Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005)

[kieslowski_67]

I'd love for LAFCA to honor Mysterious Skin in some way shape or form. It's a film whose knowledge of gay ,love and desire is light years beyond B.M.

As long as you guys don't award abortions like HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS this year - patooey!

Did they ever vote for "house of the flying daggers" last year? If so, that would have been a shame.

[Michael]

David E, what do you think of Almodovar? Just curious.

Because of your love for Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train, I checked it out last month and loved it a lot. Still difficult to shake this film out of my mind. davidhare recommended Wild Side recently and I also checked it and absolutely loved it! Can you list other gay films that you love or that you think are mandatory?

Thanks.

[jesus the mexican boi]

Because of your love for Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train, I checked it out last month and loved it a lot. Still difficult to shake this film out of my mind. davidhare recommended Wild Side recently and I also checked it and absolutely loved it! Can you list other gay films that you love or that you think are mandatory?

This looks like the beginning of a beautiful new thread. (Hint, hint).

Can I recommend THE BEST WAY TO WALK (Claude Miller, 1976)? It's a deceptively unobtrusive film that I stumbled onto by browsing the DVD aisles at Fry's. In its own (not always) quiet way, it gets to the heart of the power plays at the center of a relationship whose boundaries are open and undefined. I think fans of LA MALA EDUCACION will be open to it.

[Michael]

Thanks, I will look for The Best Way to Walk. Never heard of it but I'm one of the world's biggest fans of La Mala Educacion.

[David Ehrenstein]

The Best Way to Walk is quite an interesting film.

Not all that crazy about Almodovar. Lord knows he's brilliant but to me his "audacity" is more apparent than real.

Among the best gay films IMO (no particular order save for the first mentioned): Those Who Love Me Can Take the Train, Son Frere, Sunday Bloody Sunday, An Englishman Abroad, My Beautiful Laundrette, Mala Noche, My Own Private Idaho, Happy Together, L'Homme Blesse, Un condamne a mort c'est echappe, Teorema, Arabian Nights (Pasolini), Fox and his Friends, The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant, Fassbinder's episode from Germany in Autumn, In a Year of 13 Moons, Querelle, Twice a Man, The Illiac passion, Eros O Basileus, Flaming Creatures, Normal Love, Horse, My Hustler, ****(Four Stars), The Long Day Closes, Love is the Devil, Remembrance of Things Fast, Edward II, The Last of England, Gods and Monsters, Kinsey, Parting Glances and Tropical Malady.

[Michael]

I've been curious about Gus Van Sant's debut feature - Mala Noche. What is the film like? Some years ago a friend said that it's basically a series of beautiful, gritty images showing a man falling in love with a Mexican immigrant and also it's hard to squeeze the story out of it. Are there any dialogues? What is the experience like?

[David Ehrenstein]

It's very much a story. It centers on a skid row liquor store clerk who falls unrequitedly in love with a Mexican street hustler. While our hero fails to connect with his beloved he has more success with another Mexican hustler. All ends tragically, howevr. A Portland local named Tim Streeter played the lead. The script was based on the then-unpublished writings of Walt Curtis (who can be seen in the opening scenes of My Own Private Idaho giving River a blow-job.) It's an extremely accomplished piece of work in the mode of Cassavetes and Morris Engel. The style of Drugstore Cowboy proceeds directly out of it.

[zedz]

I've been curious about Gus Van Sant's debut feature - Mala Noche. What is the film like? Some years ago a friend said that it's basically a series of beautiful, gritty images showing a man falling in love with a Mexican immigrant and also it's hard to squeeze the story out of it. Are there any dialogues? What is the experience like?

This really does need to be a separate thread. Back in the 80s, I thought Mala Noche was a revelation. It's a narrative film, but the narrative does drift considerably, and the impression I got was of interiority: a powerful impression that you were experiencing the protagonist's subjective worldview. When he's cruising, the camera's cruising and so are you. Of course, later on much of that turned out to be Van Sant's own distinctive, seductive eye.

I'd add to David's fine list The Terence Davies Trilogy (a very bleak take on an entire, painful gay life), Todd Haynes' Dottie Gets Spanked and Ira Sach's The Delta. There are dozens of great documentaries, of course.

[kieslowski_67]

As long as you guys don't award abortions like HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS this year - patooey!

Did they ever vote for "house of the flying daggers" last year? If so, that would have been a shame.

Hello? LAFCA voted House of Flying Daggers Best Foreign Film in 2004!

WOW! The majority of the voters in the LAFCA must be genius. I underestimated their talents and tastes before. My apology.

[Fletch F. Fletch]

In case you're all curious, The New Yorker has posted Proulx's original short story online: ,
[url=http://www.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/feature/49251]Sight and Sound weighs in (sort of), and MSNBC's The Straight Dude's Guide to Brokeback

[David Ehrenstein]

My last word on the subject.

