|
Brokeback Mountain January 8, 2005 |
||
|
There has been some controversy over "Brokeback Mountain", the most acclaimed film of the year, and the 5:1 odds on favorite to win Best Picture, but I don't see why. It's a western, it's a love story, and it's a study of society, hatred, and alienation, which all sounds pretty normal to me, but because the love story is something quite unlike anything you've ever seen in the macho genre before, it's ripe for controversy, but that doesn't make it a freak western, or by any means even a curiosity, because it is a fully formed and functioning character study, that just happens to center around two male cowboys and their mutual attraction towards each other. Okay, so maybe some of the press and controversy is warranted, after all, it is a groundbreaking subject for a mainstream western, plopped right in the idyllic heart of America, the 1960's west, where John Wayne and the Marlboro Man represented a boy's ideal goal in manly expectations, before Vietnam effectively shattered American idealism as we know it, and stars two heterosexual, good looking young actors on the verge of superstardom, but thankfully the nation's critics, and for the most part, the accepting movie-going public, have looked beyond the late night TV jokes and simplistic "gay cowboy movie" moniker to accept director Ang Lee's great film for what it is, a profoundly moving and intensely personal melodrama. The subject matter may be shocking to the specific genre, but homosexuality is hardly the taboo it once was (in Hitchcock's 1949 "Rope", the murderer's thinly veiled homosexuality so scared Warner Brothers that even the slightest reference of "It" from the original stage play was cut, leaving only implications and weak suggestions), and the film works best not as a study in gay love, but as a study of societal ignorance and the fear and loathing it installs in the men's minds and actions. That two men love each other isn't shocking any more, but the way the bigotry and near fatalistic views of a small 1960's western town somehow still mirrors our own current state of fear and repression is eye opening, and the main reason why right win detractors play up crackpot theories on sin, instead of looking right in the mirror and seeing the real problem, what "Brokeback Mountain" and brave movies like it are trying to override, one glorious minute at a time. The movie, based on a short story by Annie Proulx, and adapted for the screen by Diana Ossana and famed western author Larry McMurtry, is symbolically stationed in two very different settings; the vast, beautiful, and open mountain ranges of Wyoming, and the oppressive, closed-in, suffocating small towns of Texas, where family life and knockabout farm jobs seem like prison cells compared to the freedom of the mountains. The first 40 minutes sets the stage for the drama to unfold over the next several decades, as two poor, emotionally shut-in cowboys from various parts, Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger), and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), take a summer job herding sheep on Brokeback Mountain, eating nothing but beans, sleeping under the stars, talking religion, and innocuously passing the time beneath a beautifully picturesque snowcapped mountain. Very methodically, one cold night the boys share a cramped tent and engage in a rough, almost regretful bout of lovemaking which shocks them even more than it does us (of course we're expecting it), and puts Ennis on edge, wondering what would happen if anybody found out. "It ain't nobodies business but ours," replies Jack, the instigator of the affair, but hardly the only willing participant, for once the summer is over, and the men return to their various parts to forge loveless families with two very different women - Jack with rich cowgirl Lureen (Anne Hathaway), and Ennis with desperate housewife Alma (Michelle Williams) - weekend fishing trips to the mountains keeps them together, threatening to expose their secret, and potentially end their lives. "You ever get the feeling that somebody looks at you and he knows," says Ennis in one of the film's saddest, hardest commentaries on paranoia and societal repression, "then you go onto the pavement and they look at you like they all know?" As the years go by, such statements threaten to ruin the men mentally, driving them apart with the simple threat of violence, to the point where they can hardly find two weekends a year to be with each other, yet a crippling amount of time for their unloving home lives, suggesting that natural love between two men is simply unacceptable in their society, while forced, cold love between a man and a women is okay, as long as it produces children, and normalcy. "Brokeback Mountain" is a lot of films rolled into one, starting with the picturesque western (think John Ford's Monument Valley epics crossed with the alienation of Peter Bogdanovich's "The Last Picture Show", also written by McMurtry), and ending with an almost Shakespearian romantic tragedy, but the misconception that it's a flaunting gay pride picture is slightly off target; it's less about Jack and Ennis' acceptance of their love for each other, which is tender and heartfelt, but more about how society's preconceived notion of homosexuality comes to burden their psyche, and has them questioning their choices. "You used to come away easy enough," complains Jack, who seeks needed companionship in other places, such as back alley's in Mexico, while Ennis broods seven-hours away in his trailer park, "now it's like seeing the Pope." The two are constantly driven apart by fighting and jealousy that stems directly from their fear of exposure (Jack gives a heartbreaking monologue late in the movie about how happy they could have been if only they had the guts to shuck off society's stink eye and live together on a small ranch in Mexico), but drawn together again when their true feelings begin to overtake their hum-drum civilian lives. They're not the only losers in this sticky situation, the women become suspicious and bitter as well, and the children, born into loveless families, will eventually become the products of divorce, anger, and joint custody. The symbolism of the mountain and the town comes into play every time Jack and Ennis have to repress their feelings for the sake of a one-track society, as the open freedom of Brokeback and love, as well as the river and time flowing by, continually clashes with babies, marriages, in-laws, day jobs, mortgages, divorce, self-loathing, and eventually, complete cynicism and bitterness. You can see the movie as both a study of alienation and a social commentary, and it works as both, but it's also a tear-jerking melodrama that bends the forbidden romance formula to mirror modern day ideologies, and for that, it's a hard-hitting bombshell. There is a lot of praise to be spread around for making "Brokeback Mountain" the landmark that it is, and indeed, everybody involved has received some kind of award or nomination this award's season, but it has to start with Ledger and Gyllenhaal, who bravely tackle scenes of awkwardness, hatred, and tenderness with professional resolve and stature. Gyllenhaal�s Jack is the more aggressive, and sensitive of the two, and he's played like a rambunctious teenager who gets the wind knocked out of him when the real world presents it's ugly face for the first time, where Ledger's Ennis is the brooding quiet man, who reluctantly lets his feelings over come his fear and better judgment for his own well being, a double edged sword of love, and inner hate. Both of the actors give fine performances, but when the private home lives begin to take over the film, it's Ennis that gets the more attention, and Ledger benefits from the meatier story line, earning leading man status for a powerful, complex, and sheltered performance. The women can't be ignored, Williams and Hathaway (light years away from "Dawson's Creek" and "The Princess Diaries") are great as the wives who play second fiddle to the love affair, and Linda Cardellini has a wonderful cameo as a waitress who doggedly tries to win over the divorced, emotionally quiet Ennis Del Mar sometime in the late 70's. Helming this melodramatic jumble of social criticism and man-man, man-woman fireworks is Ang Lee, a master of many hats, capable of nearly everything, from Taiwanese comedy ("Eat, Drink, Man, Woman"), and ravishing Jane Austen mores ("Sense and Sensibility"), to 1970's American suburbia ("The Ice Storm"), ancient martial arts ("Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon"), and heavily labored comic book adaptation ("The Hulk"). Lee deftly blends the story of the love affair with the pressures and repressions of the home life, spreading the choice bits of emotional baggage equally between the men and women, but choosing to focus more intently on Ennis and his emotional shell. "Brokeback Mountain" is worthy of all the acclaim it has received, it is one of the top five films of 2005, and when it walks away with a 10-gallon cowboy's hat full of Oscars, it'll be a well deserved victory for a film that brings an old fashioned storytelling approach to a controversial subject, and pulls it off with brilliance, beauty, and heartbreak. "Brokeback Mountain" is playing at the North Park Theater, Hertle Ave. in Buffalo. by Adam Suraf
|