Brokeback Mountain (2005)

The image of the cowboy in Americana is one of a man who has no emotions, a human callous not allowed even a tear at the passing of a friend or a good horse. This is the classic American icon that director Ang Lee bravely deconstructs in the compelling, if occasionally vacuous, Brokeback Mountain. Starring two Hollywood teen idols, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, Brokeback Mountain explores explicitly what any number of older films portrayed implicitly or even without intention. Top Gun anyone?

Ledger stars as Ennis Del Mar and Gyllenhaal is Jack Twist. The two meet in Wyoming in 1963 where both land jobs tending sheep on the Brokeback Mountain range. Ennis is quiet and weary while Jack is outgoing and eager to establish some connection to the guy he will share the next several months worth of meals and work together.

Two men can eat a dinner steak and beans only so long before they finally begin to become friends, and soon cloistered Ennis is sharing his family history and Jack is lovingly absorbing his friend's newfound loquasiousness. Then one very cold night when Jack is too cold and tired to return to his seperate camp aside the sheep herd, the guys share a tent. A seemingly unintentional cuddle soon turns to fondling and finally sex, though each is quick to assure the other of his remaining manhood. "I'm no queer," says Ennis, and Jack replies, "me neither."

Parting at the end of the summer, with no invitation to return from their suspicious employer Roy (Randy Quaid), Ennis and Jack seperate for some 4 years. In the meantime, Ennis marries his high school sweetheart (Michelle Williams) and has two kids. Jack moves to Texas to take part in the rodeo but holds out hope that someday he and Ennis could be together again. Jack also eventually marries a fellow rodeo rider (Anne Hathaway), though the relationship is friendly at best.

It is Jack the reinitiates a relationship with Ennis, returning to Wyoming for what Ennis tells his wife is a fishing trip. After she catches, unbeknowst to Jack and Ennis, the two men kissing hello, she knows no fish will be caught on this trip. Williams' work here is heartbreaking; this young actress has so much talent that we have yet to scratch the surface of it.

While Jack harbors fantasies of he and Ennis living happily ever after, owning a ranch together, Ennis is more realistic and aware of the social barriers to such a relationship. As a boy, Ennis' father showed him the rotting corpses of two men suspected to have been living together as a couple. The show is a warning to Ennis that remains with him even as his passions for another man flame almost out of control.

Lee directs Brokeback Mountain from a script by Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry, based on a short story by Annie Proulx. The involvement of McMurtry is quite intriguing given that he is the writer behind the Lonesome Dove series, a celebration of all the great legends of being a cowboy. For McMurtry to lend his name to a film that deconstructs the very image he has helped cement in modern movies is very interesting and lends a sort of cowboy credibility to Brokeback Mountain.

The casting of two of Hollywood's hottest teen idols is a bit of a gamble. Both actors are handsome in ways that stretch the film's credibility. Gyllenhaal is a more unconventionally good looking actor while Ledger is the classical Hollywood idea of handsome. The fact that both are so good looking makes the film court a semi-porn fantasy. This could cause some, like myself, to question whether the film would be more effective with actors who look more like a real life Wyoming cowboy might look like.

That is not to say that either actor is ineffective in their role. Not at all. Once I was able to get past how inexplicably handsome our two rugged cowboys were I found both performances to be quite affecting. Ledger, as many have said before, is the more effective of the two as the shy, closeted Ennis. One could argue fairly that Ennis is the easier of the two roles because there is so much more to play. Where Jack is certain about his feelings, Ennis is torturously conflicted. Ledger plays the role quite well, even heartbreakingly well as the film closes.

Jack is slightly more difficult and thus Gyllenhaal should be commended. Jack is the one who is certain of his feelings and optimistic about the future if he can convince Ennis to be with him. Gyllenhaal brings layers to the character, more than there are in the script, with his ingratiating country boy demeanor early on and his raw nerve passion late in the picture.

However, when it comes to acting, Michelle Williams steals the film in the all too small role of Ennis' betrayed wife. Williams' brief scenes are devastating and filled with an emotional electricity that radiates from the screen. She represents many members of the audience who pull away from Ennis for not only cheating on his wife but for cheating with another man.

The look of horror on Williams' face as she see's Ennis and Jack kiss, unknown to them, is a shot that risks our involvement and support for the forbidden affair. In this scene and a later scene where she confronts Ennis, she lays out the emotional stakes of the film and just how hard Ledger and Gyllenhaal have to work to win us back to their side. For me, they eventually did.

Lee has not directed anything this heavy since 1997's The Ice Storm. The conflicts in Brokeback Mountain are as resonant and heartbreaking as anything he's ever done. Meanwhile, the look of the film at times rivals his painterly direction of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. That film remains more visually dazzling only for its extraordinary use of CGI effects, which is something not necessary for Brokeback.

Still, I have a few quibbles with the direction of Brokeback Mountain. The film could stand to be edited a little tighter. At just under 2 hours, the film shouldn't feel long but it does. Also the film could have laid off a bit on reassuring us just how macho the two lovers really are. Expressing the kind of insecurity the movie is attempting to subvert, Lee offers unnecessary scenes to show how macho our two heroes are.

A scene where Ledger faces down a pair of drunk bikers offers the compelling visual of Ledger against a night sky filled with fireworks. Yes, the scene has symbolic meaning, but it plays, as I said before, as if we were being reassured of his manhood. Gyllenhaal's battle of wills with his overbearing father-in-law plays similar to Ledger's fireworks scene but with less subtext and even less necessity.

What strikes me first about Brokeback Mountain is its politics. While what is onscreen is in no way political, it is for all intents and purposes a love story, its themes are socially relevant. The hard fought acceptance of homosexuality as more than a mere lifestyle choice is a hot button issue in red state-blue state America. Many beleive that the idea of gay marriage may have decided the last presidential election. So simply taking on the idea of a longterm love affair between two men in a major mainstream movie makes the film inherently political. Making the two lovers in the film cowboys, while it may not be intentional, is a near thumb in the eye to the very people who may find such a love story troubling.

In a perfect world Brokeback Mountain would be judged on only what is actually on the screen, which is a touching love story. Jack and Ennis are people first and men second, and because of the effective performances of Ledger and Gyllenhaal we root for them to be together as we would Romeo and Juliet or Julia Roberts and Richard Gere.

The political subtext gives the love story depth, and yet the story steers away from any direct political statement. There are mentions about what people will say over two men living together as a couple, but Brokeback comments on a local level and never eyes a big direct political statement. It may be all there subtextual, of course, but the politics are never direct.

These characters are a product of the environment where they live. It's a narrow but realistic point of view that leads one to wonder if Ennis and Jack could have found happiness in a more accepting environment like San Francisco. One of the tragedies of these characters, however, is that you could not imagine them anywhere other than where they are. Being trapped in those mountains is, whether it is what's best for them or whether it is what we want for them, where they belong. Lee underlines this point more than once throughout the film.

Final

Brokeback Mountain is accomplished as a love story and as a polemic hot button issue movie. Even if the film hides its real intentions under the veneer of handsome gay cowboys, it is the subtextual politics of Brokeback Mountain that make the picture important. Had the film been a little more focused in terms of editing the message might be more effective. Overall Brokeback Mountain is a powerful piece of filmmaking, and with its many awards it will surely remain a cultural touchstone long after it has ridden off into the sunset of the video rental world.