Director Ang Lee's new film, "Brokeback Mountain," is causing an uproar among conservatives across the country. The film follows latter-day cowboys Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) as they spend the summer of 1963 on Wyoming's Brokeback Mountain and tells of their subsequent relationship. Fueling the aforementioned controversy, this relationship is not merely platonic; instead "Brokeback Mountain" is a gay love story.
Based on Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Proulx's New Yorker short story of the same name, the movie elaborates on the 35 -page tale, creating an environment with fleshed-out situations and characters. While staying true to the source material, it adds much to the dense short story without detracting from it.
Jack and Ennis are temps for rancher Joe Aguirre (Randy Quaid) in Signal, Wyo. They spend a summer on Brokeback, herding sheep around the mountain while sleeping in two separate camps: Jack with the sheep and Ennis at the base camp. The first morning that they meet begins their relationship subtly, with Jack eyeing Ennis up and down in a side view mirror in his truck.
The quiet of the film begins from the first frame, a gorgeous nature shot. This first frame and its gravity set the scene for what will be an utterly solemn film.
By the end of summer, Jack and Ennis have entered into a full-fledged relationship. Ennis, the first night after having relations with Jack, tells him, "I ain't queer." Never again in the film does Ennis openly acknowledge the possibility of being gay. Instead it is implicit throughout the film, as the two move back to their respective homes and do not meet again for four years.
In that time, Ennis marries Alma (Michelle Williams, soon to be Ledger's real wife) and has two children. Jack goes back to Texas to try and develop his rodeo career and there catches the eye of a rodeo queen, Lureen Newsome (Anne Hathaway). Jack goes on to have a child with Lureen and works in her rich father's business.
The two men's unhappiness is clear in both marriages. In one telling scene, Ennis and Alma put their children to sleep and then go to bed. But as they begin to make love, he flips her over much as he would Jack and has anal sex with her. Jack's melancholy is seen as he endures disrespect time and time again by his new father-in-law, who refers to him as "rodeo."
Ledger is truly the standout in this film; he perfectly conveys the reserved emotions of a conflicted man. Gyllenhaal's character, in contrast, expresses his feelings more openly; at one point, he suggests that he and Ennis should run off together and start their own ranch.
"Brokeback Mountain" weaves together a plot without the use of overbearing dialogue. The short emotional bursts of repartee that are shared between Ennis and Jack are when the film is at its best. By its conclusion, Lee has masterfully created a work of art, both visually and emotionally. The breathtaking visuals are only topped by the emotional power of two leading Hollywood men falling in love.
Nothing in Hollywood has come close to realizing a gay love story before, and "Brokeback Mountain" does just that. The first scene in which Jack and Ennis physically engage is rough, raw and startling. The subsequent scenes, with the two wrestling and falling further into the throes of love, are in the foreground of the American Midwest in the 1960s, a place not welcoming to "queers."
The women in the film also hold their own. The script gives Hathaway little to work with as Jack's wife; she is little more than a Texas bimbo (the perfect woman for Jack since he is not really interested in women), yet plays her part successfully. Williams does an extraordinary job of portraying the defeated housewife.
The scenes after Jack and Ennis leave Brokeback Mountain are when the film takes its true emotional hold. After first parting, Ennis gets physically sick in an alley at the thought of leaving Jack for his heterosexual life with Elma. No scene is more powerful than Ledger's portrayal of Ennis at this juncture. After breaking down in the alley, he yells at a passerby who is merely coming in to make sure Ennis is okay. His progression from a man incapacitated by his love to a man infuriated by it is harrowing and extreme.
"Brokeback Mountain" may be on people's must-see film list primarily because of its billing as "that gay cowboy movie." The film is much more than that - it is a tribute to and criticism of the American Midwest in the 1960s and poignantly portrays two men in love just as a film would portray the forbidden love of a man and a woman. None of the criticisms of the film have come to weigh on it. The entire cast and director do an absolutely amazing job of translating the less-than-forty page short story into a romantic masterpiece.
