Brokeback Mountain
Where to begin...I had been looking foward to seeing Brokeback Mountain since I heard about it but despite the trailers, reviews, and media bru-ha-ha I still didn't know what to expect. Well this film blew my mind. It completely did it for me.
Brokeback Mountain is set in Wyoming and Texas but was filmed in Alberta. Masterfully, Ang Lee resisted the glory shots and kept the landscapes beautiful but limited and intense. In this, they reflected the love story at the centre of the film - the blinkered vision of people so focussed on only eachother. Jack Twist (Gyllenhaal) and Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) meet when they are hired to herd sheep one summer on Brokeback Mountain. This portion of the film is not rushed, not overly dependent on montage, and is beautifully written and acted. When LJ and I met, it was during a holiday season when many of our friends were away. We spent about two weeks essentially alone and falling in love. This movie felt as real - I really bought the affection and passion of Jack and Ennis, how they liked eachother, cared for eachother, and loved eachother.
When the summer is over the two men go their seperate ways. Four years later Jack travels from Texas back to Wyoming to see Ennis again. This was my favourite scene from the whole film (a tough pick). Ennis is waiting for Jack, drinking beer and slouching around the house while his wife (fantastic work from Michelle Williams) watches the children. Hearing Jack's car Ennis propells himself up and out of the door. They are unable to feign any kind of casual reunion and when Alma (Ennis' wife) looks from the door she sees her husband in a passionate clinch with his 'fishing buddy'. Here Williams is just marvellous - I've read this so much of her performance and it's true - her face is worth a thousand well written lines, we see her shock, anger, confusion, betrayal, and at times almost compassion as she realises and attempts to understand what is going on. What I love so much about this scene is that it translates the tunnel vision of this kind of love so well - Jack and Ennis are so excited to see eachother, so wrapped up in their connection and need for eachother, that they can't afford to see what is happening outside of them, the collatoral damage of their snatched moments. Alma is left alone for the night and then for a week when Ennis bounds in the next morning to tell her that he and Jack are going fishing. Together Jack and Ennis are found, but apart they are both lost - Jack in the home and business provided by his marriage to Lureen (Ann Hathaway is great) and Ennis in the dust and shabbiness of his small-town life. The story unfurls over several years as they attempt to manage their relationship within the parameters of what they feel its possibilites are. In the end, it is a combination of what those parameters actually are and what Jack and Ennis' concepts of them are, that define the outcome of the story. It is a story of love shared and love withheld; it is a subtle, powerful, heart wrenching, completely engrossing and, yes, sexy film. I'm really excited to see it again.
ETA: I want to stress how very glad I am that Ang Lee directed this. And not just because his home town is Tainan, but because I think he brought a very valuable quality to this film. I find it really hard to articulate but it's somewhere between delicacy and a balance between what is brittle and what is unyielding.
Brokeback Mountain is set in Wyoming and Texas but was filmed in Alberta. Masterfully, Ang Lee resisted the glory shots and kept the landscapes beautiful but limited and intense. In this, they reflected the love story at the centre of the film - the blinkered vision of people so focussed on only eachother. Jack Twist (Gyllenhaal) and Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) meet when they are hired to herd sheep one summer on Brokeback Mountain. This portion of the film is not rushed, not overly dependent on montage, and is beautifully written and acted. When LJ and I met, it was during a holiday season when many of our friends were away. We spent about two weeks essentially alone and falling in love. This movie felt as real - I really bought the affection and passion of Jack and Ennis, how they liked eachother, cared for eachother, and loved eachother.
When the summer is over the two men go their seperate ways. Four years later Jack travels from Texas back to Wyoming to see Ennis again. This was my favourite scene from the whole film (a tough pick). Ennis is waiting for Jack, drinking beer and slouching around the house while his wife (fantastic work from Michelle Williams) watches the children. Hearing Jack's car Ennis propells himself up and out of the door. They are unable to feign any kind of casual reunion and when Alma (Ennis' wife) looks from the door she sees her husband in a passionate clinch with his 'fishing buddy'. Here Williams is just marvellous - I've read this so much of her performance and it's true - her face is worth a thousand well written lines, we see her shock, anger, confusion, betrayal, and at times almost compassion as she realises and attempts to understand what is going on. What I love so much about this scene is that it translates the tunnel vision of this kind of love so well - Jack and Ennis are so excited to see eachother, so wrapped up in their connection and need for eachother, that they can't afford to see what is happening outside of them, the collatoral damage of their snatched moments. Alma is left alone for the night and then for a week when Ennis bounds in the next morning to tell her that he and Jack are going fishing. Together Jack and Ennis are found, but apart they are both lost - Jack in the home and business provided by his marriage to Lureen (Ann Hathaway is great) and Ennis in the dust and shabbiness of his small-town life. The story unfurls over several years as they attempt to manage their relationship within the parameters of what they feel its possibilites are. In the end, it is a combination of what those parameters actually are and what Jack and Ennis' concepts of them are, that define the outcome of the story. It is a story of love shared and love withheld; it is a subtle, powerful, heart wrenching, completely engrossing and, yes, sexy film. I'm really excited to see it again.
ETA: I want to stress how very glad I am that Ang Lee directed this. And not just because his home town is Tainan, but because I think he brought a very valuable quality to this film. I find it really hard to articulate but it's somewhere between delicacy and a balance between what is brittle and what is unyielding.
2 Comments:
dooood
i feel like a bad friend, cuz i haven't read your stuff yet! love it, nice writing style. there's this dudes blog i read, who was helping in N.O. after Katrina hit. http://jacob.wordpress.com/ It was really compelling, you should check it out. its pretty much the only blog i've read besides yours! I'm a blog-virgin. blirgin. now, i definitely like to write, especially emails, then i keep them like a diary. shoulda been blogging this whole time... through vanuatu, etc. its wierd how the emails changed depending who i was writing to. i'm sure it would change again writing a blog. i think i would be a closet blogger for awhile too. i'll be catching up, reading all your blogs when i can. i'll gain an unfair advantage with all that info that i wouldn't otherwise have about you... without copious hang-out time. i can see why you are fascinated with blogs. the implications or 'imps' as i sometimes like to say as in "oh, the imps, the imps." and there are plenty. love it. and when you're ready to see Brokeback again, I'm there.
shan
thank you! *grin*
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