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Sometimes I think about what it must be
like to be a confused teenager these days. Sure,
being gay is probably more accepted and understood
today than it has ever been in America. And
sure, if you're a gay teenager, there is probably
more support and friendship available to you
than ever before. But the price we've paid for
this society of understanding and acceptance
is a pressurized world of teen sexuality where
you have to "decide" (for lack of a better word)
how you are going to identify yourself sexually
at a younger and younger age. The idea of a
14 year old boy or girl being openly gay isn't
alarming or disturbing in any way, of course.
But the idea that a 14 year old boy or girl
must have an answer if they are quizzed by peers
or authority figures about their sexuality is
extremely troubling.
In America in 2005, we live in a society
more open and accepting about sexuality and
sexual preference than I ever thought possible
when I was a teenager coming to terms with own
sexual identity. There have been many heroes
and heroines in our evolution. Certainly the
influence of musicians like Elton John and David
Bowie, actors like Rock Hudson and Rupert Everett,
sports figures like Dennis Rodman and the entire
WNBA (hehe), politicians like Harvey Milk and
Barney Frank, and numerous others notable people
have helped in the struggle for acceptance and
understanding. But is there any other entity
that should be deemed more responsible for the
change in attitudes than television, in particular
MTV? Television comes into our homes daily and
brings information on every facet of life in
the modern electronic age. Can we discount the
major influence of Pedro Zamora of MTV's "The
Real World" in the struggle to gain acceptance
and understanding for gay people in the age
of AIDS? Can we disregard the fact the while
the loss of Matthew Sheppard was devastating
and horrific, the attention his death brought
to homophobia and gay-bashing has been one of
the most important advances in the struggle
for acceptance in the history of homosexuality
in America? It's a daily battle in this country
and, God help us, day by day, through loss and
bitterness and anger and tears as well as joy
and happiness and love and peace, things become
better and better for gay people in America.
We live in a world where children as young
as possibly imaginable are asked to expose their
sexual feelings to peers and authority figures
even though they may not be anywhere near ready,
let alone able, to answer some of these questions.
It's part of the price we pay to live in an
age where homosexuality, bisexuality, transgender
issues, and even celibacy are accepted and understood.
Children who grow up in the world we live
in today and who have known what the word "gay"
means since they were a toddler may never be
able to understand the beauty and subtle joy
of a film like "Brokeback Mountain" without
the benefit of much schooling by elders. And
God knows, when young gay people are ready to
begin searching their heritage and the evolution
of the struggle of those who came before them,
this film will be a valuable tool in their understanding
of just what an arduous journey gay people have
endured to have the freedoms and acceptance
we enjoy today. Not because "Brokeback Mountain"
is a political and educational film but because
it is a powerful and beautiful story set in
the past, one that explores prejudice and homophobia
with addressing it as an "issue."
"Brokeback Mountain" isn't preachy or pedantic,
not in any sense of the word. In fact, it's
a love story, and one that not only enlightens
but also one that knocks holes into the expected
norms of political corrected thinking and historic
revisionism when it comes to gay history.
To discuss the film
requires exploring some of the plot points of
the film, so consider this a spoiler warning.
I am going to talk about what happens in the
film in this review. If you haven't seen "Brokeback
Mountain," I advise that you stop reading and
come back when you have seen it to read these
thoughts.
To be sure, it is hard to imagine a director
more well-suited to the opening act of the story.
Ang Lee does an amazing job of creating an idyllic
and serene setting where mutual friendship and
love can blossom between the two characters
played by Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger.
Long, expansive, seemingly meaningless shots
of the quiet and solitude of the area establish
the picture-perfect utopia for the two characters
to fuse their lives and hearts together. This
is massively important to the story because
not only is Brokeback Mountain a place where
the duo returns on numerous occasions to meet
and rekindle their romance but also a place
that represents the solitude and quiet of a
personal world where the prejudices and prying
eyes of outsiders do not exist. In this story,
Brokeback Mountain is a hate-free utopia, a
discrimination-free bubble where love and sex
between two men can exist. At the time that
the film begins, 1963, there are few other places
in the world where this can be truthfully said.
Lee, working on an amazingly wonderful and subtle
script by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana uses
his visual palette to convey this so effortlessly
that we almost become bored with the seemingly
endless shots of pastures, snow-capped mountains,
and herds of sheep. It is only as the film progresses
that we come to realize how important this leisurely
set-up is.
To be sure, the first sexual congress between
Ledger's Ennis Del Mar and Gyllenhaal's Jack
Twist is not the idyllic and lyrical coupling
we expect. It is fast, heated, base and almost
demeaning. It is violent, fitful, confusing
and harsh. And yet there is one other word that
makes all of these seemingly inappropriate words
fade away: realistic. I suppose those critics
and gay film-goers who expect more romanticism
from such a film could rightfully be disappointed
by such a beginning to a homosexual love affair
in this piece. But there is tenderness and love
between Ennis and Jack as time evolves. This
wake-up call to their sexual feelings for one
and other is as heated and violent as one would
expect, especially since Ledger's Ennis is presumably,
from his discussions with Jack prior to the
event, a virgin in every sense of the word.
While tenderness and romanticism might be more
acceptable, especially to modern politically
correct sensibilities, it would also ring somewhat
false with these characters in this time.
In today's society, we also understand
the error and sadness involved in a gay man
masking his identity to try and appear heterosexual
to his peers. This is not an ideal we should
accept or tolerate any longer (no matter how
much the radical right might disagree). But
such was not the case in the 60's and 70's.
