Brokeback Mountain

Ten good reasons to see “Brokeback Mountain”

1/ A simple story: ”the love between two cowboys is no puppy love, but a scorching, lasting, tragic love that causes almost unbearable pain” (Niels Ruëll in Agenda #1022, Brussels). Based on a short novel by Annie Proulx, it tells the story of two young cowboys, Jack & Ennis, in Wyoming, USA, in the beginning of the 60ies. They fall in love with each other but life and society drive them apart. When they’ll get back together, years later, a look in the eyes is all that takes to reignite their passion.

2/ Ang Lee: This director from Taiwan (island giving some excellent directors to cinema, see “Three times” by Hou Hsiao-Hsien out now) has directed quite some different movies, from “The Wedding Banquet” to “Eat Drink Man Woman”, “Sense and Sensibility” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”. He has proved his excellence and style, but Brokeback Mountain is maybe his most “perfect” and accomplished film so far.

3/ The actors, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal: they complement each other wonderfully in the movie. The secret of the great impact of their performance is maybe that, as rather unknown actors –as two common people, not as stars, they really committed to the movie. Apparently, for different reasons, in particular for being afraid of taking the risk to play a gay role (yes, still in 2005) some well-know actors declined the role, as Brad Pitt. Too bad, maybe others will now get some Oscar… In particular I like Jake G. and if you have the chance, go see the outstanding Sam Mendes film “Jarhead” about the absurdity of war (about the first Gulf war).

4/ A good screenplay - Annie Proulx and Larry McMurtry: Larry M. adapted the screenplay from a short novel by Annie Proulx. He gets to the soul of the region and the people. The story is quite hard and straightforward, sometimes nostalgic but always avoids falling into the sentimental, apparently less rough than the novel itself.

5/ A film about gays for straight people? The last scene is one of the most important. It’s not anymore about homosexuality of heterosexuality, but about love, universal feelings. We feel ourselves the pain of the characters.

6/ Brokeback Mountain becomes a moving argument against all those who do not allow others to pursue their happiness. It should absolutely be seen by all homophobes and pseudo-rough-cons.

7/ Brokeback Mountain has also marked a new era in the representation of homosexuality by the Hollywood cinema. What changes is not on only that this is a story about “universal love”. It’s not the fact that it is a “homosexual love story” that is new, Hollywood has already produced dozens, it’s the fact that it does not portray the usual “standard gays”, it doesn’t make any references to the “usual” gay codes and stereotypes. In fact, Jack and Ennis, are not gay, they’re just simple Americans, and hence another strength of this movie...

8/ Brokeback Mountain is a melodrama, a tragedy. And somehow, we spectators, do not like happy endings… we like to feel sorry for the poor others, it makes us feel our lives as less miserable. Here, Jack and Ennis were not allowed to live their love and be happy, and that’s what made them suffer. All they were allowed, all they got pleasure in, was sex.

9/ The secret that Jack and Ennis had to hide, was neither a question of taste nor of choice: for two young guys who discovered their homo-sexuality in the 60ies in the profound Midwest, it was a question of life and death. It still is, nowadays, in many places, and not only in the prairies and remote mountains of the USA. If you have doubts read “Farm boys – Lives of Gay men from the rural Midwest” by Will fellows (as read in Têtu, March06). Therefore, Ang Lee doesn’t tell people to hide, quite the opposite.

10/ The movie has already won several prizes, from Venice to the Golden Globes to the British Baftas… and it has received eight nominations for the Oscars: so many people can’t be wrong…