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Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Entertainment
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20 Years Later, the Soundtrack of ‘Brokeback Mountain' Still Echoes
I was 21 when Brokeback Mountain was released. I have such fond memories of going to the gay bar in my hometown of Minneapolis and dancing to bass-driven remixes of Gustavo Santaolalla's gentle, emotive original score. Even in its house-music version, there's an inherent sadness in these songs, and sometimes that's the best to dance to. Upon its release, Brokeback Mountain felt very validating, but also very melancholic because it felt like we'd come so far and yet still had so far to go. More from Spin: B-Real Breaks Down How 'Insane in the Brain' Made Cypress Hill Superstars John Lennon, Yoko Ono's Early '70s Output Compiled For Boxed Set Radiohead Salutes 'Hail To The Thief' With Live Collection What's difficult about reflecting on the cultural remnants of 2005 is the realization of how such uncertain times suddenly seem less dire, even formidably stable, in comparison to the regressive political maelstrom which has engulfed American sensibility 20 years later. And yet, in the middle of the second presidential term of George W. Bush Jr., while the Iraq War raged and Hurricane Katrina tore through the soul of America's South, a project nearly a decade long in the making landed like a meteor, forever altering queer visibility in the cinematic landscape. On September 2, 2005 Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain premiered at the Venice Film Festival, nabbing the prestigious top honor of the Golden Lion, and launching an awards campaign which would bear significant fruit. Queer representation suddenly felt as if it had reached a pinnacle long out of reach thanks to a film headlined by rising A-list stars Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. They portrayed a pair of lovestruck cowboys in 1960s Wyoming, where rigid cultural dictates and virulent homophobia demanded they remain closeted for their survival, inevitably suffocating a romance doomed from its onset. Despite anticipated critiques of a narrative defined by queer tragedy and miserabilism, conversations—thus, our consciousness—about queer inclusivity suddenly began to shift. Retrospective conversations conform to a template which decries the casting of heterosexual actors inhabiting gay roles, but our ability to eventually make such demands and distinctions was certainly assisted by the success of Brokeback Mountain and the participation of its matinee stars, which assisted in broadening the horizons (and legacy) of the film. In short, like most queer films of the period, it depended on appealing to the heteronormative, which means walking a fine line between titillation and empathy. Brokeback was not alone in a burgeoning landscape of celebrated queer films from 2005, with Felicity Huffman in TransAmerica and Cillian Murphy in Neil Jordan's Breakfast on Pluto bowing to certain acclaim, while Philip Seymour Hoffman took home a Best Actor Academy Award for portraying the effete iconoclast Truman Capote. But certainly no film sent tongues wagging more than Ang Lee's overture, which was expected to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards, only to be locked out by the Academy's unwillingness to bestow a queer film with top honors, instead awarding the Paul Haggis' title Crash in one of the award show's most notable upsets in its prolific history. But the film didn't go home empty handed. Of its eight nominations, screenwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana won Best Adapted Screenplay (based as it was on the 1997 short story by Annie Proulx), Best Director for Ang Lee, and Best Original Score for Argentinian musician Gustavo Santaolalla (who would win a second Academy Award a year later for Babel). Following a theatrical re-release of the film for its 20th anniversary to celebrate Pride month, the soundtrack is slated to receive a vinyl release for the first time. Alongside Santaolalla's original score, the release also included performances from Willie Nelson, Rufus Wainwright, Teddy Thompson, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, and Linda Ronstadt. To commemorate the release, Gustavo Santaolalla shared his recollections of working with Ang Lee, how the score bolstered the film's cultural impact, and, in his own words, how 'as humankind we have evolved to some point, but suddenly it seems that we went back 50 years.' How were you first approached with ? It's funny because I have a multifaceted career. I've done lots of different things. I started as an artist and producer making records when I was 17 years old and signed with RCA in Argentina. At the time there were no producers of the music that I was doing, alternative music. I don't think even the word alternative music was coined then. Then I started really getting into