Brokeback

[Behold! an actual "Movie post!" - And likely SPOILERS.]

As our friend Lons over at Crushed By Inertia has said, when you call a film by it's shortened title, you infer alot about your relationship to it.

Don't get me wrong...She's never come out and said anything. We just talk about movies. But she just always asks me about whatever gay-themed film we've gotten in that week, as if I'll have seen them all. (Although, to be honest, sometimes I've seen them...) This week, she came in, returned her movie, leaned against the counter and asked me the following question...

"So, have you seen Brokeback yet?"

I'll call your attention to two red flags in this brief query.

(1)

Shortening the title of the film from Brokeback Mountain to Brokeback. She's assuming that I'm intimately familiar with the film already, one week into its theatrical run. As if it has been a major topic of conversation for me all week.

(2)

The use of the word "yet." I don't mean to get all High Fidelity on you, but by saying "yet," she's making the assumption that I will definitely see Brokeback Mountain at some point in the near future. I've never spoken of a particular affinity for Ang Lee films (probably because I don't have one), nor favor towards Mr. Ledger or Mr. Gyllenhaal (though I do like Donnie Darko a lot). So I can only assume that she thinks I'll definitely see the movie because she thinks I'm gay.

Don't get me wrong. It doesn't really matter that she thinks I'm gay. I don't want to get 100 comments down there insisting that I must be gay if I'm worried that the woman at work thinks I'm gay. That's a myth, okay? Just because a man is slightly self-conscious doesn't mean that, deep down, he has an intense craving for cock. Sometimes, a guy is just a little self-conscious.

For starters, the guy's right- there doesn't have to be a hidden secret there- sometimes a guy is just self-conscious.

Anyway-
I'm titling this post, intimately, "Brokeback." And I'm saying, if you haven't seen it yet, go.

Lons comments on the apprehension of a heterosexual male seeing a pretty directly, honestly marketed "gay cowboy" film. I, as is Lons, am a heterosexual male; but I've been watching this film develop since the source material- a brilliant short story by Annie Proulx that rounds out her first collection of Wyoming Stories, Close Range.

I think the best way to deal with the film is to first realize that it's not an advocacy film at all. The political perception of the film is yours entirely to make. As Roger Ebert notes:

"Brokeback Mountain" has been described as "a gay cowboy movie," which is a cruel simplification. It is the story of a time and place where two men are forced to deny the only great passion either one will ever feel. Their tragedy is universal. It could be about two women, or lovers from different religious or ethnic groups -- any "forbidden" love.

The movie wisely never steps back to look at the larger picture, or deliver the "message." It is specifically the story of these men, this love. It stays in closeup. That's how Jack and Ennis see it. "You know I ain't queer," Ennis tells Jack after their first night together. "Me, neither," says Jack.

...
They aren't gay; one of them is a womanizer and the other spends his whole life regretting the loss of the one woman he loved. They're straight, but just as crippled by a society that tells them how a man must behave and what he must feel.

"Brokeback Mountain" could tell its story and not necessarily be a great movie. It could be a melodrama. It could be a "gay cowboy movie." But the filmmakers have focused so intently and with such feeling on Jack and Ennis that the movie is as observant as work by Bergman. Strange but true: The more specific a film is, the more universal, because the more it understands individual characters, the more it applies to everyone. I can imagine someone weeping at this film, identifying with it, because he always wanted to stay in the Marines, or be an artist or a cabinetmaker.

[The above Ebert link is also an operable story outline, for those of you who are curious for more story details]

Ang Lee has been repeatedly questioned as what his validity and qualifications could be in making a gay film when he and all the principles involved are heterosexual. He has said, with the same focus and intimate candor that makes this film absolutely brilliant:

"Some people maybe feel a gay director is the right person to do this movie. But I don't think whether a filmmaker is gay or if the actors are gay matters. They have to be sensitive. They have to make it real and think beyond sexuality to romance. To me it's called 'Brokeback Mountain' because it's about the illusion of love. We can all relate to the love we miss out on."

That's the success that Ebert is talking about, as well- the film exists in such a tight point of view it's almost unparalleled- I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on the perspective of the film, which I think is the magic that gives it so much force- it's so zeroed in on Ennis and Jack that the emotional experience becomes your own. Films of a similar, tight, completely emotionally focused POV or perspective that come to mind include Lost in Translantion and the little-seen and much underappreciated Toni Collette film Japanese Story, a film told in perhaps only a few hundred shots, and intense emotional focus.

There's anxiety in the way this film unfolds- if you have nervousness about the content, but want to feel "sensitive to it," the development of Ennis and Jake's relationship might seem unnerving. Ang Lee takes his time here, but it's because this relationship is exactly not a joke- it's not a payoff in itself, the sex scenes aren't the release of the tension you might expect them to be. But because of the time Ang Lee dedicates to these characters in the spacious mountain, their entire world sinks in nearly organically. It's some of the best directing I've seen- it forces the relationship to grow out of the landscape- which is the only place or refuge and honest emotional openness for the characters through the rest of their lives. Spectacular.

Heath Ledger puts up perhaps the best single, most consistent, most immersed character performance of the year; and Jake Gyllenhaal also nails a great performance- who, if you forget his Day After Tomorrow yawner, puts forward a true career year between Brokeback and Jarhead. Hell, all of the principles are fully deserving of the praise their getting. Anne Hathaway has one scene in particular, talking on the phone no less, that kills many of the performances this year in terms of emotional authenticity. But Heath Ledger and his real-life darling, Michelle Williams, both nominated for Golden Globes, absolutely work themselves into inhabiting those characters. I don't have any particular favoritism toward any of these performers, but I think that's changing quickly. I know the people these guys play in the film- I grew up with them- and Ledger could have been any number of distant friends out there in the hills.

So it's such a tightly-carved film- Lee seems to have lifted it from the emotional space [and I do mean space- it's lonely out there, and these are all lonely characters] to put it on screen. As Ebert argues- that's what makes it universal- it's not the homosexual content- the film's not even homoerotic- it's the life-long love and the oppressive environment which prohibits it.

When the film ended, I watched the couple seated next to me. They were a well-dressed pair, mid thirties. The woman, wiping a tear from her eye, [ the final scenes are, again, among the best single scenes this year], asked her partner if he liked it. He shrugged.
"Nothing?" she said. "You didn't feel anything? I thought it was absolutely beautiful. Come on. What'd you think?"
"You know. It was fine," he put on his jacket, collected his things.
"Nothing? That's it?"

It strikes me that he didn't respond to the film because he wouldn't have responded to any film that takes place in the tight-knit emotional world, the isolated world, that's on the film. Any love story, any emotional story, he'd have been insulated from as much as this one.

Earlier, I posted on the strange false controversy over at Fox News about Brokeback's R rating. Fox was reporting that people wanted the film to have an NC-17 rating, and the best and only justification I could see for that perception [which wasn't even supported in the interviews in the story on Fox itself] was that Fox believes that any film that has an honest portrayal of gay love deserves to be rated R.

But Brokeback isn't really about gay love- just, love. Passion. Identity. All of that is tied up in it. So perhaps what really harms Fox, and that whole way of thinking promoted by Fox, is that Brokeback promotes men coming to terms with their emotions as much as it is about men loving men- doesn't seem so revolutionary to me.

Anyway-

a Challenge [capital "c"] to Lons et al-

Have you seen Brokeback yet?