Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005)

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Andrew Sarris sounds off

[David Ehrenstein]

I've just been given the go-ahead to detonate Brokeback Mountain in the L.A. Weekly.

See y'all in a few days.

[denti alligator]

I've just been given the go-ahead to denotate Brokeback Mountain in the L.A. Weekly.

Do you mean *detonate*?

[Carson Dyle]

You're being completely ridiculous.

I was exaggerating to make a point, which I thought I made clear when in the next paragraph I wrote that Far From Heaven was my favorite film that year. And to address David Hare's point, I don't believe Haynes wrote from the inside of any of the characters. But yes, I will look at that film again.

People who have never had a same-sex experience by the time they reach adulthood (and we're never given any information that they have so we have to assume the negative) dont' go (in the immortal words of Cary Grant "gay all of a sudden" in this manner. Jake takes Heath's arm, puts it around himand bang he's a top!

I was under the impression that Ledger's character always had same sex feelings, but that he kept those feelings tightly under wraps, along with every other feeling he ever had. Larry McMurtry was under the same impression when he spoke at the Q&A I attended a couple of weeks ago.

Adding to the stupidity is that we're supposed to expect that he's got the lowest sex drive in human history. He dutifully marries and is same-sex faithful to Jake for twenty years.

Since Gyllenhal and Ledger argue about that very topic in the film, yes, I suppose you are supposed to believe that he kept it in his pants and was too afraid to anything about his desires. If he was out fucking around would that have made it a better, more gay movie?

Well mother pin a rose on you. And stick that pin in hard.

Always the gentleman, David.

Tell it to the shade of Francois Truffaut. He built an entire critical career on bitching.

When he wasn't bitching, he made some excellent films.

Thanks for the responses, Michael. I agree with you on some points, disagree with you on others. I doubt this is the forum to have a rational discussion of the points you made.

[Michael]

Carson, please do give Far From Heaven another look.

Frank Whitaker is a miserable, angry drunk for the most excellent reason. He's stuck in the society that look at gay folks as psychos so self-hatred ultimately consumes him. But in the end he does something about it by stepping out of the marriage and becoming true to himself unlike the Brokeback fellas.

The last phone conversation between Frank and Cathy is so full of truth that it hurts.

davidhare is right about Far from Heaven being made possible only by a gay director.

[GringoTex]

Tell it to the shade of Francois Truffaut. He built an entire critical career on bitching.

I'm about to conduct the threadjack of all threadjacks, but I think it's no coincidence that the first critic to be banned from a film festival is also the same person to direct the most honest treatise of heterosexual marriage ever put on celluloid: Bed and Board.

[Jun-Dai]

Is it just me, or does it sound like everyone in this thread wants to see D.E. start making films?

[Michael]

For the last two nights, my partner and I watched All That Heaven Allows, Ali: Fear Eats the Soul and Far From Heaven (in this order). My goodness, what a beautiful, inspiring experience that's going to be a new tradition for every winter. I can't recommend you all enough to do the same. I never realized that the dance scene in Far From Heaven was a homage to Ali and Emmi dancing in Fear Eats the Soul. Beautiful, beautiful!

[Michael]

From Advocate:

[quote]"It's very brave of them"
Everyone who's tired of the media—and Madonna—calling Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger “braveâ€

[Theodore R. Stockton]

So, do the gay cowboys eat pudding?

[chaddoli]

No, they don't.

I brought some with me to the theater though, don't worry.

[Michael]

http://www.igra.com

[Ted Todorov]

When I saw Brokeback Mountain a week or so ago, I thought of it as a prime example of what Truffaut called "le cinéma de Papa". Not bad, but certainly not worth the ink being spilled. Among 2005 films with a gay protagonist Mysterious Skin was a far better movie.

Then on Monday I saw that other Heath Ledger starer, Casanova (mostly because what I really wanted to see was sold out) and well -- it is a much better movie -- if a thoroughly Hollywood entertainment, but apart from that -- it is way more transgressive and timely than Brokeback Mountain. Casanova is an unapologetic, full bore attack on everything the Bush administration holds dear: religion, spying, torture, the negation of science, straight laced morality.

