Gay is the New Black

Rating: 5/10 (20 May 2010)

When "Brokeback Mountain" controversially, and rather unexpectedly, failed to win the "Best Picture" Oscar for 2005, Annie Proulx, the author of the short story on which it was based, angrily accused the Academy of homophobic bias and, speaking sarcastically of "Crash", the anti-racist film which actually did win, said that "Next year we can look to the awards for controversial themes on the punishment of adulterers with a branding iron in the shape of the letter A, runaway slaves, and the debate over free silver".
In other words, films about racism may have been ground-breaking and controversial in the days of "To Kill a Mockingbird" and "In the Heat of the Night", but today they are old hat. If you want something truly controversial and ground-breaking in the 21st century, try homosexuality. Gay is the new black.
My initial reaction to Proulx's display of sour grapes was: If only racism were as safely confined to the past as the debate over free silver! Yet in one respect, perhaps, she was right. Although racist attitudes remain endemic in America (and many other societies) there are few people today outside the lunatic fringe who would openly proclaim that one race is innately superior to another. There are plenty (in some states perhaps the majority) who would quite openly proclaim their belief that homosexuality is sinful, perverted or both. So to that extent a film about homophobia can indeed be seen as more daring or controversial than one about racism.
Where Proulx is wrong is in her implied assumption that Oscars are, or should be, awarded on the basis of daring, controversy or political correctness rather than on merit. And- let me come out of the closet here- my view is that, on merit, "Crash" (or "Trash" as Proulx preferred to call it) is by far the better of the two films.
"Brokeback Mountain" is a modern-day Western set in the period between 1963 and 1981. The protagonists are two ranch hands, Jack Twist and Ennis del Mar, who, fall in love and begin a sexual relationship while working together in Wyoming. (The title is taken from the fictional mountain where they meet). The film is sometimes described as a "gay cowboy movie", although that is inaccurate in one detail, as the two are engaged in herding sheep, not cattle. At the end of their summer together they part and go their separate ways. Both get married, Ennis marrying his long-time fiancée Alma and Jack an attractive female rodeo rider named Lureen. Despite their marriages, Jack and Ennis miss one another, and four years later they resume their affair after meeting again. Their relationship continues over a number of years in a series of trysts which they explain away to their wives as "fishing trips". Jack wants to live with Ennis on a permanent basis, but Ennis always refuses, even after his marriage to Alma (who has realised the truth about her husband's sexuality) ends in divorce.
My reasons for finding "Brokeback Mountain" inferior to "Crash" have nothing to do with any prejudice against films about same-sex relationships; I loved, for example, Peter Jackson's "Heavenly Creatures", which deals with the subject of lesbianism. "Crash is an example of what has become known as "hyperlink cinema" in which a number of interconnected plot lines are linked together; it is a style of film-making which needs careful handling if it is not to become confusing ("Syriana" is a good example of what can happen when this style goes wrong), but Haggis handles his material in a masterly way to produce an excellent film. "Brokeback Mountain", by comparison, has a much simpler storyline, but is plodding and dull, telling its story at excessive length. Compared to "Sense and Sensibility" or "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon", this is far from being Ang Lee's best work.
As regards the acting, I could never really envisage Jake Gyllenhaal's Jack as a man in the grip of a passion so intense that he was prepared to risk everything for it. Still less Heath Ledger's Ennis, despite the fact that both were Oscar-nominated. Both actors, especially Ledger, seemed to be trying their hardest to get away from the stereotype of the gay man as sensitive and over-emotional, but went to the opposite extreme of portraying their characters as introverted, inarticulate and lacking in emotion. It was also left unclear, in fact, whether we are supposed to regard the two men as gay or bisexual, something which affects the way in which we see them.
Probably the best acting performance came from Michelle Williams as the long-suffering Alma, but I felt that the film as a whole under-emphasised the emotional distress that Alma and Lureen would undoubtedly have suffered as a result of their husbands' affair. I also felt that it over-emphasised the supposed bigotry of Westerners; were they really, as late in the 1980s, in the habit of lynching any man they suspected of being homosexual? To conclude, therefore, I felt that of the two films "Crash" is better acted, better directed and has a more interesting story. Personally, I would not only have awarded it "Best Picture" but, unlike the Academy, would have given "Best Director" to Paul Haggis ahead of Ang Lee. 5/10