Ang Lee is no fool. I think he gets that BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, a gay cowboy movie, is a tough sell to regular guys, so he’s made a genius move to hook ‘em in…
Anne Hathaway and Michelle Williams topless.
Not for very long, it’s true, but long enough to get a good eyeful. And Anne’s rack is spectacular. Michelle ain’t bad either, though I do find it weird that she used to be this blonde bombshell, and seems to have grown into this mousey, modest kind of nerd girl. It may just be her acting choices.
As for those critics who say something like “Brokeback Mountain isn’t a gay cowboy movie, it’s just a love story, period,” I say to you that there is butt-fucking, and there are cowboy hats and horses, and therefore, yes, it IS a gay cowboy movie. That the sentiments may be universal doesn’t mean it somehow isn’t gay.
It’s a period piece that covers around 20 years, and it’s mainly a period piece because Ang Lee wants it clearly noted that being gay was not acceptable for these characters. Ennis (Heath Ledger) saw a gay cowboy’s murdered corpse when he was 9, and that’s why he won’t ever fully come out, even though Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) wants to. I’m not sure the fear of death bit adds anything to the story except giving an artificial “safety zone” for audiences to say, “Oh, but this couldn’t happen today, because we love gay dudes.” Well, rednecks don’t love ‘em. And gay rednecks probably still have major denial issues. On the other hand, it may be a choice to avoid having to talk about AIDS, which wasn’t an issue in the ’60s. It just becomes really odd when, towards the end, Ennis has a 19 year-old daughter, and Ledger looks like he could be her slightly older brother, but certainly not her dad.
The action starts in the ’60s, when Ennis and Jack meet while waiting for a job. Soon enough they’re both hired to tend Randy Quaid’s flock of sheep on Brokeback Mountain. Gradually, they break the ice, and then one night it’s so cold outside that Jack lets Ennis sleep in his tent, and hot anal lovin’ follows, though Ennis still maintains that he “ain’t queer.” The job ultimately gets screwed up, and Randy Quaid figures that the problem was too much man-love, so he doesn’t hire them back.
Then both of ‘em get married and go their separate ways: Jack with rich cowgirl heiress Hathaway, and Ennis to longtime girlfriend Williams. Every so often, the two men meet up for “fishing trips,” but Ennis’ wife sees them making out on her front steps, and lives with that knowledge for a few more years before getting divorced.
The rest of the movie just builds on all this stuff. It’s beautifully shot, and not as slow-moving as you might think, with good attention to characters and their development. I can’t say it involved my emotions that much, but it seems to do so for a lot of other people.
Anna Faris is in it, though I did not recognize her at all — I honestly thought it was Britney Spears playing the over-talkative friend of Hathaway’s.
The dynamics of family dysfunction are nicely delivered, especially in a Thanksgiving dinner scene at Jack’s house, that you’ll know when you see it.
As for the gay sex — not that explicit, but you know what’s happening. And I think both guys show all in non-sexual contexts, though it isn’t anything quite as gratuitous as the tit-shots.
For the prejudiced folks that don’t like gays, this movie may reaffirm their beliefs that homosexuality ruins families when people follow their sinful desires. For the saner people, it’s a case of “Why can’t people in love be together?” There is tragedy, of course, but it isn’t overdone or over-telegraphed, just laid out plainly like it so often is in real life.
Because it deals with love so matter-of-factly, and because it looks great while doing so, I’d call this a major Oscar shot (and one likely to ramp up the so-called culture war by flipping off the anti gay marriage crowd). I liked it a lot better than I thought, and might have even without the boobage, though of course that helped.
A scenee of them eatin’ puddin’ would have been a hilarious thing to stick in, though. Too bad Ang Lee probably doesn’t watch South Park.
EDIT: I just know that as soon as I link this to Rotten Tomatoes, I’ll get all kinds of remarks on how I’m immature or filthy or bigoted or what have you. So let’s be clear: I’m saying what is honestly going on my mind regarding this movie, and bluntly telling people the stuff I wanted to know before seeing it. Your mileage may vary. Gay people should marry. Period. HOOTERS!
Ang Lee has always made good, interesting movies. Hulk is the oddball, but I even enjoyed that, mostly. I’m glad this movie got made. Annie Proulx is a great short story writer too, if you like that sort of thing.
I agree, Annie Proulx is one of my faves. I think anyone who read this story will agree that it resonates. I remember it being about love and sex and lives shaped by what was absolutely forbidden. Something so sexy about two cowboys discovering each other on a cold night and then wanting more.