production in the mid-'80s, and I had a wonderful phase in my career doing that and won a lot of Grammy Awards. I was always told that my music was very visual. As a matter of fact, I wanted to study cinema. I was always a big film buff since I was a kid. Unfortunately, when I finished high school, I was already making records. The military rulers at the time led me to leave the country and they closed the Institute of Cinematography. There was no more school for cinema so I just devoted myself to my musical career, but I always have this attraction for cinema. Really the first movie that I did was Amores Perros. When I was doing Amores Perros I'd already released this album called Ronroco, named for this beautiful instrument, which actually I don't use in Brokeback Mountain. I think it's probably the only movie that I haven't used that instrument. That album led somebody to tell Alejandro G. Iñárritu, 'You should have this guy do the music for Amores Perros.' I met Alejandro, who asked me if I knew Walter Salles, which then led me to do Motorcycle Diaries. When we were presenting Motorcycle Diaries at Sundance they signed a distribution deal with Focus Features. Of course, Focus got me in touch with the script for Brokeback Mountain, which I loved when I read it. Then, I learned that it was based on that New Yorker story by Annie Proulx. At the time I was touring with Osvaldo Golijov, a classical contemporary composer, producing one of his works and playing some of my stuff with him too. We were rehearsing at Carnegie Hall. Finished the rehearsal, and I received a phone call asking me to meet Ang Lee in Manhattan at the Focus office. I remember I took the subway, and I had my ronroco with me. I came in and we didn't talk that much, but he pointed at the instrument so I started playing. He told me about his idea of using a guitar and it was incredible because I had the same idea when I read the script, the idea of something very spare. I knew my taste in composition, my use of silence and space. I came back to Los Angeles and started writing, composing, and recording, because that's my way of notation. I don't know how to read or write music. I did my guitar pieces and the themes of the leitmotifs. I sent them what I composed three weeks after that. I got a phone call a week later from [film executive] James Schamus and he was laughing because when Ang Lee heard it, he said, 'Damn, this music would be perfect for the movie.' And James told him, 'No, this is the music for the movie.' I remember that phone call as it ended up with James telling me, 'Well, I'll see you at the Oscars.' Imagine. This was only my fourth movie, right? One of the most remarkable things, I think, is the fact that I gave him a ton of music. He used all of it. And all this music was prior to one frame being shot. Nothing was filmed. I did the music on the basis of the script and my connection to the story and the characters. It was obviously Ang's genius to say, 'We're going to put this here, we're going to repeat.' When I saw the first cut of the movie, it was spooky because you couldn't believe that [the music] was done prior. Since then, obviously in 21 Grams also, 70% of the music I've composed [was] prior to seeing anything. Then obviously, you adapt. But the themes, the sonic fabric, it's all there. I remember when James praised my use of 'negative space,' and I've never heard that phrase before. I just knew that I always loved to work with silence. I'm always talking about eloquent silences, not silences that are just empty, but silences that sometimes are louder than the loudest note. For Brokeback it was great because those characters didn't talk that much as they were surrounded by silence, outside silence, and inner silence, too. It was an incredible experience. Also, I could make use of some of the things that also became trademarks. I have an affinity for 'wrong notes.' That's why I also love mistakes. We, human beings, make mistakes all the time. I love mistakes because some mistakes are really truly hidden intentions. I have a nice story that connects with Brokeback. When I came to this country, in 1978, I was really bummed with the rock music situation here. I was coming from Argentina, where I was put in jail many times just for having long hair and playing electric guitar. Music still had that countercultural feeling. When I came here, bands like Boston, Kansas, were considered popular rock. But I preferred this new thing, which was punk. I belong to that generation and I embraced that as this movement had the energy I think this music should have. So I'm just sending my music around town and don't get an answer from anybody. Until one guy from a publishing company, an important publishing company, reached out. I met with a guy. We listened to the tape. I brought my guitar, I played some songs, and then we started talking. The guy said, 'Listen, I got to tell you. You have a beautiful voice. You have great