Brokeback Mountain Review
by samseescinema (sammeriam AT comcast DOT net)September 16th, 2005
Brokeback Mountain
Reviewed by Sam Osborn
-www.samseescinema.com
Rating: 4 out of 4
Director: Ang Lee
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger, Anne Hathaway, Michelle Williams Screenplay: Larry McMurtry, Diana Ossana (based on the short story by Anne Proulx)
By now, Ang Lee has treaded through nearly every genre with amazing, staggering success. From The Ice Storm, to Sense & Sensibility, Hulk, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, and now Brokeback Mountain, Lee has clearly proven himself to be one of the most intriguing and genre-bending filmmakers of his generation. He twists each genre with the film he enters into it, and now with Brokeback Mountain, he aims to wring the western genre with a beautiful and honest love story. It'll be met with controversy, especially in today's political climate where homophobia reigns along with stiff, intolerant religious values even in the highest of political positions. But it's a story that doesn't aim to preach a message of acceptance and tolerance. Its only objective is to tell its story, as any great film aims to do, and do so with as much honesty and affection as possible.
Opening in 1963 in Wyoming, Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) meet when taking work sheepherding on Brokeback Mountain. Protecting the sheep from coyotes and the harsh consequences of the land, one is required to camp out with the sheep while the other keeps camp back in the hills. This first act of the film works like any Western we've come to expect from a Larry McMurtry script (Lonesome Dove, Terms of Endearment novel). There's the unspoken camaraderie of the western rancher, where masculine intimacy is communicated through loyalty and reliance. McMurtry doesn't plague this act with dialogue, but lets the actors and the music and the landscape pull the weight. Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (21 Grams, Alexander, Original Sin) photographs the land with exquisite beauty, making the area into a kind of lonely, quiet and somber Eden with which both the characters and the audience can revere later in the film, where the characters' live are riddled with dilemma
As the weather turns colder, with snow coming and going with the time of the day, Ennis and Jack find themselves becoming closer friends, speaking of their histories in different areas of the western United States. One night, while passing around the Jack Daniels, Ennis passes out at camp before getting out to the sheep. Inviting him into the warm tent for the night, Jack lends Ennis his blanket. In a flurry of brutal, guilty and violent passion, the two find themselves making love. Unsure of their situation, the two part at the end of their Summer work and go on to lead their lives under the identity of heterosexuals. The rest of the film chronicles each of their lives, with both of them meeting for "fishing trips" at Brokeback Mountain each month and reliving their memorable Summer.
Ang Lee's film, although focusing on homosexuals, doesn't fit into the "gay film" genre that peaked during the 70s. It's too honest and affectionate to be thrown into that exploitation genre. The story isn't trying to prove anything about gays. It's brilliantly directed and written to force audiences to look past the characters' orientation and realize their love as it is. Jack and Ennis' orientation is supposed to divide their lives with the other characters, but isn't supposed to divide the audience from them.
Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal each do spectacular work with Brokeback Mountain. It was incredibly daring, for both of them, to even accept the film at all. With the help of McMurtry and Ossana's screenplay, the actors inherit that unique cowboy mentality so rarely translated to film these days. We follow Jack and Ennis through another twenty years, and with each development, we realize how complete each character is. Both the writers and the actors inhabit these characters. Because if the characters can't be believable, neither can their love story.
Brokeback Mountain reminded most of an ancient, heartbreaking folk song. The kind cowboys and ranchers told while picking at the guitar around the campfire. It's something quiet, somber, and thoughtful.
-www.samseescinema.com
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