BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN (2005)
Direction: Ang Lee
Cast: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway, Randy Quaid, Linda Cardellini, Kate Mara
Screenplay: Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana; from E. Annie Proulx's short story
Oscar Movies, European Film Award movies
Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Brokeback Mountain
Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain is without a doubt a culturally significant motion picture. The same-sex romantic drama won numerous awards, it was discussed all over the media upon its release, and has been labeled "groundbreaking" by numerous film critics.
Of course, the fact that those critics' knowledge of film history goes as far back as Revenge of the Sith should not be held against Lee's film. Yet, except for a few touching moments in Brokeback Mountain's second half, I was unable to become fully involved in the film chiefly because I felt its central relationship — between a Wyoming ranch hand and a second-rate rodeo cowboy — remained stubbornly underdeveloped.
Although screenwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana have elongated E. Annie Proulx's terse short story considerably more than necessary — Brokeback Mountain clocks in at 134 minutes — they have failed to convey the emotional basis for the undying bond between the two men. Compounding matters, stars Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal share precious little chemistry in their moments together, thus leaving it up to the viewer's imagination to fill in the story's romantic gaps.
Besides Rodrigo Prieto's lyrical cinematography and Gustavo Santaolalla's sublimely haunting score, what helps to lift Brokeback Mountain from the realm of averageness is not its "subversive" approach to the Western genre, but its underlying theme of the high cost of a life denied.
Generally remaining quite faithful to Proulx's story, first published in The New Yorker in October 1997, McMurtry and Ossana's screenplay follows the mostly long-distance, twenty-year love affair between the stoic Ennis Del Mar (Ledger) and the lively Jack Twist (Gyllenhaal), who get acquainted while herding sheep on Wyoming's majestic (and fictitious) Brokeback Mountain in the summer of 1963. (The film was actually shot in Alberta, Canada.)
Missing from the screenplay, however, is a crucial detail found in the short story: A (however brief) description of encroaching intimacy, for Ennis and Jack fall in love after having formed a deep emotional and psychological bond — the result of several nights chatting by the campfire. In the film, Ennis is so uptight he hardly ever utters a word, and when he does talk — in a thick-as-mud drawl — he does it through his teeth, making the little he says nearly unintelligible.
Besides manly good looks, the on-screen Ennis doesn't offer much else that would justify Jack's strong attraction to him. Additionally, I saw no sparks between the two men that could have indicated any sort of mutual carnal interest. Thus, when Ennis and Jack's first moment of physical closeness comes along, I found it as gratuitous as it is absurd.
Staged like similar sequences in hardcore films — a problem also found in Proulx's story — there's little that's tentative about the sexual encounter even though it's supposed to be their first ever: Ennis, after a little necking, is all ready to go. He unbuttons his pants and penetrates Jack, who, instead of hollering in pain, takes it all in like a real Man of the West — or rather, like any number of well-rehearsed adult-film stars. Mercifully, the scene ends before Jack can moan "gun's goin' off" as he does in the story. (Those who think of sex between cowboys as a "subversive" novelty surely have never heard of gay erotica.)
The next day, Ennis and Jack are in love. Magnificent landscapes and great sex can truly work wonders in the human heart. Even so, the two young men are loath to think of themselves as "queer." But really, aside from some activists who welcome the label, who can blame them?
Once their summer job is over, Ennis and Jack part ways. During a brief reunion four years later, Jack is ready to set up house with Ennis, who refuses because he is terrified of being found out. That phobia comes from a backstory in which Ennis, while still a boy, is shown a purported gay man who had been tortured and killed by bigoted Westerners — as if such trauma would be necessary to justify a small-town man's desire to keep his homosexual inclinations hidden deeply in the closet. (In a shameless plot contrivance, Ennis' fears turn out to be, let's say, potentially prophetic.)
thanks jake and heath. you were so brave.
Thanks, Roland.
I'm all for subtlety in storytelling, so I'd be ironic if I missed all those clues you mentioned in your comment.
Can't say I'll find the sex scene believable, but I'll keep your remarks in mind when I rewatch "Brokeback Mountain."