songs, great melodies. In every song, in every musical piece, at a certain point, you seem to hit the wrong chord. You seem to hit a wrong note in every single piece.' I told him, 'Probably this means that we're not going to work together, but I have to tell you that I take this as a compliment.' I am looking for that point of inflection. I'm looking for that imbalance moment. Thirty years later I was reintroduced to him at a party for Neil Young. When this producer realized it was me, I reminded him 'You told me that my music was good. My pieces were good, but at a certain point, I hit the wrong note. I hit the wrong chord. But when I met Anne Hathaway on Brokeback Mountain, she told me, 'Man, in that intro when you hit that dissonant chord, that's genius. Some people now like that wrong note.' I also play the guitar and I leave the noises made by the instrument. Lots of people, when they play and record the guitar, they're trying to avoid any noises when you run your hand on the fretboard. Sometimes I have even pushed those because it gives a human factor to it. That's why I have gotten lots of comments that sometimes my music works as a character in the movies. Those elements and those trademarks are still present in the music of The Last of Us, or in the music of all the other works that I've done, too. Brokeback obviously was the first time that gave me the opportunity to show this thing to the world. It was incredible at that point in my life when that happened. I've already done so many other things, but the Oscars really, it's another kind of beast. It's a totally different thing. Imagine what it was like for me. Unbelievable. Since I was a kid, I always felt that I had something that could connect with people, with my music. But I never imagined something like that would happen to me. Looking back, I don't think you can recall without the score. It's synonymous with the characters. It's interesting listening to you mention silence and dissonance. To quote you from a past interview, 'We search for identity through music.' Your score is the audio identity of these characters. That's the best compliment that you can get. When somehow you feel that the music is an extension or another part of the character, it completes the character. Even speaking about melody, it's rare that it crystallizes in such a beautiful way. Reading about your life, it struck me that you have a lot of interesting parallels with gay men in the U.S., pertaining to your youth, fleeing the dictatorship in Argentina. I don't know if this was true, but I read that the church suggested you undergo an exorcism as a youth. Is that true? Yes, because I was raised Catholic, and I wanted to be a priest when I was very young. I was an altar boy. I had my first spiritual crisis when I was 11 years old. It wasn't because a priest did anything to me. Unfortunately, one has to make that clear. In the Catholic church, they've covered awful abuses for years. No, it was truly a philosophical questioning about some of the principles of the church. I went every Sunday to church, I had communion, and as I said, I was an altar boy. My thought, which I went and talked to the priest about was, I said, 'If God is almighty and all kindness, how can eternal punishment exist? If you violated one of those 10 commandments, you will be in mortal sin, and then you'll be eternally punished.' I could barely understand if you kill someone, but even stealing? I was thinking some people steal to give their kids food. Sometimes they steal from a huge supermarket. Still, as a kid, I had that idea that it wasn't going to do any harm if somebody stole a loaf of bread. And yet, eternal punishment, this was the maxim. I asked the priest 'How is it possible the devil exists? Could it be that the devil actually is on God's payroll?' Imagine asking this of a priest as an 11-year-old kid. They called my parents and my dad, who was an incredible man and lost when I was very young, accepted my beliefs. They kept going every Sunday to church, but the subject of my leaving the church was never brought up in my family again. My spiritual search continues until today. I led a monastic life between 18 and 24. I lived like a monk. I had a group. A band. I lived in a commune, but it was a Yogi commune. We fasted every Monday. We didn't do any drugs or drink any alcohol. We actually were celibate. I was at the peak of my rock success with my band and I led this life for almost seven years. In many ways, it feels imperative to take some time to revisit this film from the perspective of today's regressive climate. At the time it was already ridiculous the movie didn't win Best Picture. We won the Golden Globe with 'A Love That Will Never Grow Old,' [a song from Brokeback Mountain] but the Academy didn't allow it to be nominated because it didn't meet a time requirement for the amount of seconds it had to be in the film. I remember watching the Oscar ceremony and being crushed