|
 o
yea, this one was a little late coming, but its
coming was inevitable. For me personally, buying
into the media/word of mouth propaganda barrage
surrounding the release of last year's "
Brokeback
Mountain
" was not worth a ten spot when I computed
the cost/benefit analysis. The film was
purportedly an immediate classic, and
controversial, with performances so telling of the human condition and our inherent need for love –
whatever the kind, whomever the denomination –
that audiences everywhere had
to see it. But after actually seeing it, the
hoopla now subsided and the film ousted from pop
culture's short term memory only to be recalled
for comic bits on late night shows, I feel that
the hype was embellished, spurious and
prefabricated well before the final edit.
"
Brokeback
Mountain
", as those who did and did not see the film
well know, was directed by Ang Lee ("Hulk")
and tells a gay Shakespearean tragedy about two
cowboys who find love while sheep herding one
summer in the mountains of
Wyoming
. Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) and
Ennis
Del
Mar (Heath Ledger) went to Brokeback looking for
work and wages without recognizing the portent in
the fact that they were two handsome strangers
completely alone in the wilderness with the only
outlet for their incumbent sexual urges being
sheep, horses, bears, or themselves.
With that said, I am brought
to my biggest remonstrance against the importance
of "
Brokeback
Mountain
". What is so controversial and pressing
about two men resorting to homosexual behavior in
the absence of women? The only difference between
a prison cell and a mountain range are trees and
toilets. How about sailors, soldiers, truckers and
priests…need I go back to the Romans, one of the
most successful empires in history, who indulged
in male to male trysts all the time.
I understand that Jack and
Ennis were cowboys representing a demographic of
masculinity and rodomontade but this is just a
variation on a theme that our culture should be
desensitized to after "Will and Grace",
"Philadelphia", the millions of coming
out stories shared on daytime TV, MTV, Greg
Kinnear's character in "As Good as it
Gets", etc. And controversy for 2006 should
be around movies like "Trans-America" or
books like Chuck Palahniuk's "Invisible
Monsters"; coming out that you are a
different gender than what your physiology is
indicative of, now that has some mass shock value.
After Jack and Ennis engage
in some PG-13 sodomy and spoon through some cold
Wyoming
nights, they are forced to leave Brokeback due to
an incoming front of hostile weather. Both ashamed
and deeply enthralled, they part ways, leaving a
next meeting up to chance. As is foreseeable, they
marry and start families, only rekindling their
sordid relationship after the din of domestic life
halts to a monotonous drone. Clandestine meetings
put off as fishing and hunting trips become
frequent, wives become suspicious, and a powerful
interpersonal drama is meant to unfold between the
star crossed lovers.
A drama is meant
to unfold, as in, it does not unfold as the
writing and acting is wholly unconvincing and
insipid. Gyllenhaal, as the fatalistic bottom,
misses the mark and acts like a goofy heterosexual
who is too horny for his own good. Ledger fairs
somewhat better as the reserved, conservative
working man with voice and diction comparable to
Billy Bob Thornton in "Sling Blade," but
he doesn't make up the difference. "
Brokeback
Mountain
" is extremely sparse on dialogue, which
renders the unfurling of love so limp and the
tragedy such a punch line. The only genuinely
moving scene where the boys show explicit
vulnerability and desperate suffering is the
"I wish I could quit you" scene, which
has now been bastardized by just about everybody.
The few upsides of the film
are the cinematography and the female co-stars.
Ang Lee's shots of the
Wyoming
wilderness are Renoir wet dreams; eternally
beautiful and picturesque and could be seen as a
bastion of serenity mocking the turmoil of Twist
and
Del
Mar. Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway are
equally pained, resentful and caring as the
betrayed wives left behind by the recklessness of
their husbands' affair.
"
Brokeback
Mountain
" in no way lives up to all of the praise and
awards it received from the obsequious
Hollywood
community. Taken simply as a movie, it is
lackluster, tedious and ineffective, and is more a
testament to the irreverence of the male id than a
significant socio-cultural statement. Because the
film is now something iconic, immortalized through
cheap gibes and its Oscar upset, fans of current
cinema are required to see it and judge for
themselves, though I doubt in twenty years it will
be remembered as a classic.
|
