L. KENT WOLGAMOTT / Lincoln Journal Star | Posted: Thursday, January 5, 2006 6:00 pm
“Brokeback Mountain” is a great film romance, a tragic story of forbidden love that plays out against spectacular scenery and packs a haunting punch. It just happens to be about two men.
The most critically acclaimed film of 2005, “Brokeback Mountain” is a lock for a Best Picture Academy Award nomination, for good reason. It tells its story with great precision and passion through superb acting, stunning cinematography and sensitive direction and never tries to be a “message movie.”
In fact, the late-night TV take that “Brokeback Mountain” is a “gay cowboy movie” sells the film far short — and misplaces its focus.
Based on Annie Proulx’s short story, “Brokeback Mountain” opens in Wyoming in 1963 where two young ranch hands land jobs watching a herd of sheep grazing on government land high up on the mountain that gives the picture its title.
Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) is a taciturn sort, orphaned when his parents were killed in a car accident and raised by his siblings, more at home watching the sheep than talking.
Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) is more verbal, a rodeo rider who’s a natural born carouser and complainer.
But they’re not together that much — one of them has to ride up the mountain and spend the night with the sheep, while the other stays at the base camp tending to the beans that make up most of their diet.
One night after too much whiskey, Ennis decides not to ride back to the herd. Freezing near the fire, he crawls into the tent with Jack. Before sunrise, there is a passionate, violent coupling that the pair dismiss immediately the next morning. But their attraction to each other is undeniable, even as they deny that they are “queer” and maintain that whatever it is they are doing is just for the time on the mountain.
They give the lie to that contention, however, when each wants to return to the mountain for the next summer. But their boss (Randy Quaid) has seen the boys doing more than herding sheep and rejects Jack’s attempt to sign up again.
After some time passes, both marry — Ennis to Alma (Michelle Williams), another isolated rural sort, and Jack to Lureen (Anne Hathaway), a rodeo-riding daughter of a wealthy Texas businessman. Each has kids and tries to make his way in life. But neither can forget what happened on the mountain.
When Jack, who has enough money to travel, makes his way back to Wyoming for a visit, the old sparks fly again and a series of annual “fishing trips” begin — trips that mean everything to both men whose lives could be forever ruined if their relationship became known.
By then, Jack is selling farm machinery for his father-in-law while Ennis is working as a hired hand. Neither is a cowboy in the classical sense — hence, the misplaced description.
And it wouldn’t matter what jobs they had. This is a story of a pair of people who cannot have the passion and love they once briefly experienced. That tale has been told before on film and will be told again. But it has rarely been better told.
Like all great films, “Brokeback Mountain” starts with a superb screenplay by Pulitizer Prize-winning writer Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. Adapting and adding to Proulx’s short story, McMurtry and Ossana crafted a finely detailed narrative that adds McMurty’s knowledge of the West to the mix while never losing focus on its tragic lovers.
Then comes the excellent acting. Ledger, who has long been an underrated actor, delivers on all of his promise here, conveying a deeply conflicted man as much through expression and body language as the few words that Ennis speaks. Ledger’s been getting all the Oscar buzz, but Gyllenhaal is just as good, letting Jack’s honesty give the film its heart. He knows he’s gay, but he also knows he’s trapped and that is tearing him apart.
But there is also some fine acting from the supporting characters, particularly Williams, who could get an Oscar nod playing Ennis’ long-suffering wife who sees something she shouldn’t. Hathaway breaks out of princess mode to show she’s a fine actress.
The cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto captures the grandeur of the Canadian Rockies, where much of the picture is set. But it never overwhelms the story and is just as effective in the bleak, barely furnished rooms where Ennis lives as it is in the great vistas.
Pulling everything together is director Ang Lee. Perhaps because he is from Taiwan, or perhaps because he has made several films about outsiders, including “The Hulk,” Lee doesn’t play “Brokeback Mountain” for anything other than what it is: a tragic love story.
If there is a message of tolerance in the film — and there is — it is up to the viewer to find it. But that isn’t likely to happen until well after the movie is over.
The connection for the viewer while the film is on screen is with the love story and the characters. That’s why “Brokeback Mountain” is a great film, not some cheap effort designed to shock or titillate.
Reach L. Kent Wolgamott at 473-7244 or kwolgamott@journalstar.com.