BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN d: Ang Lee
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Direction: Ang Lee
Screenplay: Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana; from E. Annie Proulx’s short story
Cast: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway, Randy Quaid, Linda Cardellini, Kate Mara
Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain is without a doubt a culturally significant motion picture. The same-sex romantic drama has won numerous awards, has been discussed all over the media, and has been labeled "groundbreaking" by numerous film critics. Of course, the fact that those critics’ knowledge of film history only 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 its second half Brokeback Mountain fails to become fully involving chiefly because its central relationship — between a Wyoming ranch hand and a second-rate rodeo cowboy — remains 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.
In addition to Rodrigo Prieto’s lyrical cinematography and Gustavo Santaolalla’s sublimely haunting score, what helps lift Brokeback Mountain from the realm of averageness is not its pseudo-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, uncommunicative Ennis Del Mar (Ledger) and the friendly, 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, there are no sparks between the two men that could have indicated any sort of mutual carnal interest. Thus, when the first moment of physical closeness comes along, it feels 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 though the two young men are loath to think of themselves as "queer" — and who can blame them?) Once their summer job is over, they 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 gay man 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.)
Jack’s frustration with Ennis leads to excessive drinking and to the search for companionship elsewhere. "You have no idea how bad it gets!" he yells at Ennis in the film’s climactic confrontation scene. "… I wish I knew how to quit you." Such all-consuming yearning is meant to be the result of a communion of souls, but that communion is nowhere to be found in the interplay between the two characters. Part of the problem lies with Ang Lee’s direction.
First I must say that Lee, who has dealt with similar themes before in The Wedding Banquet and The Ice Storm, does a generally good job in terms of skirting melodramatic pitfalls, and in capturing the magic of Brokeback Mountain and the vastness of the American West (with the assistance of Rodrigo Prieto’s miraculous lenses). The film’s first shot, later repeated under radically different circumstances, is one of the most striking ever put on screen. Nonetheless, the director fails to bring out the heat of passion when Ennis and Jack are together, and their inner emptiness when they are not. Their longing for one another is communicated through the dialogue and through a couple of bear hugs and kisses, but it’s noticeably absent from the film’s atmosphere until the very final scene. To be fair, I must add that the two leading men are also to blame for those shortcomings.
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Tags: Ang Lee, Anne Hathaway, Brokeback Mountain, Diana Ossana, E. Annie Proulx, Film Reviews, Gay Film Reviews, Gay Interest, Gay Movies, Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Larry McMurtry, Michelle Williams, Oscar 2005, Oscar Movies, Romantic Movies, Three-Star Gay Movies, Three-Star Movies, Three-Star Oscar Movies, Westerns
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2 Responses to “BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN d: Ang Lee”
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thank you; for the wonderfull ;;–”"critique;;–”" of brokeback muontain;;–”
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.)