The McMurtry Effect

Rating: 10/10 (11 January 2006)

Yes, Brokeback Mountain has a tangible, unshakable effect on its viewers. Read some of the comments here. Above all this is what viewers are left with, a depth-less feeling of loneliness, of melancholy, of indescribable loss, of deep and unhealable sadness. I saw BBM last Sunday and had to go back Monday to see it again. I could not shake the feelings the movie left me with. I felt, still feel, as if a hollow place in my chest has been opened up: a well of sadness, a universal repository of some of the core feelings of what it means to be a human being. But I recognized it. I've felt it many times before. It's the "McMurtry Effect" and it is all over his novels. Want some more of it? Read anything McMurtry wrote: Lonesome Dove, The Streets of Laredo, most importantly The Last Picture Show. Rent this movie or read the book. There again you will find it. Now whether it affects you like Brokeback Mountain is a personal thing. But McMurtry's genius is just this thing. Of course I know that Annie Proulx wrote the short story. But compare the short story to the screen play written by McMurtry and his co-writer and you will see what i mean. This is one of those rare cases in which the movie is way better than the piece of literature that spawned it.