To get married, have children and "settle down"
was what was expected of men in that day and
age. One of "Brokeback Mountains" biggest assets
is in how it presents the folly of living under
such restrictive expectations. It shows us how
lives were damaged and ruined from such lies,
however innocent on the part of the deceiver.
The way in which Michelle Williams' and Anne
Hathaway's characters, the wives of Ennis and
Jack, react to their husbands' detachment over
time is another realistic depiction of how things
were at the time. These two actresses provide
marvelous characters, daring characters, important
characters that elevate the film's plot to yet
another level of perfection in realism. Reacting
with heartbreak, anger, indifference and their
own detachment, they help us to realize how
the closeted society affected so many who were
not gay. Living in a society where homosexuality
is condemned and concealed devalues and devastates
not only the homosexual but all of those who
exist in his or her sphere. This is a moral
lesson that should not be lost on anyone who
sees the film.
Gay film-goers usually decry the death
of a gay character in films. Gays have almost
always been portrayed as the "victim" in Hollywood
films. Even in our own growing film community,
films about AIDS and about coming out, two of
the most typical stories in gay cinema over
the last 20 years, help to further this stereotype.
To see a film about a man who is gay and that
is just a normal, uninteresting aspect of his
character is still a rarity in modern cinema.
Yet, to have a gay character die is almost universally
reviled in this day and age in the genre. "Brokeback
Mountain" is the exception. The loss of Jack
in the film's final act is necessary because
it congeals the entire theme of loss in these
men's lives, loss incurred due to living in
a society that does not accept them let alone
value them.
Ennis' understandable paranoia about "coming
out" is explained so perfectly yet subtly in
the film. His horrific childhood story about
seeing a supposedly gay man killed is so profoundly
embedded in his psyche that it defines him as
a man. This paranoia is revisited when he learns
of Jack's death. The flashes of Jack's fate
in his mind, which may or may not be based in
reality, are REAL to Ennis and this not only
subjugates him further to fear and paranoia,
but also solidifies in his mind the justification
for it. In a world where fear of discovery is
a viable fear, exposing ones self to discovery
is not only a physical suicide but a psychic
one as well. Ennis' need to be closeted isn't
simply the rational of living in his time, it's
a defense mechanism against death itself. This
is one of the most profound and utterly heartbreaking
messages of the film. Lest we not forget, those
who came before us, who came out before us,
were not simply brave, they defied death, they
ended nothing less than a psychic as well as
physical genocide. Those who lived quiet lives
of desperation were not lesser than the brave
men and women who resisted fear and physical
violence. Like Ennis, they defeated the powers
that would negate us simply by existing. Anne
Frank is no less a hero than any allied soldier
fighting in WWII. Men and women like Ennis and
Jack were no lesser heroes than Harvey Milk,
Elton John, Billie Jean King, and a plethora
of others who declared their sexuality publicly
and proudly in a time when it was nearly unthinkable.
"Brokeback Mountain" isn't just a great
movie, it is perhaps the most important gay
movie ever made. Gyllenhaal and Ledger should
be honored for their wonderful depictions of
real, gay men living in the closeted world of
America in the 60's and 70's. Jack, the dreamer,
hoping for a life of love in a world that doesn't
understand his kind of love; Ennis, the quiet
pragmatist, afraid to take the final step. He
learns that Jack was right far too late. But
his lesson is shared with us.
Ledger's performance here is simply perfection.
He has a really irritating habit of talking
with his mouth nearly closed. And while this
has ruined him in films like "The
Brothers Grimm" (and from what I have seen
of the trailer - "Cassanova"), it works perfectly
for him here. His Ennis is hard, practical,
quiet. He reminded me of men I knew as a child
growing up in Iowa, farmers and factory workers.
The thought that one of them might have held
in a love, as Ennis did, not just because they
did not know how to express it, but simply because
they never felt free enough to express it, haunts
me. How many lives of quiet desperation went
on around me as I grew up as an ignorant boy
in the middle of the cornfields? How many hearts
were broken, how many lives shattered, in a
society that demanded lies and collusion?
In the land of the free... in the home
of the brave...
In the past...
Rejoice! What was once rendered unthinkable
by fear, hate and misunderstanding is now commonplace
thanks to knowledge and reason and acceptance.
Rejoice and remember!
Note:
Also with Randy Quaid, Linda Cardellini
and Anna Faris.
Based on a short story by E. Annie Proulx
that appeared in "The New Yorker" in 1997. Her
daughter Brooklyn has a role as one of Ennis'
little girls in the film.
Filmed in Canada and New Mexico.
The screenplay was completed in 1997 and
the film has long been in development. At one
time Gus Van Sant was attached to direct but
dropped out when Columbia put the film in turnaround
and it was picked up by Ted Hope and Christine
Vacchon's Good Machine. That company was later
absorbed into Focus Features.
Other actors who supposedly were considered
for the film include Josh Hartnett, Colin Farrell,
and Billy Crudup.
The film has won numerous awards, been
nominated for Independent Spirit Awards and
is considered a strong Oscar contender.
The film premiered in Venice in September
of 2005 and focus features released it in December
of that year.
Viewed at a press sneak in Austin in November
of 2005.
Report Card
Script: A+
Acting: A+
Cinematography\Lighting: A+
Special Effects\Make Up: A+
Music: A
Final Grade: A+
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