As an aside: some gay (and hetero) XXX films — the early ones — actually made a point of adding psychological and emotional insights to the proceedings.
I remember visiting Dave Cullen's "Brokeback" pages. In fact, I believe Cullen is one of my Facebook friends…
I re-read your initial review and have a few more comments. As you might suspect, "Brokeback" is my favorite film.
Watch the first 40 minutes carefully. There is a carefully developed arc from Jack initially staring at Ennis to the sexual encounter. It's clear to me that Jack is gay and probably sexually experienced. We see him later picking up a male prostitute and have reason to think that the previous summer on BBM he might have had sex. He is clearly deeply attracted to Ennis. Ang Lee does not hit you over the heard with operatic gestures, especially since one of the two protagonists is so laconic. But it is clear that Ennis likes Jack and, for the first time in his life, has someone who actually listens to him.
You say the sex scene is gratuitous and absurd. But don't forget that they were both drunk that night, a great slayer of inhibitions. Ennis, true to form, resists going into the tent until the bitter cold drives him there. Jack takes the initiative and shows Ennis manually that he's aroused. Ennis jumps back but Jack basically offers himself. Ennis won't kiss him but proceeds to have sex. Is it so hard to believe that a 19 year old virile man hormonally driven would accept sex if it's offered? The whiskey, the cold, and (of course) the hormones make the scene very believable. No porn film takes so much care with dramatic credibility.
Ang Lee adds the scene of the next night in the tent which is not found in Proulx's story. After the scene of physical lust, he wanted to show the tenderness of the relationship. I mentioned in the previous e-mail that Ennis (on the bottom) sighs in Jack's arms and makes it clear he has something he longed for unknowingly.
And this tenderness is made clear in the magnificent flashback scene after Ennis and Jack have their final fight. Jack remembers the moment 20 years before when Ennis came up to him and held him and sang a lullaby to him. The dissolve of Jack's young face into the middle aged man's face is extraordinary. The sadness of unfulfilled hopes on that face is palpable.
For six years, hundreds of people on the Dave Cullen website have dialogued about every facet of this film. If you watch it more carefully, it can deeply affect your own life.
Roland, James,
First of all, thank you for writing.
Your perceptive insights and remarks are much appreciated. I'll keep them in mind next time I check out "Brokeback Mountain." That should be happening soon. It's been a while…
Best regards.
Ang Lee is a subtle but great director. Watch his film more closely and you will see how well he presents this tragic love affair. From the first moment Jack sees Ennis, he is mesmerized. He stares at Ennis but soon realizes that this introverted man living in his own emotional cocoon will never respond to the direct approach. So next we see Jack continuing to look at Ennis in the rear view mirror of his truck as he shaves.
Later when Ennis visits his dead lover's room, we see a small cowboy figurine. This has been Jack's ideal since childhood and Ennis perfectly embodies his "type."
Another subtle touch occurs in one of the "fireside chats" they have. At one point the taciturn Ennis talks for a long time (for him) about his parents being killed and the hard life he's led. It's the first time he breaks out of the cocoon. Lee shows Jack looking at him intently and it is clear to me that he has fallen in love (and not just lust) with this broken man. I think that's what he continues to love for twenty years: the wounded child in this tough, beautiful man.
A similar subtle moment tells you a great deal about Ennis. He is clearly worried about the sex after the first night and we see him the next night sitting at the fire. He knows he should go back to the sheep but rises and deliberately and slowly moves toward Jack. Jack holds him and embraces and kisses him. As they fall back in one another's arms, Ennis sighs. It is almost as if he's breathing for the first time in his life. Jack gives him something he has longed for without knowing it.
The sadness of the story is that Ennis can never break free of the homophobia he'd been taught. He remains a homophobic man who is deeply in love with another man. Jack wants more but takes Ennis in the limited way he's able to give himself. At the end the relationship, he certainly has been hurt by Ennis' attitude, but in their final encounter when Ennis starts crying (violating every norm he'd been taught about "being a man"), Jack simply hugs him and tries to comfort him. After Jack's death, Ennis finally realizes his deep love (a word he was never able to use) and how much he's lost. This is an unforgettable love story told by a master filmmaker.
