BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
Reviewed by Harvey S. KartenFocus FeaturesGrade: C+Directed by: Ang LeeWritten by: Larry McMurty, Diana Ossana, short story by E. Annie ProulxCast: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Randy Quaid, Anne Hathaway, Michelle WilliamsScreened at: Loews Lincoln Square, NYC, 12/10/05
If “Brokeback Mountain” looks like the favorite to win the Academy’s Best Picture designation, there’s evidence that bandwagon psychology is at work. Ang Lee’s film is perhaps the most overrated one of the year, called a masterpiece by such illustrious critics as Rex Reed, and a four-star production by Roger Ebert. Sometimes one gets the idea that to win accolades from some critics–and also for regular views in the audience who want to seem hip–all a film-maker has to do is knock out a work that’s distinct from the usual melodramas and silly romances that blight the screen week in, week out. While something can be said for Ang Lee’s treatment of a large theme in the America of the twenty-first century, the picture as a whole is static, with Heath Ledger’s cranking out his lines in such a low tone and with a peculiar (western?) accent that some of the words flirt with incomprehensibility.
Speaking of flirting, “Brokeback Mountain” has been called a “gay cowboy” movie, which it is, but thematically it’s more. Its principal theme is a common one in literature and cinema, the frustration that arises when people are unwilling or unable to express their true feelings. You repress who you are to such an extent that your life turns into what one character says in Henry Jaglom’s “Going Shopping”: “If you don’t do what you are meant to do and avoid taking risks, you’re destined to live with a life of Thursdays.”
E. Annie Proulx’s short story, adapted for the screen by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, opens in Wyoming in 1963, where two young men not yet out of their teens are hired to guard a flock of sheep, to protect the animals from coyote predators during the summer. Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) with just each other, their dog and the sheep for company, gain nutritional sustenance from beans. No self-respecting New Yorker would last more than three days. Ennis is close-lipped, therefore more likely to put up with the strange nature of the job, while Jack is the more outgoing. In the movie’s most talked-about scene, Ennis and Jack share a tent and cling to each other for warmth, and, with one thing leading to another, have a go at each other, each assuring the other that he is not gay. They part at the end of the summer with a quick “see ya around,” but are unlikely to be rehired by their boss, Joe (Randy Quaid), who spots them leaving the sheep unguarded.
Just when you think their homosexuality is quiescent since both later marry (their wives played by Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway), the two men, now four years older, meet in Wyoming and begin taking “fishing trips” together–though Ennis’s wife wonders why her man never brings home any fish. The film turns melodramatic as Jack, realizing he is gay, goes to male hookers in Mexico, his trip ending up with unforseen consequences.
Taiwan-born director Ang Lee, who came to America in his early twenties, is best known by “regular” film-goers for his crowd-pleasing “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” and by the more committed crowd for “Eat Drink Man Woman,” contributed his best work “The Ice Storm,” in 1997. That film was based on an actual ice storm in 1973 and how it parallels activities in the posh suburbs of New Canaan, Connecticut. Like his current offering, “The Ice Storm” chronicles sexuality. While cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto captures majestic western mountain views, “Brokeback Mountain” is inert, while dealing with subject matter that might have been titillating in the sixties but yawned-at by anyone in the audience with a modicum of sophistication.
Rated R. 134 minutes © 2006 by Harvey Kartenharveycritic@cs.com Member: NY Film Critics Online
Some people just can't go on vacation. LOL!
I appreciate the review - interesting viewpoint about critics though not surprising. Actually you make the film sound better than I imagined it would be.
"Work like you don't need the money. Love like you've never been hurt. Dance like nobody is looking." Anonymous
" Y force gay on everything. "
You have that backwards. The majority of heterosexuals force heterosexuality on gays. For one example, those who are gay may only legally marry the opposite sex.
But gays are not trying to stop heterosexual marriage.
-Don-
Another propaganda film from Hollywood and yet they still can't figure out why the box office is in such decline. The critics loathed The Passion of the Christ but they love Bareback Mountin' well surprise surprise. I guess Hollywood has finally found a cowboy(actually they're sheepherders)they can actually get behind and support.
Americans didn't want gay marriage so now Hollywood will show us how "closeminded, bigoted"..etc. we are. I love how Follywood continues to denigrate and crap all over traditional american culture and then tell us that we're the ones with the problem. I think Hollywood's idea of customer service stinks.
"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things; the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks nothing is worth a war, is worse. A man who has nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance at being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."--John Stuart Mill
"The critics loathed The Passion of the Christ "
Didja ever think that was because it's a crappy movie?
