(Movie) Brokeback Mountain
Spoilers ahead…
After all the hoopla from the Oscars or whatever and then an article I read where Ms Proulx was interviewed then the lawsuite by Dennis Quaid (who’s part was so small, I almost missed him), I guess I expected this ground-breaking film. In some ways, maybe it was. Having said that, I think Crash, which did win, is a better film.
First the bad: Heath Ledger’s mumbling was atroucious. I still have no idea what he was saying half the time. I realize he has an Australian accent and I guess he was trying to hide it, but if I watch it again, it will have to be subtitled because I have no clue what the dude was saying. I actually hated the way they portrayed his character… until the last 10 minutes of the film when it all came together for me.
Otherwise, it was a good film, I’d say 4 out of 5 stars… The last 3 words of this film chocked me up “Jack, I swear…” That statement spoke volumes. What if he didn’t have a daughter, what if they had met 40 years later, what if things could have been different…
Both of the actors did a very good job, one a dreamer – thinking that they can be together in the 1960s and live to tell about it. The other who fears what he feels because of what he saw as a child (and this bleeds over to what he fears “really” happened” to Jack) but also has a strong committment to his children. It’s obvious that he doesn’t want to “shame” his daughters, so he leads his secret life away from them and everyone they know.
The movie did seem ackward in several places, disjointed… but overall, good movie. Worth a watch. Be warned, it’s not really a ‘gay’ film, yes, the lead romance are both males, but it could’ve easily been written about a white man and a black woman in the early 1900s. It’s about love and acceptance and prejudgices.
====
Description:
Two sheepherders — Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar (Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger) — meet and fall in love while working together near Wyoming’s Brokeback Mountain in 1963. Over the next 20 years, their lives take different courses: Jack becomes a rodeo cowboy while Ennis remains a ranch hand. Anne Hathaway, Randy Quaid and Michelle Williams co-star. Ang Lee directs screenwriter Larry McMurtry’s adaptation of a short story by E. Annie Proulx.
