Brokeback Mountain (2005) 10/10
In 1963, ranch hand Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and rodeo rider Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) spend a summer sheepherding on Brokeback Mountain. There they begin a romance that endures for almost twenty years.
In the movies, love stories are generally either romantic comedies or tragedies. In a romantic comedy, what keeps the lovers apart is trivial and amusing. In a tragedy, what keeps the lovers apart is profoundly important. In fact, it is the whole point.
The reason I say this is because so many people are saying things like ‘Brokeback Mountain is a universal love story,’ or ‘It’s not that it’s gay, it’s that it’s love.’ Yeah right sure. This is called apologetics.
Brokeback Mountain is the story of star-crossed lovers. The fate that crosses them is that they are both men, without a place in the world to be who they are. Stories of impossible loves are not generic, in fact, their particularity is their entire reason for being. Whether it’s the Capulets and the Montagues or the Jets and the Sharks, lovers divided by society exist to tell us something about society.
Love itself is universal, and so we all relate to it as we watch a good story (and Brokeback is excellent) unfold. Thus we see the cultural, social, racial, or interpersonal issue that divides the lovers in a new light. That’s the power of fiction.
So make no mistake; Brokeback Mountain is a gay movie. It’s also one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long, long time. Ennis and Jack each struggles differently with the closet he is in. Jack wants to find a way out; he dreams of a world where he and Ennis can ranch together, in a word, he longs to be gay. Ennis despises who and what he is; he longs to be straight. The tragedy of the story is that neither man can fulfill his longing, they have only each other, only their “fishing trips,” the lives they live are empty.
The performances are stunning, particularly Heath Ledger, who holds his body tighter and tighter, closing himself up until you wonder that he can walk. Yet he seems about to burst. But Gyllenhaal’s BAFTA last night was well-deserved too.
Setting and scene are remarkable. Everything in the movie looks like a prison, except when the men are together in the mountains. Every home is too small, every hall too narrow, every angle too sharp. Then, when they’re together, the sky is huge, the world is open, and you can feel your own shoulders un-tense as at last there’s some space.
(spoilers below the fold)
Some folks feel that Jack’s death is a punishment along the “tragic gay” lines that film always seems to fall into. I disagree. These are two men who lived their lives apart and in love. The movie could only end with one of them dead. Frankly, Jack’s premature death served a utilitarian purpose as it spared the audience the horrors of more and more age makeup.
I am also left with a huge question mark about the nature of Jack’s death. Jack died in the way Ennis always feared. Or did he? We don’t see Jack die; we see Ennis visualizing Jack’s death while Lureen tells a different story.
Granted, Lureen’s stiff, formulaic delivery of the story is meant to tell us she is lying. But is that Lureen, or how Ennis hears Lureen? Did Jack die in a gay-bashing, or does Ennis imagine it because he is still so profoundly trapped in his closet? I don’t think the movie intends us to be sure. Indeed, the original story seems to leave the same question open. Ennis is sure that Jack died in a gay bashing for two reasons; first, because it is the fear that drives him, and second because he learns that Jack has had relationships with other men, putting him at greater risk. I think Ennis’s fear is profound, and “what really happened?” comparatively less so.
oh my goodness, so many good points here.
lovers divided by society exist to tell us something about society.
this is spot on, and i honestly hadn’t thought about brokeback in that context. i knew that i was slightly uncomfortable with all the disavowal of the “gayness” of the movie, but i couldn’t put a finger on why. this is it.
Everything in the movie looks like a prison, except when the men are together in the mountains.
another great point. i usually pride myself on being able to notice aesthetic decisions like this one, but somehow, i didn’t think of this at the time. but looking back, it makes perfect sense, and instead of just seeming like a cheap aesthetic trick (like the way some directors use light and dark), it definitely adds to the whole movie.
re: the spoiler points
this is what i’ve been wondering about since seeing the film. what were we seeing? were we seeing what really happened, or what ennis was thinking? was that shot supposed to make it clear that lureen was lying? i’m not sure, and i think that adds a layer of complexity that i appreciate much more than the tidy tragic endings of other dramas.
this is spot on, and i honestly hadn’t thought about brokeback in that context. i knew that i was slightly uncomfortable with all the disavowal of the “gayness??? of the movie, but i couldn’t put a finger on why. this is it.
I think Ennis said “I’m not queer” because that’s Ennis’s whole agenda in life; to avoid being the man who gets dragged to death. I think Jack said “me neither” because he wanted Ennis’s approval.
EDIT: I just realized you meant reviewers and promo disavowing the gayness, not Ennis and Jack. Silly me!
