Brokeback Mountain

Film Data:

Brokeback Mountain is a romantic drama, released in 2005, directed by Ang Lee. It is based on a short story by Annie Proulx and the screenplay is by Larry McMutry and Diana Ossana. The film was shot in different locations of Alberta, Canada and Wyoming in the United States. With an estimated budget of $14 million, the film grossed $178 million. Brokeback Mountain stars Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in the leading roles and other renowned actors and actresses such as Anne Hathaway, Michelle Williams, and Randy Quaid. The film won 97 awards, including 3 Academy Awards in 2006 for Best Achievement in Directing, Best Original Score, and Best Adapted Screenplay. The original score of the film is by Gustavo Sataolalla.

Synopsis:

     The story of Brokeback Mountain takes place in 1963 when two cowboys, Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) are hired by Joe Aguirre (Randy Quaid) to herd his sheep that summer in Wyoming. Ennis is only 19 years old, and is engaged to marry in the fall, and hopes to have his own ranch someday. Jack is about the same age and dreams of becoming the greatest rodeo cowboy alive. They both feel very alone.

   One night they drink too much and they have sex. Even though Ennis is apprehensive at first and informs Jack that it was a one-time incident, they engage in a sexual relationship. 

    When the summer is over, they separate and continue with their own lives. Ennis marries his fiancee Alma Beers (Michelle Williams) and they have two daughters. Jack continues feeling attracted to other men and does not get married until he meets rodeo cowgirl Lureen Newsome (Anne Hathaway) and have a one-night stand and she gets pregnant.

     

    After four years, Jack visits Ennis. The two men kiss passionately, but Alma sees the kiss. From this moment on, the relationship between the two men revives and strengthens. Jack wants to build a life together with Ennis in a small ranch, but Ennis is torn by the childhood trauma of having seen a man tortured and murdered for being queer. He does not to abandon his family either, but they continue to meet for fishing trips to Brokeback Mountain.

    Jack and Alma get divorced in 1975. Jack hears about the divorce and shows up in Wyoming hoping to live a life with Ennis, but Ennis is afraid that the locals will kill them for being homosexual, so they arrange to meet three or four times a year. Each physical departure is also an emotional one.

    Ennis has to pay child support and does not have enough money and then decides to have an affair with a female cashier. This leads to less meetings between him and Jack, who finds consolation with male prostitutes in Mexico. At the end of a fishing trip, Ennis wishes to put off their next meeting and the two men have an argument. Ennis drives away.

    In 1980, Ennis sends a postcard to Jack and it is returned with a "Deceased" stamp. Lureen informs Ennis in a telephone conversation that Jack was killed by the explosion of a tire he was changing, and Ennis imagines him being killed by a gang. Jack's actual cause of death is left unsaid. Ennis travels to meet with Jack's family for the funeral, and he finds a shirt belonging to Jack. His mother allows Ennis to keep the shirt.

   Some time later, Ennis' oldest daughter Alma Jr. informs him that she is engaged and invites him to her wedding. When Alma leaves the trailer where he leaves now, Ennis goes to the closet and stares at Jack's shirt and his own, still entwined, as he remembers about Brokeback Mountain.

Comment:

  Ang Lee has directed the highest grossing romantic drama in Hollywood history. For the general public, it is a gay romantic film. For the critics, it is the deconstruction of the Western genre. When thinking about this genre, it is not usual to have gay cowboys. Brokeback Mountain challenges the stereotype of the American virile cowboy with a big hat and riding a horse. Ang Lee finds two handsome and masculine actors to perform in this film, with sexual scenes rated R. How much more can you dare?

 

    Brokeback Mountain becomes their refuge, not precisely to have a "condemned" homosexual relationship in the 1960's, but a place where they can be themselves and escape their respective solitude. Ang Lee's merit is not maybe the mise-en-scene or certain camera angles, but the veracity of the scenes and the rupture of social taboos and stereotypes. The viewer can even forget about the film and feel the actors' emotions. To the mediocre spectator, this can be another gay film. Since there is no resolution at the end, there is a sense of continuity, of everyday routine. But yes, questions will arise. Indeed, so many questions arose that the film influenced the way homosexuals are seen in the United States and it fueled the gay rights movement.

    The first 45 minutes of the plot are filled with excitement and suspense. Then it falls into a kind of anticlimax until it reaches the end. Certainly, the director knew well the effect this anticlimax was supposed to have: to enhance the sense of loneliness, and despair of the protagonists, each of them living an unwanted life.

    The postcard and the shirts as props are valuable elements in the development of the plot, and they become part of the archive of Ennis and Jack's gay relationship. Close-ups serve to denote each protagonists' individuality, but then the viewer sees the other man in a blurred background, who functions as a reminder of a forbidden love affair.

     Brokeback Mountain's biggest triumph is the restlessness that it leaves on the spectator.