[souvenir]

Stephen Holden's NYTimes review says "Both Mr. Ledger and Mr. Gyllenhaal make this anguished love story physically palpable. Mr. Ledger magically and mysteriously disappears beneath the skin of his lean, sinewy character. It is a great screen performance, as good as the best of Marlon Brando and Sean Penn." I'm a little stunned at the comparison, but also intrigued since I haven't seen the film yet. Of course it might just be hyperbole. Whole review here.

[kieslowski_67]

Stephen Holden's NYTimes review says "Both Mr. Ledger and Mr. Gyllenhaal make this anguished love story physically palpable. Mr. Ledger magically and mysteriously disappears beneath the skin of his lean, sinewy character. It is a great screen performance, as good as the best of Marlon Brando and Sean Penn."

I'm a little stunned at the comparison, but also intrigued since I haven't seen the film yet. Of course it might just be hyperbole.

Definitely not at the level of Brando in 'on the waterfront', 'godfather', or 'streetcar', but comparable to Penn's best work in 'dead man walking'. Ledger's characterization of Ennis is the brightest spot after Ang's masterful direction. The last time a marginal talent turning in a greatish performance was Charlize Theron in "Monster".

[Michael]

David E, after reading your blog just now. Unlike your posts here on the forum, your December 8 entry helped me tremendously to understand your hatred of Brokeback Mountain. Your absolutely valid points were made very clear in that blog entry and I suggest everyone to check it out. By the way, I never cared for David Leavitt. I started a couple of his books and failed to finish them. I'm surprised that he's still writing and getting more attention than Edmund White, Alan Hollinghurst, Dennis Cooper, Scott Heim and Jim Grimsley, to name a handful of finest gay writers of today.

Having said that, I apologize for calling you a "bitter old queen". I was disturbed by the profound rudeness and anger boiling not only throughout your BBM-related posts but also toward other members of the forum. As a gay person, I feel obligated to watch BBM just to see what the big fuss is all about.. this whole media overkill. What angers me the most is how some critics make the film appear "so good that it's not gay".

[kieslowski_67]

How can Arabian Nights (Pasolini) be considered a gay film? If such, is "Salo" also a gay film?

As far as good gay themed movies go, I will also consider Tehcine's "les Roseaux sauvages", "les Voleurs", and "J'embrasse pas"; Rivette's "Céline et Julie vont en bateau"; Kurys's "Entre Nous"; Denis's "Beau travail"; Almadovar's "Bad Education" and "law of desire"; Visconti's "death in Venice"; Anne Fontaine's "dry cleaning"; Blier's "Tenue de soirée"; Schnabel's "before night falls"; Jean Delanno's "les Amitiés particulières"; Chabrol's "les Biches"; and Paul Verhoeven's "the fourth man".

[David Ehrenstein]

Thanks Michael. I wrote that entry specifically in order to clear up any residual questions that might remain about my position. When you buck "conventional wisdom" as monstrously engineered as this you've got to have very thick skin as well as ready arguments.

Arabian Nights has several lovely sequences involving male same-sex love -- don't you recall them? I thought of including Salo, but it's about hate, not love. There's a very good reason why Ninetto (the love of Pasolini's life) isn't in Salo. He would have to be either a victim or an executioner -- and Pasolini couldn't stand seeing him as either.

My list wasn't meant to be definitive, kieslowski. All the films mentioned on your list are of interest -- particularly Les Roseaux Sauvages.

J'embrasse pas is a film a clef about Techine and Roland Barthes (played by Philippe Noiret)

[flambeur]

It just amazes me how many people get sucked in by the "media" machine and how they complain about how much it bothers them.

Ignore the f'ers!!

I'm not gay, my opinion of other "lifestyles" for lack of another expression, is live and let live. I've heard of BBM through it's exposure on the TIFF. Attitudes toward the subject matter will take many more moons to change, especially among the popular culture, but I can understand some people's frustration here.

Up in my neck of the woods, Toronto, all I've read is good reviews.
I've appreciated Ang Lee's previous works and look forward to seeing this one day...

[David Ehrenstein]

Yale vs. Harvard

[Michael]

Settling down with coffee and computer first thing this morning, emails bombarded from friends (all gay except for a couple) in NYC and San Francisco....all nothing but highest praises for Brokeback Mountain which was released in those cities yesterday. David E, even though your argument in your blog is full of excellent points, you seem to be a loner in the gay community in the way you feel about BBM (except for maybe davidhare but he hasn't seen the film yet) because I can't find anything negative about the film coming from anyone in the gay community, including the Internet. I have a feeling though, that I will like or even fall in love with BBM, Hollywoodized or not.. but we'll see.

[David Ehrenstein]

Some are content with crumbs. I prefer bread.

[Michael]

In order for BBM to become "bread", what does it need?

Oral sex? Boston rub?

[The Invunche]

Felching?

[David Ehrenstein]

Slumming again?

[Michael]

ABC News: Gays in Movies: A Timeline. Some of the choices... vomit-inducing at its best.

[David Ehrenstein]

Someone spent all of five minutes putting that list together. It's full of misinformation. Bound, for example, was not a big-budget film.