Very good points. As someone who has said, “it’s not about gayness…” I have to say that I say that only to get others to see the movie. Obviously it is about being gay, about being gay and in love…in the 1960s/70s. Taking the gay out of it breaksdown the entire story. And for that, I submit myself for punishment.
Oooh! Hey everyone, we get to spank RONI!!
Hi Roni, welcome to the site. 🙂
The movie moved me in so many, many ways, much more-so than the short story. The little things, like the look on Jack’s face as he drives away when he realized Ennis’ divorce didn’t change anything. The look on Ennis’ face when he sees Jack again after four years. The conversations they have on their trips.
The shirts.
I wondered if I would be able to watch this movie, because while I *adore* stories that deal with issues I am also very much a happy ending person and doubted if I’d be satisfied. I went to the theater, wanting more than anything else to buy a ticket to help make this film a success, to help push homosexuality into mainstream media. I wanted to play a part in keeping this movie showing.
I left the theater grateful I’d gone, more than satisfied with the story and the movie, and aching in so many, many ways. It lingers in my mind and heart, and at odd moments of the day it’ll come to the fore, one more little thing in a gesture or a word spoken to make me ponder the whole thing again.
I didn’t all that much want to see it either. I’m an Oscars addict and I try to see as many nominees as I can right before the big night. So I was surprised how much this movie meant to me.
It was truely great movie. I watched three times. I got so touched by the bound between Jack and Ennis.
It was definitely the most emotional movie at the Oscars. The others were more ‘think pieces’.
I was surprised to find the number of web sites that had reviews like yours, but listed Jack’s death as a gay bashing. I’ve seen the movie several times, read the original book, and the script and I thought it was obvious that Jack didn’t die the way Ennis thought he did. Apparently I was in the minority. Even the cast on Oprah seemed to think Loreen was lying to Ennis, but Jake Gyllenhaal didn’t agree with them. He felt Loreen didn’t know, at least not to the degree that Alma knew perhaps.
With Ennis’s story about the old man beaten with a tire iron and then dragged until he died, I thought that Jack’s imagined death (with a tire iron) was just Ennis’s fears coming to light. But so many people feel otherwise I looked around for more answers and couldn’t find any. Even the author doesn’t take a firm position either way, which is somewhat surprising to me. But the way it was filmed, with Ennis on the camera while the flashback was played, seemed to me to indicate it was what he was thinking at the time, not the actual events.
I thought the explanation for Loreen’s coldness was because maybe she knew about Ennis’s relationship with Jack, or suspected it at least and while she told the story of how he died (the real death), she was cold to him to show her dissapproval.
However, we never really got to know Jack’s wife at all. She was good at business and seemed to love Jack but they never had enough screen time together to form a solid opinion of her. At least in my mind.
So I’m glad to read your article about what Ennis thought about Jack’s death. Unless Ang Lee or the author come out and clears up the mystery, I don’t know if we’ll ever know the truth; but to me the movie was mostly about Ennis’s fears and how they held him back in life, love, and family. It only follows that even in death, his fears would dominate the story.
Even if Ang Lee or Annie Proulx speaks definitively, I don’t think it matters. I mean, Ennis was driven by the fear of a death like the one he imagined. His imagination in that moment was the important part; it shaped his relationship with Jack.
(I don’t mean a gay bashing doesn’t matter, I mean it doesn’t matter in terms of who the characters are and what the ultimate meaning is.)
That’s correct of course, but the notion that Jack got what he deserved, like many have implied on the internet (because he was gay), does an injustice to the story as a whole. And as you’ve said, they’ve missed the point of the story by not connecting Ennis with his fears at the end. I think many people have justified the movie through blogs and such by implying that Ennis was correct to fear his relationship with Jack (hence his brutal death), when in fact the story is about his loss at not accepting Jack’s love to begin with. It’s a total 180 from what I feel the story was supposed to be about. At least in my opinion.
In Ennis’s mind Jack died the way Ennis always saw a male / male relationship, so even at the end Ennis couldn’t come to grips with himself. Now going the other way, if we believe Jack really died by tire iron, it makes everything Ennis feared correct and Jack the one at fault. If we watch the movie from Ennis’s point of view then it means love is weaker than fear.
Somehow I don’t think Annie or Ang meant that message. So I have to disagree with your last sentence, I think who the characters are, is what defines the meaning of the film. Fear or Love?
I saw the movie ending as Ennis believing Jack died brutally, to somehow justify his fears showing us how wrong he was even at the loss of Jack.
Jack got what he deserved, like many have implied on the internet (because he was gay),
Ewww. I’m glad I didn’t see those posts, I’d have gone ballistic.
the story is about his loss at not accepting Jack’s love to begin with.
