Love is a Force of Nature
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Brokeback Mountain Directed by: Ang Lee Written by: Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana
Based on the Short Story by: E. Annie Proulx Starring: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway, Randy Quaid, Anna Faris, Linda Cardinelli, and David Harbour
Brokeback Mountain
Ang Lee, one of the world's most respected directors, has always had a career worth celebrating. Since the beginning his films have shown an incisive grasp of social milieus and individual characters, however foreign both may be to the director himself. He is no Woody Allen or Martin Scorsese, with each film playing a genius riff on the same character types. As an auteur he is, comparatively speaking, a restless and great explorer of humanity.
His filmography, full as it is of gems, reached a magical peak in 2000's Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Surprisingly Brokeback Mountain, his new film about the emotional landmines in a relationship between a ranchhand and a rodeo cowboy bears more than a little in common with that intoxicating Taiwanese epic. Both films are serious and respectful stories about constricted lives and forbidden romance. Both films are masterpieces. And finally, both stories use their opening twenty minutes or so to methodically ground the audience in their sociological landscapes before taking their great leaps into the unknown. I don't mean to be flip --in Crouching Tiger the leap was literal as the principals went airborne for a rooftop duel. The narrative leap in Brokeback may strike some viewers as just as fanciful; Two men falling in love. But such is Ang Lee's mastery as a director and the commitment of his two lead actors (Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal) that you're already acclimated emotional. You understand these men. No matter how foreign any movie experience may be to an individual viewer, great films will feel completely authentic and natural. Brokeback Mountain makes its case immediately and commands respect.
This new film is based on an amazing short story first published in the New Yorker by Pulitzer Prize winning author Annie Proulx. Her story was a simple one: Two men in Wyoming, Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), work together alone one summer on Brokeback Mountain as ranchhands and fall unexpectedly into a relationship. Both of them are shaken to their core, with no context in which to understand their feelings. From that point forward their lives will be intertwined. Larry McMurtry and Diana Osanna's screenplay is a marvel of an adaptation. The movie is faithful but fleshed out, like its been basted in that original spare Proulx prose. All the literary flavor remains but it is magnificently visualized. From its repetitive costuming (Marit Allen) --these aren't men who shop regularly, to it's gorgeous cinematography (Rodrigo Prieto), and haunting score (Gustavo Santaolalla) every inch of this film is a cinematic experience.
As for the actors, one would never know were they not already famous that that they weren't from the region. Only Michelle Williams, who underplays her big scenes with great resonance as Ennis's wife Alma comes from the Northwest originally. Jake Gyllenhaal is moving and charismatic as the more emotionally open of the pair of lovers. But the film's intense emotional impact owes much to Heath Ledger. He is revelatory in the centerpiece role of Ennis Del Mar. There have been hints of a great actor lurking before (most noticeably in his short but impactful role in Monster's Ball) but this is a true breakthrough performance for the Australian actor and one of the most lived-in and gripping performances in years. If he is not in the running for this year's Best Actor Oscar, they should cancel the ceremony.
Most films with deeper sociological messages tend to wear their politics on their sleeve or state their intentions too directly. Ang Lee is content to let this film's decades-spanning storyline about one passionate but painful relationship get its point across without any grandstanding or preaching. Brokeback Mountain with its wide vistas and sparse population of characters manages to be both epic and intimate, universal and ultra specific. The movie, like its inarticulate and confined characters, moves slowly but Ang Lee uses every second wisely. Like a ranchhand himself he's corraling all of the film's gathering energy into a shattering heartbreaking confrontation; A moving scene that expertly uses the earnest sensitivity of Jake Gyllenhaal's screen persona against the sealed character work of Heath Ledger. From that point forward we're moving through Brokeback's weirdly alien anti-climax, like the film has been punctured its air escaping. As is ever the case in Brokeback Mountain, Ennis Del Mar doesn't know what hit him. This love may be born on a mountain, but it can't move them.
A
-Nathaniel R
related articles / reviews:
Oscar Possibilities: Plentiful
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon numerous 2000 FB Award notices
Brokeback Blog Entry: Cowboy Fever
2005 Films: By Grade