about the message that was being sent. As you said, the Oscars are another beast, and I don't think at the time they felt they could give a gay film the top prize. Correct. Also, it won Best Director and several other Academy Awards, but that was definitely their prejudice. Remember, this was a movie that they were trying to do for more than 10 years, and nobody wanted to do it. It's so funny many of the main people involved in the movie were not from the United States. Ang Lee is Chinese, the director of photography, Rodrigo Prieto, Mexican. Composer, Argentinean. I think that says something about how in the United States we're not able to really look at ourselves. We need outsiders to reflect on our experiences. I feel this is apparent based on how this film even got made. As a final question, how long was it before you realized the significant cultural impact of this film? Because, as you said, you have a very private way of working. You sent Focus Features this score, this film got made, and then it landed. How long did it take before you realized how big this was? To be honest, in a way, I always felt the weight of the project, the weight of the story. When I read the script, I remember thinking it really was an incredible love story about human beings in which the sexual part of it was anecdotic. It was a story about these people and how broken they were inside. Their story as human beings was transcendental. I thought that this, with the combination that they were gay, was an explosive combination because of the weight of the story, because of the weight of the characters, because the human factor of it was so true. I always felt that something big was going to happen. The controversy became senseless. The message about love and about desolation and longing went beyond any criticism. I'm really, really happy that they're re-releasing the movie, that we're going to have the possibility to see the movie again in cinemas. Remembering the film, especially in the days that we're living. They're going to release the soundtrack on vinyl for the first time. There is a possibility that they will also release the score. Just the score on the vinyl. I'm very happy about all this. Thank you for a really iconic film score. It meant a lot to me personally, and I think to a lot of others. Thank you so much. It is what really makes my life worthwhile. When I see that something that I do can affect people in such a positive way, and that can touch people's hearts, it gives sense to everything that I do. To see our running list of the top 100 greatest rock stars of all time, click here. Solve the daily Crossword
The Guardian
06-08-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Sense and Sensibility review – blue-chip cast decorates Emma Thompson's pleasurable Austen adaptation
Emma Thompson won a screenplay Oscar for this buoyant, vibrant, richly enjoyable adaptation of Jane Austen's novel. Released in 1995, it was directed by Ang Lee and is a movie with the pleasures of a golden age studio picture of the kind made by William Wyler. It was the second half of Thompson's Oscar double – she won her first one in 1993 for acting in Howards End – and she is still the only person in Academy Award history to win for acting and writing. With marvellous lightness and gaiety, Thompson found a response to Austen's comic register, expertly marrying it up to the romance, and 1995 now looks like the golden age of Austen adaptation, having also seen the Colin Firth/Jennifer Ehle Pride and Prejudice on television and Amy Heckerling's Emma-homage Clueless at the movies. Thompson paid due attention to Austen's unique and toughly realistic concern with money and status – but on this more serious point, perhaps a rerelease is also due for Patricia Rozema's very worthwhile interpretation of Mansfield Park from 1999, a darker and more political take on Austen. Sense and Sensibility is a film stuffed with blue-chip British acting talent but, for me, Kate Winslet is the movie's beating heart as the spirited and innocent Marianne Dashwood, younger sister of the more sober Elinor, played outstandingly by Thompson herself. With their widowed mother (Gemma Jones) and little sister Margaret, played by Myriam François, the sisters find themselves evicted from their handsome estate due to a technicality of their late father's will and forced to occupy a modest cottage elsewhere. This film delivers the keynote generic moments: the formal ball in which dialogue is exchanged in the middle of silly dance moves, the secret engagement and the whispered gossip about wealth and projected annual income. The houses are, of course, grand and even the Dashwoods' cottage doesn't look too awful. There is a tree house that looks staggeringly big. It is in her relatively reduced circumstances that Elinor encounters the personable Edward Ferrars, brother to the spiteful and grasping Fanny Dashwood, the sisters' relative by marriage played with vinegary