I am troubled by some of the same things that troubled Andre Soares about the film BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, but my love for BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is not diminished. I agree with all who feel it would have been preferable if the actors chosen had looked like the real life people who worked at those kinds of jobs, as realistic as the descriptions in the story, not pretty actors, but my feeling was that Ang Lee had given gay people a romantic picture such as heterosexuals enjoy in the dozens. In those thousands of films, too, the characters do not look like most of the people we know. In fact, in most films you see actors who look like actors! But why shouldn't gay people have a classic romantic film, with two men standing in for Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, where we can go to have a good cry about matters that are nevertheless real to us.
However, I think the film had something much more profoundly original than the usual romantic film. True, the film lacks the nitty-gritty working class reality of Proulx's story — the film we might have had if Gus van Sant had directed it — one of those rumored as being possible directors. I cannot remember if van Sant backed out or was simply not chosen. It may be that producers would only back the film if Ang Lee was willing to direct it?
Those who loved BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN first as a short story surely knew that such subtle writing had to be transformed into something else if it was to be a film; a film could not convey her language, although it was wonderful that much of the dialogue was from the story. There was little choice but to flesh out the story more extensively as the short story in itself could not result in a two-hour movie, and I think the script writers did a good job of imagining other parts of the lives of Jack and Ennis.
Soars' notion is that the communication between Jack and Ennis was not rich enough for it to have led to their sexual encounter, as filmed, and that they could not, therefore, lacking such a level of dialogue, have held on to their relationship over years, but this supposes them to be urban gay lovers, probably college-education and steeped in cultural interests in lively environments. But these were simple working class men whose communications would have been about simple matters, but not without their own kind of depth of a sort unfamiliar to many sophisticated people — and that is one of the wonders of the film, that it describes the world our urban-dominated culture fails to recognize or portray in any way recognizable to those who live in those environments. If the beauty of the western landscape, daily work routines, and the rough challenges of their labors created the nature of their bond, it makes them the same as millions, both gay and straight, whose life poetry may be objectified in an old work shirt — that homely symbol that required no spoken sentiment to have epic import for everyone coming to that moment at the end of Pouxl's story.
What I loved most about the film was that for the first time it represented that other gay world that many urban gays don't know or even disdain, having no empathy for the tens of thousands of gay people born into isolation. Ennis' near inability to speak (in Heath Ledger's great performance) was the perfect metaphor for the oppressive silence imposed on those gays who are scattered around in places where they are isolated and unable to speak about their feelings, let alone find a way to express them. I do not object, as Soares does, to the inclusion of a gay person being beaten to death, as it may take that to make the unaware understand the terror of "coming out" in wilderness places. Unable to know how to express their alien feelings, even with each other, only intensifies those feelings so that the love can be strong even without the verbal dialogue Soares would seem to require. It could be that if they had been more free to be themselves, the relationship would have lost much of its power — but that is just another level of their oppression, deprived even of the possible discovery about whether their love would or would not have lasted for long, and whether, once accepting their natures, they might have moved on to some other relationships: that is the sort of double deprivation of experience described.
Soares wonders why Jack does not cry out in pain when first penetrated by Ennis, and one woman friend of mine disliked the movie because of this "rape." However, we come to realize that Jack is already somewhat experienced, and he is clearly leading Ennis to his first experience, and in his manner, Gyllenhaal gives Jack the air of being more experienced, so that it does not seem to be Jack's first experience; in other words, Jack has probably been fucked before and so is beyond the pain of initial anal penetration.