But it is also an attack on the bourgeois, live happily ever after with your *one* true love morality that Brokeback Mountain has at its heart as the unattainable goal for Jack and Ennis. So long as that bourgeois morality the only goal it hardly matters if we are talking about boy girl or boy boy -- we are still playing right into the hands of the forces of darkness. Casanova has the balls to take on the whole accepted moral order. Sure it's a safely removed from the present time/place bodice ripper -- but don't forget Brokeback Mountain is a period piece too -- it conveniently lets the audience off the hook. "All those bad things couldn't happen to poor Jack & Ennis today". Casanova on the other hand speaks directly to 2005 -- only a willfully blind viewer would miss it. And it happens to be infinitely more enjoyable and entertaining.

[David Ehrenstein]

Horsefeathers!

[Michael]

Excellent piece, David E. Another thing that is bugging me is how ridiculously well Brokeback Mountain is doing at the box office. How in the world is that possible?
If gay actors were cast in the lead roles, Brokeback Mountain would have been considered a "gay film" and not sold as well at the box office. Pathetic.

Take any one frame from Wild Side. It speaks much, much truer and louder than the 2+ hr entirety of Brokeback Mountain. I'm just trying to get more people to see Wild Side which I think navigates the same themes - homophobia, family, love, acceptance, repression, longing, death etc...

[David Ehrenstein]

Merci! As to your question, here's the answer from today's Los Angeles Times. IOW, it's not "a gay movie," it's "a chick fick."

[ben d banana]

Well, then to counter, because I love people screaming wildly at each other without paying one iota of attention to what the other is saying, this was the gf's quicky email reply to me after I forwarded David E's link. Now keep in mind, she's something of a "fag hag" rather than a homosexual male, and she saw the preview at an AIDS Walk benefit, so according to David E's previous posts, she's the film's target audience.

I really can't stand this style of writing---you can almost hearing him thinking to himself "I'm sooooooooo smart" as he was writing this article. One thing is that he makes reference to queers in popular culture, but he makes reference to relatively obscure ones. I have never heard of the actors that he mentioned and perhaps it's true that they have been relegated to the prison of indie cinema, but by doing so he completely ignores out actors like Rupert Everett, Stephen Fry, D.B. Wong, etc. He also seems to think that Hollywood actors aren't under the same pressure to stay in the closet as they were in the 40s and 50s but, hello!, Tom Cruise, Wentworth Miller, John Travolta!!! Grumble...It's so frustrating when people like this conveniently avoid certain details that would render their argument moot---you have to amp up your side to a degree but to completely ignore some things is just, well, ignorant.

His list of queer films was a little sparse as well...I think what is really missing in his assessment is that he doesn't recognize that "Brokeback Mountain" is one of the first movies about "gay love" that has received that much promotion and attention in the popular media and that is one of the reasons it is an important film. And I think the quote from Rick Moody that he included is spot-on---it's not a movie about queer culture, it's a story of two people who fall in love and who, due to their circumstances, cannot be together as they would like to be. It's not a story that sets out to criticize or analyse our culture and the inherent homophobia that is a part of our society.

She continued in person with comments about slash fiction being popular with gay men as well as straight women, and since Bollywood is the largest film industry in the world, she ran off a list of the most famous Bollywood actors/actresses, and said why doesn't everyone know their names? In fact, she was venting all evening about it, but most further details have become hazy.

I will point out, I haven't read David E's article or blog on the subject as I'd prefer to see the movie first (I vastly prefer to see a movie cold), but I do agree with his queer reading of Bresson (although not as the only possible reading), and so does the gf having only seen Pickpocket and hearing the Cliff's Notes version of his take.

[David Ehrenstein]

I have never heard of the actors that he mentioned and perhaps it's true that they have been relegated to the prison of indie cinema, but by doing so he completely ignores out actors like Rupert Everett, Stephen Fry, D.B. Wong, etc.

They would have been miscast playing sheep-herders in Wyoming being British and Asian-American respectively.

He also seems to think that Hollywood actors aren't under the same pressure to stay in the closet as they were in the 40s and 50s but, hello!, Tom Cruise, Wentworth Miller, John Travolta!!!

Of please! The nuttiness of Cruise and the closetedness of Miller is going out of style rather rapidly. David Hyde Pierce has always taken his boyfriend with him to premieres. Likewise Victor Garber and his boytoy du jour (Best Man and Best Man's Boyfriend at Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner's wedding.) And let's not forget Doogie, who while playing a heterosexual masher on the tube ( How I Met Your Mother ) spends his off hours with David Burtka, another musical comedy star, who most recently played "Tulsa" in the Bernadette Peters revival of Gypsy.

