Posted on 12/14/2005 11:22:00 PM PST by Antioch
"Brokeback Mountain" the much publicized "gay cowboy love story" adapted from a New Yorker magazine piece by Pulitzer Prize-winner Annie Proulx, arrives at last, and the film itself -- a serious contemplation of loneliness and connection -- belies the glib description.
While it is the story of an intimate relationship, more to the point it's the relationship of two emotionally scarred souls. Ranch hands Ennis (Heath Ledger) and Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) share a sheepherding assignment on a mountain in Signal, Wyo., in 1963. Ennis is a man of few words; Jack is somewhat more open.
Their friendship gradually grows despite Ennis' taciturn manner. At first, it's only Jack who sleeps in the camp near the sheep (with Ennis ensconced down the mountain), but come to realize it is more practicable to guard the sheep in tandem. Ennis resolutely insists he'll sleep outdoors, but the cold drives him into Jack's tent, where the two awkwardly, then roughly, have sex. Incidentally, that scene -- short and with the men mostly clothed -- is the only onscreen gay sexual encounter in the film.
In the morning, both are too embarrassed to talk about what has transpired, but a bond has formed, and we are led to understand that the relationship has deepened. Later, some outdoor wrestling is observed by their boss, the unsympathetic rancher Joe Aguirre (Randy Quaid), who watches them with a knowing eye. At the end of the season, they come down from the mountain, and dismissing what happened on the mountain as a "one-shot deal," go their separate ways. Ennis is engaged to Alma (Michelle Williams, Ledger's real-life girlfriend). But we see him crumple in despair as soon as he's alone. The first human connection he's had is coming to an end.
Jack, for his part, makes a tentative attempt to pick up an Ennis-like cowboy in a bar, but eventually meets former prom queen Lureen (Anne Hathaway). Both men marry and have children. Time goes by, and Jack sends a postcard to Ennis telling him he's coming to town. The air is rife with anticipation as Ennis waits for the reunion. When Jack finally drives up, the unexpressive Ennis can barely contain his excitement, and rushes out to meet him.
They embrace passionately, not realizing that Alma is sadly viewing the interaction from behind the screen door. She says nothing, but understands all. On the trip, Jack proposes that they chuck their families and buy a ranch, but Ennis -- who as a child witnessed the aftermath of a hate-crime murder of two rancher neighbors who had lived together -- can't bring himself to do it.
Thereafter, Ennis and Jack initiate meeting several times a year for "fishing" trips where they can be alone together. Lureen, for her part, senses the importance of these trips to her husband, but remains engrossed in her own business. As the Catholic Church makes a distinction between homosexual orientation and activity, Ennis and Jack's continuing physical relationship is morally problematic.
The adulterous nature of their affair is another hot-button issue. But the pain Jack and Ennis cause their families is not whitewashed. (The women are played with tremendous sympathy, not as shrill harridans.) It's the emotional honesty of the story overall, and the portrayal of an unresolved relationship -- which, by the way, ends in tragedy -- that seems paramount.
Director Ang Lee tells the story with a sure sense of time and place, and presents the narrative in a way that is more palatable than would have been thought possible. Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana's screenplay uses virtually every scrap of information in Proulx's story, which won a National Magazine Award, and expands it while remaining utterly true to the source.
The performances are superb. Australian Ledger may be the one to beat at Oscar time, as his repressed manly stoicism masking great vulnerability is heartbreaking, and his Western accent sounds wonderfully authentic. Gyllenhaal is no less accomplished as the more demonstrative of the pair, while Williams and Hathaway (the latter, a far cry from "The Princess Diaries," giving her most mature work to date) are very fine.
Looked at from the point of view of the need for love which everyone feels but few people can articulate, the plight of these guys is easy to understand while their way of dealing with it is likely to surprise and shock an audience.
Except for the initial sex scene, and brief bedroom encounters between the men and their (bare breasted) wives, there's no sexually related nudity. Some outdoor shots of the men washing themselves and skinny-dipping are side-view, long-shot or out-of-focus images. While the actions taken by Ennis and Jack cannot be endorsed, the universal themes of love and loss ring true.
As Mr. Forbes is clearly enamored with these gay cowboy studs, he needs to be removed and replaced with a Catholic who understands the purpose of the Office of Film Review. Forbes glowing review throws in two mild caveats to appease those who would object to the film’s approval of homosexuality.
The first caveat "As the Catholic Church makes a distinction between homosexual orientation and activity, Ennis and Jack's continuing physical relationship is morally problematic."
This needs to be changed something along the lines of: "Since homosexual orientation itself is—in the words of the Catechism—"intrinsically disordered," Catholics watching this movie are advised not to yield to the director's attempt to give the impression that the homosexual orientation may not itself be a source of concern and that only homosexual activity is "problematic."
His second caveat: "While the actions taken by Ennis and Jack cannot be endorsed, the universal themes of love and loss ring true."....and...."It's the emotional honesty of the story overall, and the portrayal of an unresolved relationship -- which, by the way, ends in tragedy -- that seems paramount."
This needs to be changed to: "The movie seems intended to leave the viewer with the impression that the pain caused to the two gay characters’ wives and children are ultimately the result of a homophobic culture and if only people had been more accepting of homosexuality then Ennis and Jack wouldn’t have felt pressured into marrying women and having families. Since Catholics maintain that sin is the source of pain and injustice in the world, they should reject the film's implication that we all can learn a lesson from this that our society must come to embrace homosexuality as an equal, respectable alternative lifestyle."
USCCB rating "OA" --Offensive and Antithetical to Catholic teaching.
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I want to dispell this inaccuracy. BBM cost $13 million to make. In order for it to recoup that amount in foreign sales (deals are made for a fixed amount by territory) under standard terms then the foreign sales deals would have to have totalled at least $26 million (and under the more likely 60% to the SA deal - $32 million). The Foreign Buyers are out swinging for this amount and need to more than double that number in their territory's box office for them to break even. That means that they would have had to believed that BBM was good for over $50 million at foreign BO in order for the deal to make sense.
The comment that domestic grosses would be pure profit is absurd. Fifty percent of gross BO stays with the exhibitor. The remaining fifty percent goes in totum to the Distributor until all of his costs (prints and advertising) are met plus an additional 15% (typically). Then the Distributor and the Production (there are five credited production companies on BBM) split their half of all subsequent dollars 50/50. And, all deferred payments and participation must be paid before the production can start to pay down the cost of making the film.
That is why break-even is usually calculated at 250% of the cost at a minimum.
BBN will lose big time.
Does this mean that King Kong has to make $500 million?
Yep....now see the problem Hollywood has?
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