Yes, it may be true that Jack and Ennis would not have survived if they had been able to live together, but they are "deprived" of that disillusion by the fact the social oppression stops them a few steps before that. Still, I doubt if any homosexual has not had the experience, and would not understand Jack's obsession with Ennis' more innocent state, the more experienced gay man empathizing with the still confused man's inability to realize his own nature. I suppose most gay men have had the experience of deluding themselves that such a man as Ennis might change, as Jack seems to believe. Besides that, Ennis becomes even more difficult to reach as he is further inhibited once he is in the impossible trap experienced by men who have married and had children before they acknowledge their homosexuality. Ennis has the values of the ordinary man, not the sophisticate, where integrity is lost if you fail to meet the responsibilities you have assumed, even if they turn out to be the result of a wrong choice. We may be confounded by his willingness go on being entrapped, but no more than we are confounded by the millions of Americans willing to sacrifice their children to obscene wars — because of the simple citizen's often misguided sense of duty and willingness to embrace the ignorance of "belief."
I cannot see why Soares thinks that Ang Lee was not a good director for this film. (In fact, I think we owe him a mighty debt of gratitude for presenting two homosexuals are thoroughly recognizeable as flawed human beings.) I think he must also have recruited a good team to help him, creating the kinds of scenes and objects that we recognize as the homely details that Prouxl excels at describing in her stories. Perhaps you have to have lived in a small town to be struck by the brilliance of a scene such as the one where Ennis, isolated, destined to be forever alone, is sitting in a cafe, eating that piece of cafe pie that looks like it must taste like cardboard, the everyday hell of the mundane. Ang Lee or his team seem to have the same eye as Annie Prouxl for the ordinary American reality, the scenes and objects that epitomize the pathos in the culturally deprived, stimulus-starved environment of the Americans who live in the middle ground of the U.S.A.
In truth, if it were only for Heath Ledger's performance, I would have to call it a great film. I enjoyed that Gyllenhaal's character could provide the script writers with a chance to show the audience that part of the "gay world" that is the cruising outsider, and the apparently married men who are gay on the "down low."
Alot of film critics have written every comment under the Sun about the movie Brokeback Mountain_But none ever seem to write from the aspect of how the viewer sees the movie_I'm one of those viewers and trust me I thought that Brokeback Mountain would be an awsome gay cowboy movie_Man my heart was changed 180 degrees and I still to this day believe Brokeback Mountain is a great love story and the greatest story ever told_I wrote a 9 page essay entitled MY BROKEBACK JOURNEY_The first six pages critque the movie from the first scene with the transport travelling along the Trans Canada Interstate in 1963 till both Jack and Ennis meet for the last time in 1983_The last three pages is when the tears begin to flow_From the climax which is when Jack and Ennis have their confrontation to when Ennis opens his closet door to reveal the two shirts both cowboys wore on Brokeback in the summer of 1963_The part that got to me was when Jack utters with a tearing up voice "Ennis I wish I knew how to quit you" and Ennis with tears and a broken voice replies "Why don't you it's because of you Jack I'm like this"_When Ennis uttered those words and him crying a full grown man crying especially a cowboy_I was tought that ment don't cry but man the tears began to flow and I began to sob my heart melted like a knife throght soft butter_Right to this day I have a hard time with that scene anyone whom has ever been in love with someone would know what I'm talking about_Another scene takes the viewer to Jack's parents place a ranch just outside of Lightening Flat, Wyoming_Of course Jack's dad mentions to Ennis that Jack's ashes would be buried in the family plot out back_However when Ennis goes upstairs to visit Jack's room he noticed the wooden horse carving atop the desk he made Jack 20 years earlier while on Brokeback_Ennis sat on a small bench beside Jack's bed and sat there for a moment of reflection then Ennis noticed the pair of old worn out cowboy boots that Jack had worn on Brokeback in 1963 inside the back of Jack's closet_Ennis noticed Jack's blue shirt that he wore while on Brokeback and the shirt seemed heavy_As Ennis was removing Jack's shirt from the closet Ennis noticed his old plaid shirt underneath Jack's shirt_Ennis began to embrace the shirts and the tears really began to flow_I knew than that Jack Twist was a very good man and he was totally in love with Ennis and I knew how Ennis really loved Jack_Even though their relationship seemed detached both Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar were devoted to one another_The last scene really took me away and Alma Jr had just left but she left her sweater behind and Ennis went to place the sweater inside the closet what came next caused me to sob even more_When Ennis opened the closet door and on a simple finihing nail was a hanger with the two shirts from Brokeback_To the top right of the shirts was a post card of Brokeback Mountain fasten with a thumntack_Ennis snapped a button on Jack's old blue denim shirt and he utters the words "Jack I Swear"_Man the tears flowed but I knew then that Ennis would never leave his one and only true friend from Brokeback Mountain_I've never seen even till this day a movie end so sad so very sad in all my days_I realized this was just the beginning of MY BROKEBACK JOURNEY and I now have more questions than answers_However I believe we all have a Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar inside our hearts_Annie Proulx you the author and an awsome screenplay from Larry Mc Murtry and Dianna Ossana thank you so very much_Roy J Patterson
Of the "negative" reviews I've read, yours makes the most sense. Though I feel Brokeback Mountain is a truly great film (I've been watching movies for over 50 years), you identified most of the reservations I had about both the story and film. (That is, I Iargely agree with your analysis, but not your final judgement.)
