In an interview in the Denver Post, Diana Ossana, who with Larry McMurtry adapted "Brokeback Mountain" and more recently the TV mini-series "Comanche Moon," was asked about the future of the Westerner as a character in fiction. Here's what she said:
"The Westerner will always be with us, in one form or another, since it's such a vital part of America's history. The notion of an adventurous loner, free of restriction, a risk-taker, someone who lives by the seat of his pants, so to speak, is integral to the romantic notion, right or wrong, of what it means to be a man in this country that it continues to exist in both literature and film: war stories; spy stories; stories about space and astronauts; even historical works, as in Ridley Scott's "Gladiator," or the neurotic criminals in "The Sopranos." And even the couple in "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" — a sort of contemporary version of "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid." . . . The Westerner will never disappear entirely from our consciousness."
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