glee by Harriet Walter. Hugh Grant brings a coolly underplayed star power to the role of Edward; he has a hilariously diffident way of entering a room and a generally comic manner that Austen surely can't have imagined, but which works tremendously well. (Thompson invents for Edward and Elinor a tremendous gag about the location of the Nile.) As for Marianne, she is bowled over by the bounderish Willoughby who is to shatter her heart, a role that Greg Wise made immortal (and his real-life marriage to Thompson is an extra-textual romance that has helped to make the film iconic). But there to heal Marianne's heart is the manly and reticent Colonel Brandon, played by Alan Rickman with pride, decency and slot-mouthed hauteur. Brandon is the third character in this film with a broken heart, having fallen for Marianne only to see her infatuated with the awful Willoughby, but it's a lump-in-the-throat moment when Marianne, recovering from her near fatal illness, sees how the devoted Brandon has brought her mother to see her and thanks him from her sickbed. As for these men, well, it's Colonel Brandon who has the estate and Edward Ferrars is content with the relatively modest clergyman's living. God is not otherwise mentioned, other than in Marianne's astonished encounter with her faithless suitor in London: 'Good God, Willoughby!' So the double wedding is a compromise between marrying for love and for something more material, and finds there is no great problem in balancing the two. Sense and Sensibility is in UK cinemas from 8 August
Yahoo
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
‘Brokeback Mountain' Co-Writer Knew the Film Would Lose Best Picture After Learning Clint Eastwood Hadn't Seen the Movie
'Brokeback Mountain' losing Best Picture to 'Crash' at the 78th Academy Awards in 2006 is often cited as one of the most egregious Oscar snubs of all time. Two decades later, 'Brokeback Mountain' co-writer and producer Diana Ossana still remembers the sting of losing and the moment she realized the prize would evade her. Speaking to the New York Times for the film's 20th anniversary, Ossana, who co-wrote the script with Larry McMurtry, said she saw entrenched homophobia towards Ang Lee's film from some of Hollywood's elite. She recalled attending a party at 'Crash' director Paul Haggis' house and being excited to meet Clint Eastwood, who had enjoyed his own Oscars sweep the previous year for 'Million Dollar Baby,' only to be told that the Western icon hadn't watched her cowboy movie. More from IndieWire Everyone Wants Their Own Jane Austen Adaptation, and They're Getting Them 'The Social Network Part II' in the Works with Aaron Sorkin Writing and Directing 'Paul started walking me over and he goes, 'Diana, I have to tell you, he hasn't seen your movie.' And it was like somebody kicked me in the stomach,' Ossana said. 'That's when I knew we would not win Best Picture. People want to deny [that homophobia was a factor in the Oscar race], but what else could it have been? We'd won everything up until then.' Ossana went on to explain that the film's rollout gave her a unique perch from which to view America's evolving perspective on gay rights in 2005. While watching the movie in theaters, she was able to observe the occasional discomfort people felt towards gay sex scenes, even as the film's storytelling largely overpowered those biases and captivated audiences. 'The theaters were all packed because everybody was so curious about this movie,' she said. 'And when the sex scene between the boys came on, you'd see some people got up and left, but not very many. At the end of the film nobody would leave. They would just sit there nailed to their seats until the lights came on, and there would be people crying.' Anyone who missed the chance to see 'Brokeback Mountain' on the big screen in 2005 now has an opportunity to witness it for themselves, as the film is currently playing in theaters courtesy of a 20th anniversary re-release from Focus of IndieWire Guillermo del Toro's Favorite Movies: 56 Films the Director Wants You to See 'Song of the South': 14 Things to Know About Disney's Most Controversial Movie Nicolas Winding Refn's Favorite Films: 37 Movies the Director Wants You to See
Time Magazine
24-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Magazine
How Brokeback Mountain Holds Up—And Doesn't—20 Years Later