One of the film's problems stems from the spareness of the story, and the way this has been faithfully carried over to the screenplay and direction. It's difficult to portray the inner lives of people who don't talk — or think — very much, especially when you're trying to "skirt melodramatic pitfalls". As Ms. Proulx said, Ennis would have problems with this film. But so would Joseph L. Mankiewicz, though for dramatic reasons — his characters fully reveal every inner feeling in dialog, which is far more "unnatural" than Ennis's laconicness.
But when you complain that we don't "undestand" why Ennis and Jack are so attracted to each other, you are demanding something of same-sex relationships you don't demand of opposite-sex relationships. Do we question why Scarlett & Rhett, or Rick & Elsa, find each other interesting? Of course not. Homoerotic attraction is common among nominally heterosexual males, and the probability of two young men who are near the edge "falling over" is not implausible. (The film suggests that Jack is from the start (possibly unconsciously) attracted to Ennis; the short story does not.)
Creating a plausible back story to "explain" this attraction (other than to portray Ennis and Jack as lonely and "damaged", a common-enough human condition) would only submerge the drama in cheap psychology and make it pretentiously implausible. The short story does this for Jack, in a scene that was (fortunately) removed from the film.
Contrast Psycho with Peeping Tom. The former gives a simple explanation for Norman's behavior and leaves it until the last moments of the film (where its cold rationality makes Norman's last scene all the more creepy), while the latter develops a horribly complex — and wholly unbelievable — scenario for the development of Mark's pathology that renders the film ludicrous. As many Powell/Pressberger films, it's remarkably bad, and I wonder why it has received so much praise.
But the film of Brokeback Mountain is missing a scene that's begun in the short story, but not completed. This scene would correct (or at least bandage over) most of the problems you've elucidated. To wit…
The film tends to show Ennis and Jack's relationship in a state of slow decline after their four-year reunion. McMurtry, Osanna, and Lee seem to feel that, as we've already seen them huggin' an' kissin' an' humpin, there's no need to show it again (the humpin', in particular). But if, before the Big Confrontation, we'd seen them spending that last weekend together, being affectionate with each other, horsing around, and — yes — having sex — there would be no question about how they really feel about each other. What follows would then be all the more pathetic (as in truly sad).
In exploring subject matter funadamentally alien to most people, Brokeback Mountain necessarily runs the risk of looking artifice-ial, "manufactured", or hyperbolic. The average viewer has to transpose the material into experiences he's familiar with — and it doesn't quite fit. But, of course, it doesn't have to.
I don't much care for the DVD (original or "collector's" edition). It's too bright and clean. The dark, dingy look of many interior scenes has been lost.
Thanks for your time.
PS: Mercedes McCambridge playing Lureen is rich. When will we have a DVD of Johnny Guitar? (By the way, if you've never seen Calamity Jane, do so. The crypto-lesbian subtext is startling.)
thank you; for the wonderfull ;;–""critique;;–"" of brokeback muontain;;–"