Brokeback Mountain

One day back in 1998 wandering through Waterstones in Manchester looking for something quick to read, I was struck by the cover of a new title by an unknown writer (to me at any rate) called Annie Proulx. She was also the author, so the jacket of the book said, of 'Shipping News'. It was only sixty-four pages long and had an intriguing plot. I bought it. I later read it in all of an hour. It is an irony that the book on which a film is made should take less time to read than the movie is to watch! However, whether one reads it or views it, Brokeback Mountain is a story that lingers long in the mind.

The movie arrives with a lot of ballyhoo: gay western, gay love story, Venice Film Festival winner, Golden Globe nominations, expectations of Oscars, best film of the year etc. This kind of hyperbole leads to very high expectations with the result that audiences sometimes come out of the cinema asking what all the fuss was about. I'm no exception. My critical facilities sharpen and almost dare the director and actors to prove it!

Well what of the film? What's it about? To start with it most definitely (in my book at least) is not a western. There are no guns and no cows; though I admit a lot of westerns often feature close male relationships, and to label it a gay love story would, I feel, trivialise it. This is a story about some very complex and deep emotions experienced by two men alone on a mountain in Wyoming. What these two men discover about themselves is (to them) at once both shameful and intoxicating. It is also ultimately destructive. It is in fact, a tragedy; a story of a doomed relationship.

In my view this is Ang Lee’s greatest piece of directing to date. He manages to obtain some truly great performances from Heath Ledger as the taciturn Ennis and Jake Ghyllenhaal as Jack Twist, who having been unsuccessful on the rodeo circuits is trying his hand at looking after sheep.

Lee handles the issues sensitively and at no time could one regard the film as salacious. Indeed I was at times genuinely moved by the intensity of the relationship of the two men.

This is a great film and one destined to become a classic. It deserves the praise heaped upon it.