USA, 134 m, R, 2005
Directed by Ang Lee. Stars Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Randy Quaid, et al.

Brokeback Mountain is a fairly prosaic effort that has managed to whip up all sorts of acclaim because of its “risky” subject matter. Well, structuring a major release around a couple of pole-smoking cowpokes may be a stretch for Tinsel Town, but anyone who’s ever ambled an inch or two outside of their own cocoon will wonder what all the hubbub’s about. There’s nothing terribly inventive about director Ang Lee’s approach to the material; what he’s put together here is as undemanding and pointlessly deferential as a Merchant/Ivory flick. And I’m pretty sure that if it had a boy and girl falling in love atop the titular mountain, this pictorial soap opera would dim from the public’s consciousness in no time. But it’s all strikingly lensed by Rodrigo Prieto, and the score by Gustavo Santaolalla is exquisite, understated. The first act is the strongest: long, unhurried passages of dusty buckaroos driving sheep and cooking beans make for some of the most compelling cinema I’ve seen all year. Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal play the smitten shit kickers, Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist, respectively. (Subtle writer Annie Proulx ain’t.) Ledger mumbles a lot, and the way he holds his lower lip made me at first think he was chewing tobacco—but  I can’t point to a moment where I actually saw him take a pinch. What’s more mysterious is why these two “can’t quit” one another; they don’t seem to have much in common. Jack is a fun guy; Ennis, a self-loathing bore. Worse, he doesn’t take responsibility for anything in his life, most infuriatingly his family. (You feel for Ennis’s wife; her story would’ve made for a far more interesting film.) Truth be told, Ennis is such a chump that you might get a charge out of watching a couple of good ol’ boys beat the holy hell out of him. Of course, all the straight males here are depicted here as homophobic bullies, which will tickle some of the more “liberal” members in the audience. No doubt they get off on seeing traditionally white heterosexual male archetypes like the cowboy razed to the ground.

February 15, 2006

© Copyright 2007 by Edward Larsen Terkelsen. All rights reserved.