Brokeback Mountain Revisited- what a difference six months makes.
Those of you who know me well will recall that, unlike most of the rest of the world, I was not crazy about Brokeback Mountain when I first saw it back in February of this year. There were a few things about it I was very unhappy, and very angry about. I remember complaining to my date on the way out of the theater, that it would be nice “if just once we could see a movie where the main gay character does not get bashed or, worse, killed, and it would be nice if just once we could see a film where the gay main characters live happily ever after.” (Movies that featured gay-bashing, and gays not living happily ever after include Torch Song Trilogy, and As Good As It Gets, although in all fairness to Harvey Fierstein the gay-bashing scene in TST was integral to the plot, while the gay-bashing scene in AGAIG was completely gratuitous.) For me, this was, at first glance, a movie written by straight people, for straight people. It was a movie that said, “see, gay people can never truly be happy, even when they know they are in love and have something good.”
I was also extremely frustrated and annoyed that, more often than not, Ennis’ (Heath Ledger) and Jack’s (Jack Gyllenhaal) drawls were so thick that I could hardly understand what they were saying. It made me feel as if I were missing half the movie.
Mostly, what disturbed me, and what colored my reaction to BBM, was the hype, and the media falling all over themselves to congratulate Ledger and Gyllenhaal for having the “courage” to play gay on film. Courage? To kiss another man on camera? Bulls**t! You want courage, I said, I’ll give you courage: try being openly gay in the year 2006, even in San Francisco, when we have a seated president who continues to lobby to have bigotry and discrimination written into the United States Constitution. Courage, you say, for two men to kiss each other on camera? Bah, humbug! Why does no one ever commend actors for portraying murderers? Is it because it is more acceptable in this sad state of affairs we currently call this country, for a man to kill another man, than to love another man? (Rhetorical question, doesn’t really need an answer – just look to the military for the answer to this one. They came out with a report today that refers to homosexuality as an illness, more than 30 years after the American Psychological Association ceased referring to it as such – amazing, but true – it’s okay to kill another man, but don’t ever, ever, dare to love one.)
I hate hype – interesting sentiment for someone who makes his living in marketing – and admittedly I am turned off by it. By the time I saw BBM, I had already been told by everyone and their grandmother that it was the best movie they had ever seen, and that I would love it. Heck, I’ll bet if Helen Keller (z’l”) were still walking among us, she'd probably be be finger-spelling to me that it was a great movie! And, knowing myself as well as I do, after all the hype I went in there one-quarter expecting to be bowled over, and three-quarters expecting to be disappointed and cynical. Again, to re-emphasize – I don’t like hype. As a stellar example, with the release of his first album in 1972, I did not fall head-over-heels in love with Bruce Springsteen, an act of defiance tantamount to treason for a New Jerseyite!
But now… I have picked up BBM on DVD. And now, far-removed from the initial hype, and thanks to the convenience of DVD – play, rewind, pause, skip/replay scenes, special bonus features (interviews with the actors, the director, Ang Lee, etc.) – I am seeing this movie for the gorgeous piece of work it truly is, the high-level piece of acting, directing, and filmmaking, that it truly is, on so many different levels. I’m not sure why I missed it the first time around, but I’m glad I’ve been given another chance.
About the gay-bashing – firstly, as I watch this again, the film does not make it clear to us if the gay-bashing really happened, or if this is Ennis’ imagination working in over-drive because, when he was nine years old, his father showed him the result of a fatal gay-bashing and told him "this is what happens to queers,” and it was this memory, of course, that contributed to his not being able to commit to Jack over the 20 years that they carried on their love affair. And, unfortunately, gay-bashing was most likely a real possibility in Childress, Texas in the early ‘80s, as it was then – and still is – in San Francisco. It’s an unfortunate fact of life, that as long as we have a government in power that marginalizes us and does everything to keep our children from receiving appropriate information about the facts of sexual orientation, a government that would prefer that we not even be allowed to adopt children, much less enter into civil contracts with each other, that these things happen and will continue to happen. Is it any wonder that the gay-bashing was the first thing Ennis thought of when he was told of the way Jack supposedly died? (Hit in the face with an exploding tire and drowning in his own blood before help arrived on the scene, or bashed to death with a tire iron? Which, to you, is more believable? For me, unfortunately, the bashing is.)
“A movie written by straight people, for straight people.” In a sense, yes, but more importantly, an honestly written and acted story about two men who were madly and desperately in love with each other but didn’t have the will or the courage (although Jack had a little more than Ennis did) or the resources to act on it. How many times has that happened with straight people, as well? For different reasons, of course, but it happens in straight life as often, and as painfully, as it happens in gay life. The pain that Ennis feels at the very end of the film – and the way that Ledger portrayed that pain – is universal, gay or straight. When Ennis holds Jack’s shirt to his face to attempt to catch one last fleeting scent of the man he loved for 20 years, as he utters the final words of the film, “Jack, I swear,” I can feel that pain. How many times have I, myself, either felt or imagined that pain, and how I might feel when, G-d forbid, I receive the news of the passing of someone I loved so dearly but who I knew I had to let go of, or someone who I thought let go of me too soon? How many times have I imagined that scene myself, looking at a picture of a former lover and telling that picture, “I swear, I never stopped loving you.” Life is good, most of the time, but an inevitable part of life is pain, and the pain that Ennis felt at that moment was as real, and as palpable, as any pain I’ve felt in my life, and I was right there with him as he held that shirt up to his nostrils and breathed it in. And Ledger and Gyllenhaal are both to be commended for the way in which they illustrated their love and their pain, emotions that truly transcend sexual orientation and are, simply, human.
The drawls are still indecipherable at times, but the important thing I have noticed after watching BBM again – and I have watched it at least four times straight through in the past week, and I’ve watched individual scenes several times more – is that it is the actions that speak louder than words. When Ennis falls, sobbing, into Jack’s arms, what he is saying is not as important as what he is feeling, and what he is feeling, and conveying to the viewer – that at that moment in time there is no place he’d rather be than in Jack’s arms – is so much more important than what is, or isn’t, coming out of his mouth.
The "courage" it takes to play gay? Thanks to the mainstream media, that was a load of crap then, and it is a load of crap still today.
This is a powerful, powerful movie, played beautifully and realistically by two giants in the acting field who deserve every accolade they've received for their performances, adapted and expanded upon with piercingly accurate detail by Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry from E. Annie Proulx’ original short story – and guided lovingly through, from beginning to end, with the clarity of vision of a director who comes along but once in a lifetime – Ang Lee. If you didn’t like BBM the first time around, give it a second chance. I’m glad I did.
Thanks for listening, have a good day,
KA
