Bilgi :
Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal as cowboys who fall in love …
with
each other
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It took eight years for Brokeback Mountain to make its
way from the pages of The New Yorker to the big screen. Larry McMurty
(Lonesome Dove) adapted the script from what was originally conceived as
a short story by Annie Proulx, and Ang Lee finally took over the directorial reins after a couple of
other helmers (Gus Van Sant and Joel Schumacher) took a pass. And while it's not unusual for a script
to get stymied in production, it's undoubtedly true that, in this case, the central characters played
a role in the delay—two cowboys who fall in love … with each other.
Spanning 20 years, the relationship between Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Ennis
Del Mar (Heath Ledger) begins in 1963 when the two are given the job of watching sheep during a summer
up on Wyoming's Brokeback Mountain. They're both gangly young Marlboro Men in the making—Jack
with a boyish energy that belies his rodeo dreams and Ennis with a set jaw that rarely moves. Together
they tend the sheep and make dinner and fall into the rhythms of life on the mountain. Loosened up by
camaraderie and whiskey, Ennis becomes, if not exactly talkative, open. And he and Jack sit around the
fire late into the night talking about their histories and hopes for their futures.
When a cold night prompts the two to share a small tent, the physical intimacy that
ensues is at first awkward and then almost desperate in its drive to be experienced. As an extension
of their growing relationship, this first sexual encounter seems less than romantic. And, as they both
assert the morning after, certainly neither man is "queer."
Director Ang Lee's reverence for beautiful landscapes comes
through in
the film
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But they're still drawn to each other. And where the romance was perhaps lacking at
first, it begins to build steam as Jack and Ennis begin to look each other in the eyes—and want
what they see. The men seem to be fumbling for each other, for any meaningful connection with one
another—at turns kissing and hitting; tenderly caressing and drawing blood; loving and hating.
It's a dance they would repeat for years to come.
Ang Lee's varied body of work (Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon; Sense and Sensibility; The Ice Storm; Hulk) remains
cohesive largely in its reverence for landscapes. And here he adds the American West to his visual
repertoire, reflecting the contours of the relationship between Jack and Ennis in the harsh brilliance
of the natural world in which it takes place. Rodrigo Prieto's beautiful cinematography frames
majestic but treacherous mountains rimmed with snow. Expansive blue skies that can rain down golf-ball
sized hail. Pristine lakes that ward off would-be swimmers with their chill.
And as their summer on the mountain ends, the scenery, and the world, closes in on
the men. They go their separate ways. Four years pass before they see each other again, and in that
time both marry and become fathers. Ennis swaps vows with Alma (Michelle Williams) and has two
daughters. Jack gets roped by Lureen (Anne Hathaway), a Texas rodeo queen. Once the men do reunite,
it's clear that Jack is simply biding time, hoping for a future with Ennis. Ennis, on the other hand,
is resigned to his life with Alma. He's haunted by a childhood memory: the specter of a man he saw
beaten to death for living with another man. He sees no viable scenario in which he and Jack can be
together.
Both men end up in heterosexual marriages,
Ledger's character to Alma, played by Michelle Williams …
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"If you can't fix it, you gotta stand it," says Ennis. He and Jack accomplish that
by meeting up for "fishing trips" during which no fishing takes place. Over the course of these years,
Jack is feeling perpetually jilted on his drives back home to Texas, while Ennis' efforts to resist
his love for Jack turn him into an angry, bitter drunk who's always looking for a fight. Years fly by
in which neither man is fully engaged with his family, while pining for a person he only sees
sporadically. Their furtive love isolates them and makes their worlds smaller until they see no one
but each other.
But despite the intimacy these two want to share, there's a certain formalism
between Jack and Ennis that stems from their seeming inability to admit, even to each other, who each
of them is. A conversation late in the movie includes Jack referencing an affair he's supposedly
having with a ranch foreman's wife when the audience knows that the affair is actually with the
foreman himself. Ennis, in return, goes into a homophobic rage when Jack lets on that he goes down to
Mexico for gay sex. It's likely the result of a number of factors, but both men are deeply unsettled
by their homosexuality.
The narrative's focus on Jack and Ennis means that the audience is left largely to
guess at the painful ramifications the men's infidelities have on their families. It's the movie's
greatest weakness that it never fully develops the wives' characters, and they're often relegated to
clichés. After a big splash, Lureen becomes little more than a peroxide blonde prop whose true
feelings about her husband are inscrutable. Michelle Williams is, thankfully, given more screen time,
and her quivering heartbreak and eventual rage are among the most resonant emotions of the movie.
… and Gyllenhaal's character to Lureen, played by Anne Hathaway
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But for all the potential messiness of a story about two married men who carry on
an affair with each other, the movie maintains an emotional distance from its subject by focusing
almost exclusively on the men involved, both of whom are characters trying to stuff their emotions to
one extent or another. Brokeback Mountain creates vast plains of space
for the audience to interpret Jack and Ennis' actions and the hopes and fears that motivate them. It's
quite possible that no matter what the viewer believes about homosexuality, he or she will be able to
read their own stance on the issue into this story.
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