The movie "Brokeback Mountain" may have been passed over for the dross of "Crash" by Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences voters who refused to see it (Ernest Borgnine and Tony Curtis are two who are on record as refusing to see it; the Academy requires that those voting for "best foreign language film" have seen the nominees, and should extend this requirement, IMO), but was voted the best picture of 2005 by most every critics association. It has also passed into the culture, as evidenced by various parodies, jokes, and such use of its iconography as the New Yorker cover with George W. Bush's visage replacing that of Jake Gyllenhaal and Dick Cheney (and a still-smoking hunting rifle) replacing Heath Ledger.

There are also many appreciative epinions (I would single out those by Stephen_Murray, RMHunter, Trust12345, and TheVoid99) along with some willful misunderstandings and the expected f@gbashing ones. It hardly seems necessary to note that the story (originally Annie Proulx's in The New Yorker) involves two uneducated, uncosmopolitan, poor young men, Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) in Wyoming who are hired by Joe Aguirre (Randy Quaid) to watch over a herd of sheep in the high country during the summer of 1963. Alone up there, they have a sexual relationship. Each states that he is not queer, and Jack (the bottom—which makes the recasting of the roles on the New Yorker cover all the more interesting) states that what they do is nobody else's business (a stance also taken in regard to everything about what their administration does by both Bush and Cheney...)

Having gotten into relating the plot, I might mention that Aguirre wanted one of the men to break the law and sleep out with the sheep, and only come down to a legal camping area for dinner. And that the initial sex follows heavy drinking (the old "Gee, I was drunk!" rationalization). The summer isolation might seem to be what some call "situational homosexuality" between heterosexual men. Ennis is engaged to Alma (Michelle Williams), and is certain that men who love each other can not live happily ever after — or live at all. This was a lesson that was forcibly impressed upon him as a child, when his father forced him to look at the mutilated corpse of someone who had tried.

The movie fleshs out (and I do mean this literally!) the marriages of the two after their summer of tentative love. Ennis marries Alma and they produce two daughters. They have difficulty making ends meet and although he puts job before family, Ennis does not make much money as a ranch hand.

Jack goes on the rodeo circuit (as a bull-rider) and meets Lureen, a flashy equestrian (Anne Hathaway) who comes on fast and strong to Jack. (It is not clear to me whether she was pregnant when they marry.) She is a Texas princess. Jack goes to work in the farm implement business of his father-in-law. They don't like each other and the father-in-law undercuts Jack (who seems to me to have more appreciation for his wife's labors than Ennis does for his).

After 5 years, Jack drops Ennis a postcard. When they see each other again, their passion is undimmed. In one of the bonus features, Gyllenhaal recalls that the scene was very painstakingly blocked out, as first one and then the other one propels the kissing men into the walls of a stair-well, where Alma chances to see it.

This week's "Savage Love" column includes a letter from someone who saw the movie in a predominantly gay audience and who was annoyed that the audience laughed at this. I saw the movie with an audience that was more than 2/3rds Asian American. Viewers laugh because that is the usual reaction to seeing illicit couples caught in the act on screen. As the camera stays on Alma, the audience stopped laughing, seeing the pain and horror that the man she loves loves a man.

The middle of the movie shows not only the frustration of the men (particularly Jack) that they cannot be together, but what Steve called the "collateral damage" of society's insistence that marrying and procreating will "cure" homosexual desires. This use of women without knowledge or consent doesn't just continue, but is actively promoted by charlatans' "ministries."

On-screen as off-, homophobia has multiple casualties, not just those failing to become "ex-gay." (Insofar as "gay" requires a consciousness of kind, Ennis is not at any point "gay." Jack is less completely repressed, but insofar as he develops an identification of himself based on loving Ennis, it is after he gives up trying to be "straight." Also, they are herding sheep during their summer of love, not "cowboys.")

