Brokeback Mountain

This is the so-called independent film that won so many Golden Globe nominations recently, and is therefore said to be a front-runner for the Oscars. It's the "gay cowboy" movie. I hadn't really planned to see it, as I have not read the Annie Proulx story on which it is based. However, a couple of friends challenged me to see it, so, to use a Western metaphor, I bit the bullet. I have now decided that I am not a fan of director Ang Lee. I did not see Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, or any of the other, smaller films he directed preceding that much acclaimed work. I did recently watch The Hulk on television, which was also directed by Lee, something of a departure for him oeuvre-wise I understand. Oddly enough, I came away with the same criticism of Brokeback that I had of Hulk: Too long, too scattershot, and much too heavy. All the meandering through the years of this relationship makes the film seem a lot longer than its actual run-time of a little over two hours. Actually, Brokeback is pretty effective in tugging at the your heart within its rambling structure, largely due to the fine acting from both principals and supporting cast, but the story arc is so unremittingly grim that you are worn out by the end of the movie. This is not a movie to see during the winter holidays, ironically enough, as it is just too depressing. Early in the movie the two primary characters, played by Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhall, are hired to herd sheep in a high mountain, summer pasture. My immediate thought, coming as I do from ranching country, was that it's wrong to call this a cowboy movie if these guys are herding sheep! That was the last humorous thought I had, during the rest of the movie and during the rest of the day.

Let me now depart from pure cinema criticism to address the gay issues raised by the prominence of this film. First of all, the movie deals with homosexuals who are not a part of the stereotypical urban, ghettoized gay world. This is a refreshing change, of a sort. Heath Ledger's performance as the laconic, troubled cowboy Ennis Delmar is profound and powerful. He carries the movie on his shoulders, and he has without a doubt made his bones as a seriously regarded actor. It is his small sense of redemption at the end of the film, when he learns to put his priorities in better order because of the lesson he has learned about unfulfilled love, that gives Brokeback its ultimate value. Much has been made in the publicity surrounding this movie of the graphic depiction of male homosexual sex within it, and yes, there is one scene, coming about twenty minutes into the story, that is much too explicit for my tastes. However, after that scene there is little to offend anyone other than hardcore bigots. This movie is not as prurient as advertised. And I note with some irony that there is an equally graphic heterosexual sex scene in this film which has gone completely unremarked upon, simply because that sort of sex depiction has become so common. Fair-minded grown-ups will be able to handle Brokeback Mountain because it is in its essence both a love story and a tragedy.

I strongly disagree with Michael Medved and other conservative critics who have asserted that this movie is intended to undermine both conventional marriage and the Western genre. One thing that Brokeback does exceptionally well is show the damage to their families that is caused by the choices of these two men to pretend to be straight by marrying and having children. That is not an attack on traditional marriage, rather it is a condemnation of the lies these men live by. I cannot say enough good things about the well-crafted acting of the women who play the wives, girlfriends, mothers and daughters. It is the quiet pain emanating from their eyes and their silences that most vividly illuminate the tragedy in this story. And it simply is not fair to call Brokeback Mountain a Western. The setting is Wyoming and the men make their livelihoods from working the land, but this is not a story about an obvious and melodramatic confrontation between good and evil which results in the proverbial shootout/climax that defines the Western. This is not a white-hats, black-hats kind of movie at all. It is instead a story of love gone wrong, more gay Romeo-&-Juliet tearjerker than anything else. I believe the Brits would call it a "male weepie." Therefore, in my opinion, the comparisons to old John Wayne movies are spurious. The Duke is safe.

One other political point to make about this movie: I had hoped going in that the film represented a larger turning away by the gay community from reflexive anti-American, anti-Western civilization politics. After all, it's past time to stop biting the hand that feeds you. Now I am not so sure that the movie represents anything other than the story it tells. First of all, no one prominently associated with this film is a self-identified, public gay, to the best of my knowledge. Nor do we see within the story, at least not until the very end, one jot of sympathy or compassion or understanding for these two men from any of the straight characters. While I know that the period the story covers, the 1960s through the 1980s, represents the apex of conformity as the American norm, I also know from my own experience that small towns in this country are far more tolerant, in a libertarian sort of way, than is generally acknowledged. Small towns are insular societies where silence and masked appearances are required of their "eccentrics," but these are social conventions that allow people to live with each other. Oppressive, yes; potentially violent toward those who drop the masks, yes. But totally absent anyone who is capable of extending just a bit of compassion to someone, at least someone born into that small society, who is profoundly different, as is represented in this movie? No, I don't believe that. While the acting of the supporting players, particularly the women involved in the lives of these two men, is generally understated and superb, I would've liked to see just one of the straight characters portrayed as something other than bigoted. Only the mother of Jack Twist (the Gyllenhall character) is able to show anything other than simmering hostility, and that comes so very near the end of the movie that it provides almost no solace. I don't think that we shall know the sort of free society we all long for and believe possible until we can create art that is free of accusations against our perceived polar opposites, be that gays against straights, women against men, the races against each other, etc. Therefore, I question whether this film really breaks any new ground, artistically or socially, despite its bold departure from conventional themes.

Finally, back to aesthetics, there are two technical aspects of the movie that should be mentioned because they contribute so much to making the tragic elements of the story bearable: the cinematography and the soundtrack. This film was mostly shot in Alberta, Canada, and the beauty of the wilderness as it's depicted here made me want to go there as soon as summer comes around again. It's breathtaking. As for the soundtrack, it carries a lot of the action of the film, weaving scenes together via musical bridges that make those scenes seem a lot more contiguous than they actually are. And some of the instrumental music composed specifically for the movie is as beautiful as the scenery.

So, while I cannot wholeheartedly recommend Brokeback Mountain, due mostly to how depressing its story is, I also think you should not shy away from seeing it simply because it has been dismissively described as "the gay cowboy movie." Even Medved has admitted that it is a better movie than its publicity makes it out to be. As always, your call. I welcome your feedback.