Ol' Brokeback got us good, didn't it? Ang Lee's 2005 drama about cowboys in love was a genuine cinematic phenomenon. Brokeback Mountain helped boost stars Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal onto the A-list. One of its lines—'I wish I knew how to quit you'—became a source-transcending classic, referenced with the persistence and fervor of Jerry Maguire's 'You had me at hello' and Titanic's 'I'm the king of the world.' Though Lee would go on to win the Best Director award at the 2006 Oscars, the film's loss of the Best Picture trophy to Crash elicited a minor outrage, with hundreds of people contributing to buy an ad in Daily Variety decrying the Academy's poor decision. A 2015 Hollywood Reporter re-polling of Oscar voters showed that they would have given the award to Brokeback over 'that Don Cheadle movie that nobody can remember' were they to do it all over again, and in 2018 it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. A box-office hit, with an $83 million domestic gross, Brokeback was standard-setting for modern LGBTQ+ cinema. It helped show that movies about same-sex love could make real money and that playing gay was no longer the career death-sentence it was once considered. In commemoration of its 20th anniversary, Brokeback Mountain is back in theaters, giving audiences the chance to fall for Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist's love story all over again. But it also gives us an opportunity to view the movie through a modern lens and apply contemporary sensitivities to a film that has been effectively canonized. Was Brokeback Mountain groundbreaking, or was it a gay love story trapped inside the conventions of a traditional heterosexual one? Were its central lovers authentic or merely shoved into containers its creators thought a mostly straight audience would tolerate? The answer is more complicated than a simple yes or no, and if nothing else, Brokeback Mountain remains fertile territory for pondering the representation of same-sex love in film and its continuing necessity. To any who might think we've progressed enough to make the movie's message quaint or devoid of urgency, there's plenty of evidence to the contrary. It may be true that its rerelease comes 10 years after the federal passage of same-sex marriage via the Supreme Court's Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, which helped codify social acceptance of gay people, at least for a time. But the current presidential administration's hostility toward LGBTQ people (on top of Clarence Thomas' indication that he's open to the overturning of Obergefell in his 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson opinion) suggests that Brokeback's depiction of the challenges same-sex couples face remains depressingly relevant. In the time since Brokeback's original theatrical run, pop-cultural discourse has changed considerably. The 2010s, in particular, saw an increased focus on matters of representation in criticism and especially in social-media analysis, particularly as it pertains to the depiction of marginalized groups. It is harder than ever to ignore that no major Brokeback player—not Lee, Ledger, Gyllenhall, Annie Proulx (who wrote the short story the movie is based on), producer James Schamus, nor screenwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana (the latter of whom also produced)—publicly identifies as a gay man. This is gay romance by putatively straight people. Much like the plaintiffs in Perry v. Schwarzenegger, the legal challenge to California's Prop 8, which led to same-sex marriage being legalized in the state, the Brokeback heroes were hand-picked for their seeming regularity. Two cowboys who relish manual labor, pound whiskey, and engage in horseplay, they lack many of the gender-nonconforming traits that could complicate their appeal to mass audiences. When Ennis (Legder) tells Jack (Gyllenhaal), 'You know I ain't queer,' he really means it. He's practically breaking the fourth wall and speaking directly to straight audience members, too. While the setting of Brokeback Mountain, where the pair first works together herding sheep, provides secluded idyll along the (theoretically) utopian lines of Fire Island, Jack and Ennis are largely divorced from gay culture. At one point, Jack suggests Ennis uproot his life and move close to him in Texas. Even though it is the '70s at that point in the movie and gay liberation is in full swing some thousand miles away, moving to a coastal queer hub like San Francisco is never considered. The bigger-picture stuff is ignored for the sake of telling a smallish love story. And it's a love that seems to come out of nowhere—there's virtually no indication that Ennis would be interested in Jack before Jack makes his move and invites his co-worker into his tent on a cold night. How Jack clocked Ennis and where he got his nerve remains a question that Lee and company didn't bother to answer, as if these characters are an inherent mystery to filmmakers exploring a world that's not their own. (There's even a set-up of Ennis taking a nude sponge bath feet away from Jack that elicits not a single glance from Jack.) When they do have sex, it at least initially buys into stereotypes. Jack is the more emotive, more loquacious member of the couple and as such, he is the bottom—as far as we can tell. Granted, this is a nuanced stereotype, and it's daring that Brokeback goes there at all. Many of the mainstream depictions of men who have sex with men around its time—The Birdcage, In and Out, Will & Grace—tip-toed around sex and/or portrayed their characters as having been practically neutered. Their hurried, relationship-consummating, seconds-long sex was much-discussed at the time of Brokeback's release, in no small part due to Ennis using his saliva as lubricant. But really, that one brief scene is the movie's only depiction of sex. Twenty years ago, the scene of their fervent kissing after having not seen each other for four years was perhaps all the passion that mainstream moviegoers could take, but it's telling that the depiction of Jack's first sexual encounter with his eventual wife Lureen (a transcendent Anne Hathaway, who deserved a Supporting Actress nod) is more explicit than that between Jack and Ennis; she's at least topless while the men remain clothed. But if Brokeback Mountain's revolution is mostly by concession, that doesn't mean it avoided challenging the status quo entirely. Ennis and Jack both go on to marry women and start families, seeing each other intermittently for 'fishing' and 'hunting' trips. They're cheating on their wives, living lies, and yet we are still encouraged to root for them. Jack also cruises for sex in Mexico and, we learn later, brought another man to his parents' ranch to work there. His non-monogamy is an affront to the respectability politics that Brokeback Mountain otherwise espouses. It is the emotional monogamy—a common rule of open couples—that matters here. The movie encourages a sophisticated reading of the love between Ennis and Jack. Their transgressions of enforced monogamy are not to be held against them—they're doing the best with what they have and we know it. Brokeback ultimately transcends its representational imperfections with pure heart. Even if it doesn't quite persuade us of Ennis and Jack's early attraction, Ledger and Gyllenhaal's performances sell their characters' love. This is a classic movie romance that ends up gracefully navigating the complications that its characters face by virtue of their same-sex attraction. If Brokeback Mountain played as irrelevant in 2025, it would be a good thing, a sure sign that as a culture, we'd left toxic and time-wasting anti-gay bigotry in the past. It is a failure of our culture that in some places in this very country still, Ennis' prognosis of his relationship with Jack still rings true: 'The bottom line is, we're around each other, and this thing grabs hold of us again, in the wrong place in the wrong time, and we're dead.' Earlier this month, Tristan Kern de Gonzales, the widower of actor Jonathan Joss, shared that he and his husband endured harassment and threats 'by individuals who made it clear they did not accept our relationship,' before Joss was fatally shot 'by someone who could not stand the sight of two men loving each other.' Investigators are looking into whether sexual orientation played a role in the crime, and though they haven't yet come to a determination, it's difficult to look beyond the alleged hatred that preceded Joss' killing. What Ennis fears, the violent murder that flashes through his mind when Lureen tells him of Jack's death as a result of an exploding tire, is still happening. Lee and company may have shaped this story to make sure it went down easy, and they succeeded in achieving the universal by invoking the longing that many feel, regardless of sexuality, for loved ones that they cannot be with for any reason. But its universality is a direct result of its precision about the complications arising from being two men in love in a specific time and place. Just as Jack sinks his hooks into Ennis, leaving him lovesick and shaken, so has this movie affected its audience. Twenty years later, it's enough to make you recite through gritted teeth, 'Brokeback Mountain, I swear…'
Geek Tyrant
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Geek Tyrant
Ang Lee to Direct Immigrant Western OLD GOLD MOUNTAIN — GeekTyrant
Ang Lee is stepping back behind the camera for Old Gold Mountain , a new film adaptation of C. Pam Zhang's haunting debut novel How Much of These Hills Is Gold . The two-time Oscar-winning director ( Brokeback Mountain , Life of Pi ) will bring his signature poetic intensity to this sweeping, revisionist western about two immigrant orphans trying to survive, and bury the past, in a mythic American landscape. The adaptation, written by Hansol Jung, follows siblings Lucy and Sam, 'newly orphaned children of immigrants who are suddenly alone in a land that refutes their existence. Fleeing the threats of their western mining town, they set off to bury their father in the only way that will set them free from their past. 'Along the way, they encounter giant buffalo bones, tiger paw prints, and the specters of a ravaged landscape as well as family secrets, sibling rivalry and glimpses of a different kind of future. It feels like Lee is a great fit for this project, to tell this story. The filmmaker is also developing a Bruce Lee biopic. Source: Deadline
