BrokeBack Mountain: Short Change on the Range

Rating: 8/10 (22 January 2006)

Brokeback Mountain is poignant, thought provoking, haunting. It is a beautiful creation. But behind its beauty lies some terrible fault lines.
It is based on an Annie Proulx short story, but unlike Proulx's earlier work Shipping News there is little character development. Ennis and Jack remain the same people at nineteen as they do when they reach their late thirties. As we are excluded from the various 'fishing trips' they undertake we are not aware of the subtleties that their relationship can take on. At the start of the movie they enjoy sexual physicality, but by the end of the movie they sleep together fully clothed. Annie Proulx assures us that their sexuality loses none of the intimacy, so what has happened in the screenplay? In fact, the screenplay is very lazy and contrived. Larry McMurtrey and Diana Ossana do reschedule a lot of the dialogue and add some padding with the wives and liaisons, but we learn nothing else Essentially, they've treated the original story as pitch perfect and sacrosanct  no revision necessary. But the story begs revision.
As it stands the story is ahistorical, Jack and Ennis seem to live in a complete time bubble. In 1963 all gay relationships were difficult whether you lived in Manhattan or Montana. However, by 1983 things were a lot different. Stonewall had happened, the seventies were full of new bisexual or androgynous cultural icons. Legislation had changed or was changing. In this respect Jack's character doesn't make sense. He originally denies his sexuality to Ennis on being queer 'Me neitherit's a one shot thing', but we quietly discover throughout the movie that in fact he is really conscious of his sexuality. His only release is in furtive visits to Mexico to have sex with prostitutes, or surreptitious liaisons in log cabins with farm managers. As far as 'You don't know how hard it gets', in reference to the difficulty of sex, this is nonsense because there were a number of bars and clubs in down town Dallas and Houston at the time. Annie Proulx wrote the story shortly after the brutal murder of Matthew Sheppard, a gay man in Montana. Leaving aside this brutal hate crime, Proulx re-invents the myth that there are no go areas for gays, and this forbidden sex has given zest to the story. Since the movie came out there are a number of men who have (bravely) come forward and stated that they are 'cowboys' and they are gay. Homosexuality may not be popular outside the metropoles but it is there, and gays are there, and honestly so. Proulx and the film parades the myth of marginality and that gay liaisons are seedy, dangerous, and lethal.
Ang Lee has stated that given the span of the movie he was faced with a dilemma: did he play older actors in young parts or young actors in older parts? The former would have been comical, so he opted for the latter. However, as competent as Gyllenhaal has being in earlier roles, playing the older Jack clearly stretched him.The denouement scene between Jack and Ennis, where Ennis learns of Jacks infidelity was disappointing. Gyllenhaal was weak here. This is the climax of the relationship between them, but Gyllenhaal played it like an over wrought teenager, and didn't have the acting maturity to pull it off successfully. He played it too flat and too even tempered as though he really didn't understand the emotional depths to which this speech required. It was as though he was shouting at mum and dad because Santa didn't bring him what he wanted.
Ang lee has stated that he originally conceived 'Brokeback' as being 'art-house' because of the (much made of) 'sex scenes'. Independent film has never had the restrictions imposed by the Hayes code, and where Lee succeeds here is that he makes these scenes contextual and sensual and not voyeuristic. Even most heterosexual scenes at best aren't filmed this sensuously. Lee wants to inject mainstream cinema with the sledge hammer honesty of independent film, but this comes with a price tag. Hollywood is bubble gum factory that reaches the mainstream with outdated and reassuring clichés. Hollywood is dishonesty congratulating itself that is has sponsored a movie that deals with a love story between men. Gays have nothing to thank Hollywood for as gays have been more often than not portrayed as insipid, shallow, one-dimensional ciphers. In fact Ang Lee's own earlier independent film 'The Wedding Banquet' is far superior and honest in its depiction of a gay relationship. And it has a happy ending! Hollywood kills gays with a touch: Murders, suicides, HIV. It isn't enough to see Jack and Ennis drift apart during this movie, neither reaching the conclusion of their relationship, nor understanding it, nor even happily going into the Malboro' sunset with each other. Someone has to die, and Jacks longing for sex and companionship condemns him. Where gays don't die is when they become imagined palatable stereotypes for the masses: sex hungry disco bunnies. And that's another form of death. Brokeback is beautifully seductive, but its legend of sex equals sadness and death is too much. I cry for Jack, because I wanted him to live and breathe, and to have a future. Hollywood, you sonofwhoresomebitch why can't you learn?