That’s Ennis’s story. Jack’s story is about trying to find a way out of the closet and never being able to succeed. The greatness of the movie is, in fact, how it brings these two tragedies together in one place, as one story.
if we believe Jack really died by tire iron, it makes everything Ennis feared correct and Jack the one at fault.
If Jack died by tire iron, he is no more at fault than Matthew Shepherd was. That being gay endangered the two men is absolutely true; the story of the murdered man from Ennis’s childhood was true; it was a real danger.
Ennis’s fears were correct. Being gay was (and to a lesser extent still is) dangerous. In the end, as he embraced the shirts, he knew in some way that the love mattered more anyway. Not because it was safe to love, but because love is bigger even than Jack’s death, no matter how he died. That’s why I say it doesn’t matter.
I’m not in disagreement with you about the virtues of the movie, but I can’t agree that the true death of Jack doesn’t matter. In fact it’s key to the whole thing.
If Jack’s death was like Lorren said, it would show Ennis’s fears to be unfounded and the story would overall be about Ennis and his inablitiy to love Jack. If Jack’s death was by tire iron (like in the story Ennis told Jack about the old man), then the story would VALIDATE Ennis’s fears and imply he was right not to love Jack the way Jack wanted him to.
I don’t agree with you that Ennis’s fears were correct for this simple reason. If Jack had died in an accident then it shows Jack lived his life (seeing other men etc) in a way that Ennis could not. And in fact WASN”T punished for it by being beaten to death. And it proves that Ennis COULD have had a different life if he had the courage Jack had.
Many gay men lived whole lives without being beaten to death. Look at Capote etc. While I agree that they couldn’t publicly annouce thier relationship, it’s VERY possible they could have been together without getting killed by the populace. I can only subscribe to “Ennis’s fears were correct” to a degree. Yes they were correct, but not to the level he took them. You say in the end that Ennis because he embraced the shirts knew in some way that love mattered more anyway…but that’s not true. If he really did feel that way he would have told Jack or lived his life with Jack. That never happend. To Ennis, his fears mattered more than his love for Jack.
The biggest divide that I’ve seen, is that many straight people for some reason have quickly accepted that Jack was brutally killed, while every gay person I knows thinks it was just an accident ( but perhaps Loreen suspected Jack was gay). This to me is unfortunate that so many people would fall on that side of the fence. I’m not sure why so many sites list Jack’s death as a beating. I’d have to question if they saw the same film I did, or didn’t catch the fact that the camera was on Ennis not Loreen during the flashback, or the similarities with Ennis’s story about the old man.
Either way I loved the movie, regardless of how people view this point. I’m just bothered by this one part because it rips Jack and Ennis apart just a little more than they already were. If the flashback didn’t happen, Ennis’s loss, while still profound, would have been more tragic. We already knew he was unable to love the way Jack did. But the flashback drives the wedge a little deeper in my opinion.
The reason I say it doesn’t matter is this:
Men do die of gay-bashings, even today, and moreso then. Ennis’s fears weren’t unfounded, weren’t paranoid. But his fears were crippling and prevented him from living his life.
Jack knew, just as much as Ennis did, that being gay was dangerous. But Jack wanted to barrel through the fear and find a way to live authentically with Ennis.
Had they done that, had they lived together as a couple, and then Jack died in a gay-bashing, Jack would have still been “right.” They’d have had their love instead of suffering without it.
To say Ennis’s fears were “unfounded” is wrong. They were founded on experience, he’d seen what he’d seen. And been utterly crippled by it (which was, let’s face it, his father’s intent in showing it to him). We see a homophobia that has destroyed Ennis’s life before (presumably) he even figured out it applied to him.
Ennis’s fears are valid. He or Jack could die by tire iron. That doesn’t mean that living in fear is the way to go. Look, you don’t point at smokers who die in car accidents and say “See? He didn’t die of lung cancer, so that fear was unfounded.”
Bigger than Ennis’s fear, I think, was his shame. I mean, he was a tough guy. Beat up those bikers on the 4th of July and all that. He could have found back if attacked, but I think he couldn’t have effectively fought back if the attack was a gay-bashing, because shame weakens you.
You see, I don’t think it’s about gay-bashing = justified fear vs. accidental death = unjustified fear. I think it’s about choosing fear because danger is real, or choosing love because life without love is empty and painful. Even if the fear is 100% justified, life without love is still empty and painful.
You say in the end that Ennis because he embraced the shirts knew in some way that love mattered more anyway…but that’s not true. If he really did feel that way he would have told Jack or lived his life with Jack.
Um….in the end, Jack was dead. He realized too late. That’s what “Jack, I swear…” means. Finally, in the end, he’s swearing his love to Jack. That’s why he asks his daughter if her fiance loves her, instead of just being grim about her wedding.