His list of queer films was a little sparse as well...

I had to cut it for space. I could have gone on for pages!

I think what is really missing in his assessment is that he doesn't recognize that "Brokeback Mountain" is one of the first movies about "gay love" that has received that much promotion and attention in the popular media and that is one of the reasons it is an important film.

That's like saying Titanic is a greater love story than Romeo and Juliet because more teenage girls are familiar with it. By such standards Lindsay Lohan should be getting this year's Kennedy Center Honors.

And I think the quote from Rick Moody that he included is spot-on---it's not a movie about queer culture, it's a story of two people who fall in love and who, due to their circumstances, cannot be together as they would like to be. It's not a story that sets out to criticize or analyse our culture and the inherent homophobia that is a part of our society.

Which is precisely why straight creeps like you love it so much. It lets you off the hook -- while flattering you with how "open-mided" you are for embracing such drivel.

[The Invunche]

What hook exactly are we being let off?

[Andre Jurieu]

That's like saying Titanic is a greater love story than Romeo and Juliet because more teenage girls are familiar with it.

Not really, considering Romeo and Juliet is well acknowledged within the mainstream as one of the most popular and "greatest love stories of all-time". Its representation within popular culture is strong enough to sustain the mildly financially successful Baz Luhrman film made just a few years ago. A specific measure of popularity is not what the BRZA finds significant - she is writing about of a hurdle being jumped over (which I'm sure you will disagree with, because apparently that hurdle was crossed a long time ago by a number of art films that very few people watched and that no one remembers within the mainstream). The BRZA is simply saying that having a film with homosexual subject matter acknowledged/embraced by popular culture is meaningful move within today's political climate. You can disagree if you want, but your whole Titanic vs Romeo & Juliet parallel doesn't work too well.

By such standards Lindsay Lohan should be getting this year's Kennedy Center Honors.

Well, how much say does Ted Kennedy have in the outcome of the award?

Which is precisely why straight creeps like you love it so much.

Did you forget the part where ben says he hasn't watched the film, so he has no real opinion on the quality of the movie itself?

[David Ehrenstein]

Did you forget the part where ben says he hasn't watched the film, so he has no real opinion on the quality of the movie itself?

I was referring to the person ben was quoting.

What hook exactly are we being let off?

Responsibility to the well-being of one's fellow man.

[Theodore R. Stockton]

So, Do the gay cowboys eat pudding?

[David Ehrenstein]

Alas, no puddin'

[ben d banana]

While Andre has argued David E's "point" rather well, I'd just like to clarify that my "straight creep" girlfriend (The BRZA in question) has spent nearly half her life volunteering for the AIDS Walk, volunteered for the local gay film festival, organizes and promotes dance parties with a group of gay, lesbian, drag queen friends, and a substantial chunk of her friend base is gay and lesbian. I guess any remaining debt to the homosexual community she was on the hook for was covered by enjoying a film with cowboys in love and didn't extend to agreeing with every utterance of a gay film critic.

Who's up for discussing that I'm a racist because I have blond hair and blue (well green, but accuracy counts for shit in these debates) eyes?

[Andre Jurieu]

I was referring to the person ben was quoting.

So, now you're just insulting people who aren't even members of the forum and don't pay attention to what you post here unless their significant other notifies them of it.

I'd just like to clarify that my "straight creep" girlfriend (The BRZA in question) has spent nearly half her life volunteering for the AIDS Walk, volunteered for the local gay film festival, organizes and promotes dance parties with a group of gay, lesbian, drag queen friends, and a substantial chunk of her friend base is gay and lesbian. I guess any remaining debt to the homosexual community she was on the hook for was covered by enjoying a film with cowboys in love and didn't extend to agreeing with every utterance of a gay film critic.

Well ben, the BRZA's efforts were all for nothing. Since she likes Brokeback Mountain, she is therefore a homophobe.

Who's up for discussing that I'm a racist because I have blond hair and blue (well green, but accuracy counts for shit in these debates) eyes?

I thought that case had been closed after you said you liked Showgirls, you Aryan creep.