
The truck moves again, almost before he hits the ground,
spraying him with dust.
Tall, raw-boned, lanky, possessed of a muscular, supple body
made for the horse and for fighting–he stretches, looks at
the OLD MAN, who looks back at him sourly. One of ENNIS’S
boot heels is worn, has to adjust for the turn of the heel as
he walks.
No one in sight on the streets of Signal.
After a moment, carrying his sack, ENNIS walks over to the
OLD }~, who is balancing the tractor tire against a pillar.
ENNIS
‘Scuse me. Mightin’ you tell me where
the Farm and Ranch Employment Office is
at?
OLD Kl\.N
(not as sour as he looks,
points)
In that there trailer house. Three
blocks down. You’ll see it.
ENNIS nods, tips his hat, starts off.
OLD MAN
Don’t let that goddamn Joe Aguirre send
you up to Brokeback without no thirtyought.
There’s coyotes and coyotes up
there, they’ll eat your damn sheep and
your damn jackass, too. With a thirtyought,
you might hold your own.
ENNIS, surprised by this torrent of words, clears his throat.
ENNIS
Sir?
The OLD MAN kicks at the tractor tire a time or two, as if
irritated it exists. Looks at ENNIS.
OLD }WJ
Where was you raised, bud?
ENNIS
Uh, sage.
OLD }WJ
Why, that ain’t hardly in Wyoming, that’s
nearly to Utah. You ain’t a damn Horman,
are you?
ENNIS
No, sir. I just never heard a no place
called Brokeback.
The OLD MAN points to a long, barren mountain to the no~th,
its upper reaches miles away, reaching well above the tree
line.
OLD MAN
Don’t vou let that damn Joe Aguirre send
you up-there with no twenty-two. Coyotes
don’t mind a twenty-two. Make sure he
gives you a thirty-ought.
Too much talk for ENNIS, who nods his thanks.
Looks up at the mountain as he walks off.
EXT: SIGNAL, WYOMING: TRAILER: DAY:
The sun is full up, though it is still early. A gentle
breeze whistles.
ENNIS sits on the steps of a dingy trailer house, a crooked
sign above the door says FARM AND RANCH EMPLOYMENT AGENCY.
Smokes, waits. Sees an old green pickup with a bad muffler
approaching, and ENNIS becomes aware that the muffler is not
the pickup’s only problem. It coughs, sputters, rattles from
several junctures as it pulls into the gravel parking lot of
the AGENCY and dies.
The driver sits a moment in the driver’s seat, then gets out
and slams the door of the pickup in disgust, looks at it much
as the OLD MAN had looked at the tractor tire.
This is JACK TWIST: like ENNIS, a rough country boy with
little education, but somewhat different in appearance and
attitude, a little less stoic, a little more of a dreamer.
More welcoming, appealing, with a quick laugh. Nineteen, not
as tall as ENNIS, more compact and muscular, thick, dark
hair, worn jeans, bullrider’s belt buckle, faded shirt,
stubbly beard, straw cowboy hat, boots worn to the quick.
Doesn’t notice EtrniS–the steps of the trailer house are
still in shade. But when he does, he stiffens a little-looks
at him–looks away.
Then the two ignore one another completely .
EXT: SIGNl’.L, WYOHING: TRAILER: DAY (L.l\.TER):
Eight a.m. The wind has picked up considerably.