I don’t agree that Ennis realized too late his love for Jack. Had Jack never died it’s doubtful that his relationship with him would have ever changed. So I’m not sure what realization you think Ennis had at the end of the movie. Ennis was crippled with fear and he would live out his life that way even if Jack hadn’t died, so in reality Ennis was feeling intense remorse at the end, not that love mattered more.
Do you think that if Jack had lived that they would be together? Of course not. So it’s not so much a question of love as it was of fear. Everyone regrets when it’s too late to change things and of course as you’ve said fears are valid. But…the person you are is defined by if you give in to your fears… or lead your life the way you want to like Jack wanted.
When you said Ennis’s fears were founded on experience, that’s true, however his fears were so profound that for Ennis, nothing else mattered. That’s a far cry from fears are real, or smokers not dying of lung cancer. If you let your fears (imagined or not) control you life, then who are you?
We may never agree on the “flashback” part, (except that we both feel it was in Ennis’s head) but I wanted to say your initial article was very good. In fact it was the only one I found that hit the nail on the head. You were the only person who layed out the plot of the movie correctly in my opinion. So Bravo! …and well done. I hope more people visit your site.
Thanks very much for the compliments. I think Ennis could only have realized once it was too late, once he took the opportunity to peak inside Jack, as he did by finding the shirts.
Notice how moved he was by finding the shirts; Jack’s holding Ennis’s. Notice that at home, he switched the shirts; Ennis now holds Jack (that’s a detail that wasn’t in the story). I agree 100% that Ennis was destroyed by fear. That’s why I love him so much as a character; he is so full of longing and he will never even consider fulfilling that longing, except on Brokeback.
Ennis reminds me of a relationship I had. I don’t know what was crippling my lover–he wasn’t gay–but something in him was as wounded and trapped as Ennis, which is why he’s an ex. As a result, I am intimately familiar with that kind of tightness and crippling self-control.
Changing the shirts at the end was a classic touch and I’m surprised Anne didn’t use it herself. To me it was the highlights of the movie to see that Ennis was now “holding” Jack. Whoever thought that one up deserves major credit.
I’ve read the short story and the script and the whole “I swear” thing was like the flashback in many ways because it left a lot of interpretation open for the reader/viewer as to the meaning of his words. Although I’m in agreement with you that he was swearing his love for Jack.
The worst part for me was having Crash (which was a good movie as well) win the Oscar for Best Picture. Brokeback was a far superior movie in my opinion and I gasped like everyone else when Jack N. read out the winner. Tough break for Anne and the whole cast.
Can’t wait for the DVD release!
I gasped too. I’d seen 4 of the 5 best pic nominees; haven’t seen Crash. Still, it’s sort of possible it’s as good as Brokeback, but it’s NOT possible that it’s better.
I’ve seen them all and I really did like Capote above the rest except for Brokeback of course. I didn’t think I would like it, but PSH is a great actor and although it started slow, it quickly picked up and became quite enjoyable to watch. Now I have to read “In cold blood”.
Brokeback Mountain ends in the theater close to me today, so I’ll most likely go see it one more time on the “Big” screen. Still no announcement on when the DVD will be released. All the other movies have been released already, even some that opened after BM did, so I’m not sure what the problem is with Focus Features. I’m sure it will sell well and I hope they jump on it while the fire is still hot.
I thought they were all wonderful movies. I’d rank them
1) Brokeback
2) Good Night, & Good Luck
3) Capote
4) Munich
?? Crash
I actually thought Capote was better than Good Night & Good Luck but I rank Munich at the bottom as well. I just couldn’t get into it. Steven Sp. needs to go back to his E.T. roots and leave the political stuff alone.
Brokeback comes out on 4 April!
I was stunned by GN&GL, just stunned. I reviewed Capote & GN&GL here (sort by Movies as the category, they should turn up). I believe I reviewed Munich as well. I liked Munich a lot, but it doesn’t compare to the other three.
I just saw Hustle and Flow last night and I have to say I really enjoyed it. I didn’t go into the movie with a good attitude. I didn’t think it would be any good, but it was out so I rented it.
If you haven’t seen it, you should check it out. I know it wasn’t on the oscar list but at least now I understand how Terrance Howard made the list with Heath and PSH.
Let me know what you think.
Thanks for the recommendation. I now really want to see Inside Man and V for Vendetta, and I have to juggle my schedule around them. So the list is growing again…
Hey I was just surfing around and decided to post a short comment here. I run a movie review message board and am looking for people to write reviews and contribute at my forum. You can even post a link to your blog on your signature file at my forum. It’s all good! Take care.
I don’t see a link to your site.
The username is hyperlinked, Nick.