Actor Heath Ledger passed away eleven years ago this past Tuesday. I was reminded of this, and the impact of the movie Brokeback Mountain, by an article from Attitude magazine. In truth, I'd forgotten just how powerful of a viewing experience it was, seeing that film for the first time.
Brokeback Mountain, the story of two male ranch hands who fall in love during the early 1960s, was released in cinemas in late 2005. It was based on a short story by Annie Proulx. I read the story before watching the movie, and it didn't lessen the film's impact one bit. Brokeback Mountain wasn't playing near us yet, and we were anxious to see it. So, Ashley & I joined our friends Kevin and Brandon on a sojourn to Chicago in early 2006. There, in one of those movie-going experiences I'll likely always remember, we sat in the darkness of the theater and took-in the images on the screen. Images of heartache, shame, and of love.
We knew we were watching something special. Ang Lee's direction was gentle, and superb. It is my contention that Lee is one of those rare, big name directors who doesn't have a particular 'style.' You can almost always tell a Spielberg or a Hitchcock film, just by some of their shots or camera angles. Not so with Lee. If he does have a style, it is fine, steady direction that gets out of the way and lets each story breathe and flourish on its own. Brokeback Mountain is a prime example of that.
The story -- both Proulx's prose and the movie adaptation -- is ultimately a sad one. A lot (too many?) of gay cinema's stories are that way. That said, what I liked so much about Brokeback Mountain was that at least it was a big budget Hollywood movie that told a same-sex love story (of sorts). A lot of the gay-centric films I'd watched up to then were on home video, and didn't always get a ton of notice outside of the LGBT community. Two notable exceptions to this were Philadelphia and The Birdcage, though the former centered around the AIDS crisis (which is okay, but so many LGBT films did the same), and the latter was so much of a comedy that I wondered if we were laughing with the characters or laughing at them.
Brokeback Mountain was a serious piece, to be sure. Well, it would be. Things are different now for the LGBT community now than they were when the movie was released in 2005, and they were definitely different during the 1960s, when the story is yet. Homophobia was rampant, and violent (it still is, depending on where you are). Jack and Ennis (the two main characters) are both struggling to know what to do with their sexuality. Both become romantically involved with women, and marry them. But, both cannot completely quash the feelings they have for one another. It is, alas, a tragic love story, but a love story nonetheless.
Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger were both up and coming young actors in 2005. Their careers were solid, and ascending. Starring as two homosexual (or at least bisexual) characters in a movie that was sure to get a lot of attention wasn't a guaranteed smart career move. It could just as easily have gone badly for them. Thankfully, it didn't, and at least we are still able to enjoy Gyllenhaal in the myriad of roles he's undertaken during the past decade. Ledger's unfortunate death still stings, a life ended far too early.
I am happy they were both around, together, to help bring us the visualization of the Brokeback Mountain narrative. It was needed then, and still resonates today.
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