But re: Brokeback Mountain, "Seinfeld" co-creator Larry David said he's one of the heterosexual males who will decline to see the movie. In a piece he wrote for the "New York Times" he said, in part:
"Who's to say I won't become enamored with the whole gay business? Let's face it, there is some appeal there. I know I've always gotten along great with men. ... And gay guys always seem like they're having a great time. At the Christmas party I went to, they were the only ones who sang. Boy that looked like fun. I would love to sing, but this weighty, self-conscious heterosexuality I'm saddled with won't permit it. I just know if I saw that movie, the voice inside my head that delights in torturing me would have a field day. 'You like those cowboys, don't you? They're kind of cute. Go ahead, admit it, they're cute. You can't fool me, gay man. Go ahead, stop fighting it. You're gay! You're gay!' Not that there's anything wrong with it."
--Don
Fine. You won't let gay people love and marry each other. They will marry your daughters and sisters just to fit in your idea of a "normal" world. The consequences, just like in the movie, will be on your conscience (if you have one.)
Funny quote from the NY Times. It's difficult enough for some men to admit they have a feminine side, let alone embrace a movie about gay cowboys. As great a guy as my husband is, there is no way he will want to see the movie. I'll go to see it when he's on a business trip.
(I agree with you about Passion of the Christ - it sucked! I expected more after all the hype. I enjoyed The Robe more as far as that genre goes.)
"As great a guy as my husband is, there is no way he will want to see the movie. "
That weighty, self-conscious heterosexuality strikes again!
--d
<<The movie is an embarrassment to the US. why does the media skum hype it up? No wonder why they think the world hates America. >>
Actually, I'd be willing to bet that Brokeback will be more popular overseas and make more money there than the domestic run here.
Harvey,
<<“Brokeback Mountain” is inert, while dealing with subject matter that might have been titillating in the sixties but yawned-at by anyone in the audience with a modicum of sophistication.>>
But a lot of people who see this film in the suburban 'plexes and elsewhere, further into the hinterland, aren't sophisticated and are seeing this film in large part for titillation (Heath and Jake doing it...). My audience was made up mostly of groups of younger women in the 18 to 25 bracket. I saw it in a middle to working class suburban Boston 'plex. The strongest reaction to the film was giggly female laughter when the two leads embrace in view of Ennis's wife. In a sense, a lot of people are back in the sixties at least as far as this subject matter is concerned.
I traveled through Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming in the early seventies. This film captures that time and place amazingly well. They did have a kind of emotional inertness then, in the sense that many people were restrained about their feelings. I think it was a characteristic of the times particularly for men.
A lot of Hollywood types passed on this film. It took Ang Lee to realize it. (Like yourself, I very much liked "The Ice Storm." I was back in New England in late '73, the era of the film and it sure captured that era.)
Brokeback is actually a very conservative film if you consider what happened to the two main characters.
Tom
As great a guy as my husband is, there is no way he will want to see the movie.
Nancy,
<<I do think it is probably a difficult movie for many American heterosexual males to watch.>>
For sure. I consider myself a cool, urbane film-goer, and I found myself squirming at times. As much an issue here as sex between between men is simply love and affection between men--without sex. And when you get to the last frame of the film, you realize that's what the film was really about. That's what makes the film so sad. Maybe they should have titled the film "Brokeheart Mountain." Women seem to take all these things in stride far more easily than men.
Hi Nancy,
I had mentioned over the weekend to my husband that I would like to see this movie sometime. Surprisingly, he was not opposed, so hopefully I'll get to see it before the Academy Awards. I'll be interested in his reaction as well. I wonder what your husband didn't like about the movie.
Maureen
I wonder what your husband didn't like about the movie.
<< Acting is a joke profession. Who pays these ppl.?>>
Many actors have a contract that pays them a percentage of a film's box office revenues.
This sick arrangement is obscenely known as a "backend deal".
It's yet another perverted term and practice employed by the Hollyweird sodomites and socialists who are hellbent on flushing America down the toilet .
R.B.taking the mick ! :^) ;^) :^) ;^)
Nope! And I tell all who I am in contact with during my working hours in sales, and they thank me for the forewarning. Again, I will limit my money being spent on movies rated "R", as the rating should be "Porno!" Enough is enough. Leave a lot of the "porn junk" for the imagination, and that my friend, these days, even the youngest has the imagination of the elders these days, so they don't need to see it on screen. They already know how and where they came from! It would be a pleasure to see real good movies, and I don't think that will ever happen, as stars, actors, actresses don't seem to care either. They seem to like being fondled, etc. It is sickening, sorry! I just saw "Mr. Ringer" for the 5th time, as I have a movie chat club which introduces movies, talks about them, and those who don't drive, bring them to good movies, That movie should have gotten big time reviews, but no.........Brokeback Mountain???? Come on.....who wants to see men with men, let alone women with women, let alone all the sex conotation existing these days! It is getting to the point where, men and women no matter what age, that seems to be the only thing on their minds, tongues, facial gestures, etc. Yep, times a changing.......
Again, leave it for the imagination!