The other day my (just 13 year old) daughter said, “Mom, does it make you uncomfortable to watch men kiss men, cause I kinda get uncomfortable when I see it?” I asked her if she has been seeing it a lot? She was watching a “Degrassi High” DVD, which is her favorite show, and I guess there was a thread with two boys who weren’t out yet to their families and it showed them kissing. I told her sometimes yeah, it was uncomfortable to watch. But sometimes not, it depended on the movie/show and the context. We talked about how it is rare to see it, and that may be why. This is a kid who has just gotten over saying ewwww when watching any kissing, so maybe it’ll be integrated into her visual vocabulary in a way that it hasn’t been for her elders.
Can’t wait to see the movie.
Ah… so people calling this ‘Bareback Mountain’ were actually making a fairly crude joke… got it…
Great review. It’s cool to know that even straight guys who will get over themselves and have the courage to see this movie might actually think it’s good.
Even if they won’t tell their friends they saw it, or even admit that they enjoyed it.
Honestly, it’s lame to think that in the year 2005, most grown men will be more terrified of EVEN THE IDEA OF SEEING Brokeback Mountain than the worst, most violent movies like Saw 2 or The Devils Rejects.
This is sad. Open your minds guys. Doesn’t mean you’re queer. Just normal like everyone else.
Hmmm…”I’m not sure that fear of death bit adds anything…”
well, why would some pretty major writers include something like that? Probably ‘just ‘cuz’?
could it be to show that the cruel prejudices and dysfunctional actions adults expose children to actually end up being internalized for many, as well as setting up a prisoner that a damaged and confused character like “ennis” can’t get out of his head?
Do you really think Ang Lee included it to show “this couldn’t happen anymore?” when matthew shepherd was murdered in wyoming, the setting of this story?
Shortchanging key things like that might be the real reason the movie didn’t work for you emotionally, though it seemed to for everybody else.
And enough, enough with the hipster straight guys who make a big point out of saying the gay part isn’t a problem for them in the film…but then simply got to get in the crude jokes about those ‘hooters”. “Really I’m cool with this, really I am!” It just gets all so tiring. It’s not bigoted, etc. I’m calling you…it’s just really, really cliche.
[LYT responds: Gee Tom, did I say I love watching anal sex? No. You may be confusing me with other reviewers you've read. I acknowledged that I had not much interest in it in the beginning, but hooters got my attention, and the rest of the movie was fine too. Do you want my honest opinion, however crude, or you want a PC one? If the latter, go someplace else -- I review every movie this way, as you'll see if you look around a bit. Seems to me most other reviewers did give it the PC version (not to mention their Best Film of the Year award), so I don't know who all these cliched straight reviewers you're talking about are. But then, I live in Hollywood, among critics and many gay people.
And since you're certain Ang Lee's aware of Matthew Shepard and such, do you have a better explanation as to why this is a period piece? Nothing else about the story necessitates it. Finally, if you'd like to see a gay reviewer make nearly the same points I have, cut and paste the link below:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10342237/
I wrote mine first, though]
It’s a period piece because it’s an adaptation of a short stort written about the American West, set in -er…the 60s and 70s.
It presents itself as a symbol of this country, and the metaphors are about the death of the American West over time, specifcially from the 50s through the 70s. The poverty, the idea that you live can live in a beautiful setting and be isolated and alone and return to a more opressive restrictive culture, aka the American West in the 60s. It questions what is real for you. It questions who’s really repressing who? Are the character’s being repressed by society or are they just afraid of themselves? Neither one of these characters are “cowboys.” They are poor ranch hands trying to pretend to be more than they are and to get ahead when they have nothing. It’s symbolic on many levels, not just because they are gay and living in a certain time period. The author of the story used that generation and location to further the story.
Loved this movie and all it’s restrained and tragic self deprivation. Very quickly in the movie it became a story of two people who loved each other who could not be together and while the homosexuality drove the plot the universal themes of unexpected passion, duty, and how time place and culture defines and limits us took over. This worked because anyone can identify with that.
I watched it with my husband who was anxious but game and he liked it too while he commented that he could have lived without the initial sex scene which of course is what people will talk about. I found that scene pivotal, the unexpected and almost violent way they expressed thier feeling and stuffed them down. Ledger was amazing, the range of feelings he conveyed with such pitifully small dialogue was a perfect as a repressed cowboy. Jake as Jack was also gifted and rang true to both my husband and I who live in cowboy country where the culture still makes it nearly impossible for gay men to be accepted. In 1960 sorry those of you who think this was a relationship that would have worked are very optimistic.
My husband found the movie and how where you live and the community you live defines men. The connection to the land, and the western culture, the male mystique made the film more universal than most straight men will ever give theirselves a chance to realize. Too bad for them.
I think that calling Jack and Ennis “gay” or “homosexual” cowboys is incorrect……..they both fathered children, so I feel that the appropriate term for these dudes is “bi-sexual”…..J