Ennis is not at all good at love or articulation of feelings and is totally inarticulate. He is the one who has the widely quoted line "If you can't fix it, you've got to stand it."
(plot spoiling)
He is not able to transcend his virulently homophobic upbringing, which is a tragedy for him, for Jack, and for Alma... and hurts his daughter and a woman who attempts to mate with him after Alma divorces him.

Proulx's story ends with Ennis disconsolate after finding the shirt that he thought he left up on Brokeback Mountain in 1963. The movie manages to intensify Proulx's metaphor (with a second scene of two shirts in a closet), but also includes a sort of coda that offers some hope that Ennis has changed a bit, certainty that he knows what he lost and how much of the responsibility for that loss is his own, and an indication that his love for his daughter is not going to be kept locked-up in him. I don't think this dilutes the love tragedy, because it is so strongly propelled by it.

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I thought that I was going to write about the DVD features rather than provide my interpretation of the movie's storyline, but we all know what the paving of the road to hell is!

As is often the case, the bonus features overlap to a degree. There is one on "ranch boot-camp" which Ledger and Gyllenhaal went through in preparation. Their drill instructor recalls that Ledger (who is Australian and does not sound at all Australian in the movie) grew up riding horses, but in a more British style that they changed, and the Gyllenhaal learned to ride horses and to mount a rodeo bull. (Ang Lee is also shown riding and being thrown from a mechanical bull.).

There is a feature confused on Ang Lee, who is genial and full of praise for everyone involved with the movie. This is followed by one of screenwriters Diana Ossana (who co-produced the movie) and Larry McMurtry. McMurtry says that he can't write short stories and rarely reads them. Ossana pressed Proulx's story on him, and they wrote a screenplay which Lee and the actors say was well-known as the greatest unproducible screenplay around.

Ossana and McMurtry speak of using everything in Proulx's story, and it seems that every line of dialogue in the story is in the movie. They also say that what they further developed was implicit in the story, which I think is true. It seems to me that the movie is "novelistic." The story is very tight and almost exclusively focused on the thwarted love of Ennis and Jack—though Alma's big pained speech is in the story. The movie develops additional characters and shows more of the rocky married lives.

There is also a "making of" feature. Hathaway and Gyllenhaal are articulate and not just about their own characters, but about the story and the film-making process. I think that the two of them have received too little praise for their performances in the movie, though Gyllenhaal received some awards and an Oscar nomination. I don't mean to suggest that Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams did not earn the praise (and Oscar nominations) that they received. The whole ensemble is excellent. (I'd also single out Kate Mara as Alma Jr., and Randy Quaid is perfect—and also adds to the DVD an entertaining story of his own first encounter with the story.) The cinematography, both of the Alberta Rockies and the interiors (by Mexican cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, who played an uncredited role on-screen and who is fluent and comfortable in English in the bonus feature) is also excellent. So is the music (the Mexican composer Gustavo Santaolalla, who is less comfortable in English, received an Oscar for the score).

The cinema editors guild also nominated the editors (Geraldine Peroni and Dylan Tichenor) for an Eddie. They lost to the editors of "Crash," which seems far more appropriate than the best picture Oscar results. I think that the editors should have cut a bit more, including the 4th of July fireworks scene—it looks good, and would have been a fine addition to the DVD IMO.

The DVD does not include a commentary track. I have enjoyed Ang Lee's commentary tracks on Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Hulk and (this week) the writers' discussion on "Jarhead" (a DVD which also has very articulate discussion from Jake Gyllenhaal). If Lee feels he has said what he has to say about the movie, I'd have liked a commentary track of Annie Proulx and Rodrigo Prieto about their processes.)

P.S. Gyllenhaal twice recalls being puzzled by Ang Lee telling him that Jack and (I think) Lurleen go together like milk and water. This is a direct translation of a Chinese metaphor. Milk and water mix easily without lumps (or sparks, etc.) and unlike oil and water, which do not mix.


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD