Brokeback Mountain Forum @ ennisjack.com
The Movie & Story => News Coverage, Reviews & Awards => Topic started by: glacier1 on May 01, 2006, 04:44 PM
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Not being a religious or Biblical person, I was unaware of the cited passages and their parallel to Brokeback Mountain.
Written by Kevin Elphick
Monday, 01 May 2006
Given all the hype around Brokeback Mountain as a “gay cowboy movie,” people are probably past saturation point with reviews and commentaries. But I want to suggest another angle: Brokeback Mountain as a modern day spin on the parable of the Good Shepherd. The author of the short story which gave rise to the movie, Annie Proulx, is very explicit that it is not about gay cowboys. I’d venture it’s more about shepherds. She’s quoted in an interview saying,: “Excuse me, but it is NOT a story about ‘two cowboys.’ It is a story about two inarticulate, confused Wyoming ranch kids in 1963 who have left home and who find themselves in a personal sexual situation they did not expect, understand, or can manage. The only work they find is herding sheep for a summer: some cowboys!” ("At Close Range with Annie Proulx” An Interview with Matthew Testa 12.7.05)
Effectively, Brokeback Mountain is about two contemporary shepherds in love. Some churchgoers may already know that the fourth Sunday after Easter is celebrated as “Good Shepherd Sunday” in many denominations. It would be great to see preachers using this Sunday as an opportunity to preach on Brokeback Mountain.
The movie itself quickly opens on its protagonists taking on their job as sheep herders. Panoramic pastoral scenes of the men herding sheep grace the screen. Together they take the sheep up into the mountains. “In good pastures I will pasture them, and on the mountain heights shall be their grazing ground.” (Ezekiel 34: 14)
Of the two, Jack Twist in particular is portrayed as the good shepherd. He is seen carrying a lamb, helping a sheep across a river, and pulling burrs from another’s wool. Like the most ancient artwork portraying Christ, Jack Twist is shown carrying a lamb over his shoulders. To present afresh the 2000-year-old image of the Good Shepherd, there could be no better convention than to hide him as a 1960s ranch hand who falls in love with another man. Hidden in the character of Jack Twist is the ancient image of the Good Shepherd.
And like the Good Shepherd, Jack Twist’s violent death becomes the main catalyst for conversion. In the aftermath of Jack’s death, his lover Ennis experiences a profound conversion experience which plays itself out in a shift in his relationship with his daughter. Like the Good Shepherd of our Easter celebration, it is Jack’s blood-stained garments which, as relics, come to embody and memorialize the love of these shepherds.
It might seem unconventional to portray the Shepherd as a lover too, but the Lover-Shepherd is a familiar figure in the Jewish and Christian traditions. One has only to think of the Shepherd King David and his beloved, Jonathan. (I Sam. 18:1) The Lover in the erotic canticle of the Bible, the Song of Songs, is a shepherd (Song 1:7). Surprisingly, even the austere St. John of the Cross unites the images of shepherd and lover. His poem is worth quoting here in its entirety for its parallels to Brokeback’s story of shepherds in love:
A lonely young shepherd toiled, unaware of pleasure and contentment,
His thoughts fixed on another shepherd… his heart wounded by love.
He is in tears, not from the pain of love…
but more from knowing he’s been distanced.
One thought— that he is kept at a distance by his beautiful shepherd—
is of such great pain that he travels to another country to be misused,
his heart wounded with love.
Says the young shepherd: “It’s agonizing that you draw back from my love
and do not seek my company….”
and his heart was wounded with love.
Finally, after many years, he climbed… spread his arms open —
He had remained persevering— and he died,
His heart wounded by the love.
(Juan de la Cruz, “Otras canciones a lo divino de Cristo y el alma”)
I don’t want to suggest that either Annie Proulx or Ang Lee were consciously evoking the image of the Good Shepherd (or even less, that they were aware of John of the Cross’ poem). But I do believe the story of Brokeback Mountain is so widely powerful specifically because it does evoke universal archetypes of love and commitment.
Ennis and Jack’s love is sacred and reveals the divine character of relationship and longing. Their love, set amidst the grandeur of pastoral images of animal flocks, mountains, and astride horseback, reveals a universal love, the infinite longing, like that between God and humanity, ever aching to be fulfilled and consummated. Hidden in the love of two sheep-herders, is the archetype of that same Good Shepherd who envisions our life together beside restful waters, in verdant pastures… “If you and me had a little ranch together, little cow and calf operation… it’d be some sweet life…”
I’ll be looking forward to Brokeback preaching. I want to hear my pastor’s sermon celebrating the love between Jack and Ennis. I want hear it preached how like our Good Shepherd was Jack’s love and longing for Ennis. I want to know that the Good Shepherd still walks the American West. I want a homily that warns against Ennis’ mistake of giving into societal conventions and missing out on a life lived, partnered with Jack. I want to be warned against the myth of masculine stoicism and instead embrace Jack’s passion and love. I want to be enjoined to go up to the mountaintop to discover love. Until then, I’m still waiting for that sermon on the Good Shepherd of Brokeback Mountain.
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I have always thought that this pic is a direct reference to the The Good Shepherd paintings in early Christian Art.
(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nrc.nl%2Fmultimedia%2Farchive%2F00034%2FDe_mannenidylle_ver_34022a.jpeg&hash=335f0a0600781f065d02cab4bb7e4843f6f32fc4)
Compare this with a few examples:
(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffisheaters.com%2Fgoodshepherd.jpg&hash=ae776a7dfb1383e90d93dda239c78511d2ba7602)(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cts.edu%2FImageLibrary%2FImages%2Fslides%2Fgoodshep.jpg&hash=74e7ac7a8d39ec61c53e5f52e78db11411b17788)
And of course, we have that great mosaic in the so-called Mausoleum of Galla Placida in Ravenna:
(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwebed.vw.cc.va.us%2Fvwbaile%2FMedia%2FChrshep.jpg&hash=909d62573b2286bac0d74e7ce4a114523c94d884)
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And like the Good Shepherd, Jack Twist’s violent death becomes the main catalyst for conversion. In the aftermath of Jack’s death, his lover Ennis experiences a profound conversion experience which plays itself out in a shift in his relationship with his daughter. Like the Good Shepherd of our Easter celebration, it is Jack’s blood-stained garments which, as relics, come to embody and memorialize the love of these shepherds.
Interesting point of view.
Thank you, Glacier.
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Indeed, an interesting and probably sincere point of view.
In a way, I do share the author's vision of The Good Shepherd as it pertains to the redeeming grace of Jack's death.
But I have always looked at it with reference to what is called the Sacramentum Amoris that also finds voice in Tibullus and other classical/non-Christian writers.
In Patristic and early Christian writings, Sacramentum Amoris is more often than not associated with eucharistia: it is the body freely offered for the salvation of the beloved person/people. In this sacramental sense, it is indeed wonderful to interpret Jack's death as a sort of eucharist.
Thanks. This article has given me true pause to reconsider...
Deus qui hominem ex amore creavit, eum etiam vocavit ad amorem, qui fundamentalis et innata omnis humanae personae est vocatio.
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Ang Lee in Taiwan - Part 2
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May 2, 2006
President Chen Shui-bian decorated Oscar-winning Taiwan-born film director Ang Lee Tuesday in recognition of his achievements in movie art and culture.
Chen conferred the Order of Brilliant Star on Lee in a decoration ceremony held at the Presidential Office.
The president lauded the New York-based movie director as a common pride of Taiwan, of Chinese people around the world, of Asians.
For his part, Lee said he is honored to receive the decoration. "The honor also offers a comfort to my father's soul," he added.
Lee said he is grateful for the president who sent a congratulatory message to Lee upon learning of his capture of the coveted Oscar award earlier this year with English-language feature film "Brokeback Mountain."
The 51-year-old movie director said he is proud of Taiwan and its culture, and that the warmth and comfort he feels in his homeland are so special to him. "Brokeback Mountain, " Lee's latest film, received a total of eight Oscar nominations -- the most of any movie this year -- and won three Oscars for best director, best adapted screenplay and best original score. The film is about a forbidden romance between two gay American cowboys.
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TIME 100: The People Who Shape Our World
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Ang Lee
The Cross-Cultural Cowboy of Film
By ZIYI ZHANG
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1187225,00.html
Posted Sunday, Apr. 30, 2006
Because of Ang Lee, so many more people know about Chinese filmmaking and about Chinese films. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, a Chinese-language movie, mesmerized Western audiences in 2000. And last year, with Brokeback Mountain, yet another unimaginable success, both with critics and audiences, he captivated the entire world and reached the pinnacle of moviemaking.
Lee's ability to be such a huge cross-cultural influence is, I think, unique. His Taiwanese upbringing, which kept him deeply rooted in the Chinese way of being and living, combined with his well-informed understanding of Western mores and filmmaking techniques have allowed him to speak to those two worlds in a way no other director has.
It's as if when Lee, 51, makes a film, he is able to erase the cultural lines and have its profundity understood at a universal level. He creates characters that draw in an audience no matter what language they speak. His insight into the human heart crosses all boundaries.
I know he is also making a huge influence in the lives of younger filmmakers and actors. I, for one, will be forever indebted to him for casting me in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. When I went to audition for him, I had made just one film (The Road Home) and had never done any martial arts. I was 20 and didn't feel up to any of it. He still gave me that chance. Why? He saw what I could be capable of and was willing to let me have a go at it. How great is he?
I love that he never limits himself either. He's a good role model for all of us. Director Ang Lee lives in the future.
The Beijing-born Zhang starred most recently in Memoirs of a Geisha
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Thanks for the Good Shepherd article and comments. This adds a whole new layer to the film. I love the scenes with the sheep - there's something so innocent and gentle about that part of the film, especially the scenes where Jack and Ennis are carrying and looking after the sheep. I love that these scenes represent archetypal images. Shows even more what a true masterpiece bbm is. Thanks again :)
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I have always thought that this pic is a direct reference to the The Good Shepherd paintings in early Christian Art.
OMG, :o thats SOOOOO interesting! thanks for sharing!
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I have always thought that this pic is a direct reference to the The Good Shepherd paintings in early Christian Art.
OMG, :o thats SOOOOO interesting! thanks for sharing!
Ditto!
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Yep!
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QUAID BROKEBACK LAWSUIT TAKES CURIOUS TURN
http://www.contactmusic.com/new/xmlfeed.nsf/mndwebpages/quaid%20brokeback%20lawsuit%20takes%20curious%20turn_03_05_2006
LATEST: Actor RANDY QUAID has dropped his $10 million (GBP5.8 million) lawsuit against the producers of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, insisting they have reached an agreement to pay him a bonus. The star filed the suit in Los Angeles Superior Court in March (06), claiming he was underpaid for his supporting role in the film as rancher JOE AGUIRRE. Quaid alleged Focus Features duped him into deferring his normal payment for the film by touting the production as an independent art-house film that couldn't afford to pay actors their normal rate. However, a Focus Features spokesperson is adamant no settlement has been agreed with the actor. According to Quaid's representatives, the agreement was unofficial and the actor has requested the bonus be split among the cast members. The Focus Features spokesperson says, "The circumstances of him dropping the suit are as mysterious as the circumstances under which he filed his claim. "Focus Features never negotiated, offered or agreed to any settlement agreement with Mr Quaid or his attorneys, but we're happy to put this behind us, and do wish Mr Quaid the best." The Oscar-nominated film, starring HEATH LEDGER and JAKE GYLLENHAAL, has grossed nearly $160 million (GBP91 million) worldwide.
03/05/2006 21:13
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QUAID BROKEBACK LAWSUIT TAKES CURIOUS TURN
http://www.contactmusic.com/new/xmlfeed.nsf/mndwebpages/quaid%20brokeback%20lawsuit%20takes%20curious%20turn_03_05_2006
LATEST: Actor RANDY QUAID has dropped his $10 million (GBP5.8 million) lawsuit against the producers of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, insisting they have reached an agreement to pay him a bonus. The star filed the suit in Los Angeles Superior Court in March (06), claiming he was underpaid for his supporting role in the film as rancher JOE AGUIRRE. Quaid alleged Focus Features duped him into deferring his normal payment for the film by touting the production as an independent art-house film that couldn't afford to pay actors their normal rate. However, a Focus Features spokesperson is adamant no settlement has been agreed with the actor. According to Quaid's representatives, the agreement was unofficial and the actor has requested the bonus be split among the cast members. The Focus Features spokesperson says, "The circumstances of him dropping the suit are as mysterious as the circumstances under which he filed his claim. "Focus Features never negotiated, offered or agreed to any settlement agreement with Mr Quaid or his attorneys, but we're happy to put this behind us, and do wish Mr Quaid the best." The Oscar-nominated film, starring HEATH LEDGER and JAKE GYLLENHAAL, has grossed nearly $160 million (GBP91 million) worldwide.
03/05/2006 21:13
Good to hear! Shame he had to do it in the first place though...
Thankx for posting x
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Brokeback makes gay history
28/02/2006 09:23 - (SA)
Los Angeles - For more than 100 years, mainstream Hollywood movies largely shunned gay subjects, which were either disregarded, closeted or dealt with by independent filmmakers.
But in 2005, Brokeback Mountain, the story of two cowboys in love, broke big at box offices and earned eight Oscar nominations, including best film. It was a hit and Hollywood loves a hit.
"Gay people are now living more honest and open lives and that leads to others wanting to know more about our lives," said Neil Giuliano, president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. "People want this product and we can provide it in a compelling and powerful way that can be profitable."
Historians and experts divide Hollywood's portrayal of gay life into three periods: years before the early 1930s "production code"; self-censorship under the code until the late 1960s; and the years since then as gays and lesbians have been slowly accepted into mainstream culture.
Movies reflect culture
The production code, also known as the Hays Code, was devised by a forerunner of today's Motion Picture Association of America and was strictly enforced by Hollywood's major studios starting around 1934.
It set out general guidelines specifying that no film would lower moral standards of an audience member and included warnings against nudity and positive portrayals of crime and illicit sex.
Before the code, historians said movies showed no depictions of gays or lesbians because they largely kept to themselves and were ignored by mainstream society. As a result, the movies also set them aside, reflecting the culture of the day.
"It was not so much keeping a secret. It was more like, 'How could you write about something that wasn't being written about?'" said William Mann, author of Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood 1910-1969.
Although the production code did not allow portrayals of gay life, some male roles were often built around effeminate personality traits. By association, the characters were deemed homosexual, although such a distinction was never talked about, said Jonathan Kuntz of the film and television school at the University of California at Los Angeles.
Winners and losers
Some actors such as Franklin Pangborn enjoyed careers playing effeminate men and closeted homosexuals like Rock Hudson could live in privacy and still take heterosexual roles.
"Sexuality is overtly talked about now but wasn't really in those days," said Robert Osborne, author of 75 Years of Oscar: The Official History of the Academy Awards.
The sexual revolution of late 1960s brought an end to the production code, and in 1969 Midnight Cowboy the relationship between Joe Buck (Jon Voight) and Enrico "Ratso" Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman) was widely considered a love affair, although the two never had sex on screen, as do the cowhands of Brokeback.
Midnight Cowboy became a box-office hit and won the best film Oscar, but what followed were film flops such as 1982's Making Love, which made "gay film" sound like "money loser" to mainstream Hollywood. As a result, homosexual stories were fodder for independent filmmakers and art-house cinemas.
In 1993, Philadelphia starred Tom Hanks as a gay man, won Oscars and earned $206m worldwide, but it was largely seen as an HIV/Aids movie, not a gay film.
In the late 1990s, gay television shows such as "Will & Grace" and TV stars like Ellen DeGeneres helped mainstream Hollywood get to a point where it could promote a film such as Brokeback, the experts said. Now, they expect the major studios to be more accepting of gay stories and screenplays.
"I don't know if we're going to see any $200m movies built around a gay character but certainly this will spark other films," Kuntz said.
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Thank you Frankie for posting this ;)
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Movie Maker Spring Issue
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Beyond Brokeback
Has gay cinema entered the mainstream?
by David Sterritt
Even before it opened, Brokeback Mountain picked up a label it may never shake: The gay cowboy movie.
To some, this spelled box-office disaster. While it’s an overstatement to call gay-related subjects “the last taboo” of commercial film (would a sympathetic look at, say, bestiality get a Hollywood greenlight?), gay themes have long been off-putting for mainstream audiences. (Few westerns have drawn long lines at ticket windows lately either.)
So much for conventional wisdom. Ang Lee’s sensitive drama—about the ultimately doomed love between a ranch hand and a rodeo cowboy—has skyrocketed past $100 million in international grosses, and its eight Academy Award nominations (including a win for Best Director) outpaced all its competitors.
Which raises some questions: Is the success of Brokeback Mountain changing mainstream moviegoers’ attitudes toward gay cinema? Or had society altered its mindset already, with Brokeback fever simply confirming the change? Will actors be more willing to “play gay” in future films? Most importantly, will the picture’s hit status make Hollywood more open to gay subjects in the future?
I’m not a prognosticator, so I can’t predict what Hollywood is going to do,” says James Schamus, one of Brokeback Mountain’s two producers and co-president of Focus Features, the film’s U.S. distributor. “But when a film works this well in every single marketplace, from Fort Worth to Little Rock—when the numbers are extraordinary in smaller markets as well as large ones—you can be sure Hollywood will pay attention. You know there is an audience for movies like this out there.”
That’s for sure, and there’s nothing mysterious about it, according to Diana Ossana, who co-wrote the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain with Larry McMurtry.
“When I first read the [E. Annie Proulx] short story back in 1997 in The New Yorker,” she recalls, “I recognized immediately that it was a powerful story with the potential to touch many people. Our intentions in adapting it were never political in nature… Audiences always have—and always will—respond to smart stories with compelling, believable, honest portrayals of character, whatever the subject matter.”
More than just responding, people have turned Brokeback Mountain into “a touchstone event,” says Paul Dergarabedian, the president of Exhibitor Relations Company, which tracks and analyzes box office results.
“There have been many taboo subjects,” Dergarabedian explains. “But when The Passion of the Christ was released, it became the vehicle through which people could talk about religion in an open way—at the office, at dinner parties. Fahrenheit 9/11 did the same thing for politics. Brokeback Mountain is breaking those barriers with regard to sexual orientation. A very popular movie can be a catalyst for discussion—even a kind of scapegoat—because you’re just talking about a movie.”
Brokeback Mountain wasted no time showing its commercial strength, but its popularity has taken on different forms. “Public interest in Brokeback has come in stages,” says Ellen Huang, a former movie executive who now runs The Queer Lounge, an organization promoting gay and lesbian pictures with crossover potential. “At first it was driven by [the curiosity] to see two hot, hunky movie stars in these roles. Then there was a big push for the movie in the gay community, where I think lots of people are seeing it multiple times. And now its [Oscar] nominations have been fueling interest from broader audiences.”
Not everyone in the gay community has joined the push to cheer Brokeback on, though. Craig Chester, who sees his own Adam & Steve—which he wrote, directed and stars in—as a romantic comedy “dessert” to the hearty “meal” of Brokeback Mountain, applauds Brokeback as a true crossover film, “not like Philadelphia, where gay people said ‘It’s not really for us, it’s for the mainstream.’” Yet he notes that “the story is tragic. One main character winds up alone and the other one’s dead, and some gay people don’t like the message they see there.” Still, he adds, “the important thing is that it has created a whole dialogue about Hollywood and gay love.”
Helping spark that dialogue is the subtlety of the movie’s performances—especially those of Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, the straight actors who earned Oscar nominations (Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor, respectively) for their work. “Gyllenhaal and Ledger have a tremendous amount to do with the success of the film,” says Stacy Codikow, founder and executive director of POWER UP, a professional organization for gay women in entertainment.
Codikow sees great importance in “the curiosity factor of two handsome straight men in these roles,” calling this “a fantasy that brings in [a diverse] audience” and helps moviegoers feel at home in unusual terrain. “The more awareness and acceptance gay lifestyles can achieve,” Codikow notes, “the more comfortable the [general] population will feel with these stories and subjects.”
Straight actors might also become more comfortable with portraying gay characters, although some find this to be an overrated issue. “Talented gay actors have been ‘playing straight’ for years,” says Ossana. “It ought not be any different for straight actors to ‘play gay.’ It certainly wasn’t an issue for the actors in Brokeback Mountain. Confident, talented, intelligent actors feel enabled to play whatever a great role might demand of them.”
Chester agrees. “Most straight actors in Hollywood know that if they play a gay guy they’ll be seen as real actors,” he says. “Historically, look at Tom Hanks in Philadelphia, Charlize Theron in Monster, Hilary Swank in Boys Don’t Cry and William Hurt in Kiss of the Spider Woman, which was 20 years ago. Playing gay is a surefire way of winning an Academy Award, so ‘playing gay’ is brave only if you think winning an Academy Award is brave! And since we live in a Star Magazine culture, more people will read about Heath Ledger’s baby than will see Brokeback Mountain.”
The combination of charismatic acting, first-rate moviemaking and mass-audience appeal is enough to put Brokeback Mountain on The Queer Lounge’s list of seminal gay-themed movies, which ranges from the serious (Philadelphia, Boys Don’t Cry) to the antic (La Cage aux folles, The Rocky Horror Picture Show). Like some of its predecessors, Brokeback Mountain is less interested in blazing new trails than in revising a time-tested genre.
“I saw Brokeback at a screening where Ang Lee was there,” says Huang, “and I asked him why he felt the movie was special. He said it’s because this is really a cowboy film. That was interesting, because the movie does take a familiar genre and turn it on its head. It explores a machismo kind of world in a way that’s been the genre’s last frontier, so to speak.”
All of this said, Schamus is a tad uneasy with the movie’s entrenched “gay cowboy” image. “Brokeback isn’t necessarily gay cinema,” he says. “I was involved in queer cinema with films like Swoon and Poison years ago, and I think it still has a powerful and provocative role to play. It deserves its own identity.”
Also dissatisfied with the “gay movie” tag is Richard Peña, program director at New York’s Film Society of Lincoln Center.
Brokeback isn’t gay cinema in the sense of work that came out of the gay film festival movement,” he notes. “It’s a mainstream film, [and] TV probably prepared the way with shows featuring sympathetic gay characters. To my mind, the film is perfectly calculated to wrap the ‘shock’ of the characters’ homosexuality in as pleasing and familiar a package as possible.”
Ossana also feels Brokeback shouldn’t be classified under the gay cinema label. “This is not a film that can be reduced to a single tagline or genre,” she insists. “It is universal in its humanity, but very, very specific in its intimate, detailed telling of a doomed love between two Wyoming ranch hands in the 1960s and 1970s… It is both universal and very specific.”
The movie’s gay identity has been questioned most trenchantly by Daniel Mendelsohn in The New York Review of Books, where he argued in February that to see it as a story of “universal human emotions” is to diminish its importance as a “specifically gay tragedy” about “psyches scarred from the very first stirrings of an erotic desire which the world around them… represents as unhealthy, hateful and deadly.” He adds that Lee and the screenwriters made a “specifically gay tragedy,” but that its promotion has too eagerly stressed the “universal appeal” angle.
Schamus defends the film’s promotion. “There’s a double standard here,” he says. “The people who marketed Titanic didn’t call it ‘the greatest straight love story ever made,’ so why should we call this ‘a great gay love story,’ especially since anyone who sees the trailer knows exactly what it is? We’re very straightforward about everything in the film. We don’t shade anything.”
At the same time, Schamus acknowledges that Mendelsohn is “onto something” in his argument. “In many responses to the movie,” Schamus says, a “logic of displacement” has been at work. “People say it’s not [really] a gay movie; it’s a romance. But it’s not a question of one or the other—the movie is both. There should be an ‘and,’ not a ‘but,’ when people talk about it.”
Box office magic notwithstanding, it won’t be clear whether Brokeback is a momentary blip or a real milestone in gay cinema until Hollywood starts processing the implications of its appeal.
“Everybody thought The Blair Witch Project would breed all sorts of imitators,” Dergarabedian points out. “People thought The Passion of the Christ would open the floodgates for religion-based films to make $100 million, and that Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon would do the same for subtitled, martial-arts pictures. It hasn’t happened—at least not yet—because these movies that capture lightning in a bottle are of their time and place. But they do open the minds of people who otherwise might not want to enter this particular discussion, and that’s more important than whether a lot of [similar] movies get made.”
Still, it does seem that a corner has been turned, at the movies and in culture at large. “We can’t lay claim to making the changes that are going on in society,” states Schamus, “but those changes are happening. People are getting tired of pressure from cynical, right-wing manipulators. People are starting to feel a little used and they’re saying, ‘Wait a second here.’ Americans course-correct. We are not intolerant people.”
New frontiers aside, had the movie been a mediocre one, none of this would even matter, according to Schamus. “My job is first and foremost to make as good a movie as I can,” he concludes. “If this movie stank, we wouldn’t be having this conversation
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Heath cast in Bob Dylan bio-pic?
LOS ANGELES, May 4 (UPI) -- Colin Farrell has reportedly been replaced by "Brokeback Mountain" star Heath Ledger in Bob Dylan biopic, "I'm Not There," it was reported Thursday.
FoxNews.com reported director Todd Hayes was forced to make the last minute hire after Farrell dropped out of the project for undisclosed reasons.
The film -- which actually has six different actors playing the folk-rock icon -- is to start shooting this summer.
Joining Ledger in the cast are Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Christian Bale and Julianne Moore, sources told FoxNews.com columnist Roger Friedman.
More than a dozen classic Dylan songs will performed by acts such as the White Stripes and Aimee Mann.
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Thanks glacier1! This piece of news is also the subject of the latest posts in the Heath Ledger subforum (Various Articles/Interview).
Those interested in this, feel free to post there or in this thread. :)
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[quote author=glacier1
Of the two, Jack Twist in particular is portrayed as the good shepherd. He is seen carrying a lamb, helping a sheep across a river, and pulling burrs from another’s wool. Like the most ancient artwork portraying Christ, Jack Twist is shown carrying a lamb over his shoulders. To present afresh the 2000-year-old image of the Good Shepherd, there could be no better convention than to hide him as a 1960s ranch hand who falls in love with another man. Hidden in the character of Jack Twist is the ancient image of the Good Shepherd.
And like the Good Shepherd, Jack Twist’s violent death becomes the main catalyst for conversion. In the aftermath of Jack’s death, his lover Ennis experiences a profound conversion experience which plays itself out in a shift in his relationship with his daughter. Like the Good Shepherd of our Easter celebration, it is Jack’s blood-stained garments which, as relics, come to embody and memorialize the love of these shepherds.
This is remarkably beautiful. I don't know that I have words to say about this which express adequately how this has touched me.
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This is remarkably beautiful. I don't know that I have words to say about this which express adequately how this has touched me.
Isn't it great? Spread the word.
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Not exactly a new article, but a good and true one in my opinion
Why 'Brokeback' strikes a chord
Lauri Githens Hatch
from Democrat and Chronicle
(March 2, 2006) — Three times I saw Brokeback Mountain: Once to see it; once to take two teen stepdaughters to see it; and once to watch everyone around me see it.
And when the lights came up for the third time, to reveal for the third time faces of all ages and races streaked with tears, then I knew.
This movie isn't about the life-defining sexual relationship that two men didn't get to keep.
This is about the life-defining love that none of us got to keep.
We've been focusing on the wrong body part, folks. This film ends focusing on two entwined shirts because of the organ that rests just beneath them — the human heart, and the space in it that each of us reserves for our own love that never grows old.
You know the one. The person you weren't looking for and, God knows, weren't prepared for, but who found you nonetheless, reached in and rearranged the inner workings of your heart, transforming you — over years or maybe overnight — from girl to woman or boy to man.
And right now, that is the love that dare not speak its name.
Why? Because after dating for as long as we do, and dating as many people as we do, and marrying as late as we do, there's no excuse for not getting it right when we finally do pair off. There's no excuse for lingering feelings. They're not just uncool, they're downright unseemly. They bespeak mess, emotional complexities and the mysterious many-chambered mansion that is the human heart — the thing we like to believe we can control like an internal iPod: Download and add this person, delete those. Ping. Gone.
Except some loves never really do go. And what does it take to bring yours back to you? The purplish sky at dusk? The scent of an autumn night? For thousands, it is this movie.
It is almost impossible to see it and not feel some internal door that you've kept carefully closed for years suddenly bang open, and then blowing through your life again is all of it: Your meeting. Your discovery. The years between you. The tears between you. And then, ultimately, the truth you both knew like you knew your names: Right person, wrong time. To paraphrase Stephen Sondheim: You should have belonged together. But you did not belong together.
Perhaps a war got in your way. Or parents. Or religion. Or geography. Or simply diverging paths that you each chose to follow, only to turn around at the end and find the other gone.
Of course, whether it's a blessing or a curse, modern life makes it easy for us to partly retrieve what was lost — to find these people so indelibly ingrained in us. In a café, at work, in the dark of a quiet house late at night, we can tap computer keys, search and find. Sending an electronic hello isn't necessary — sometimes it's enough just to know they're alive.
Never for a moment would we give up the lives we've painstakingly carved out since them.
But never for a moment either would we — can we — give up that Jack, that Ennis, that defining love that molded us as surely as our childhoods.
Maybe we have children to mark that time together. Maybe a picture. Maybe nothing at all tangible. But deep inside, we all have a closet. And in it rests a shirt; and the memory of the person who filled it; and of the person you were, with them.
Brokeback Mountain makes you realize the beauty and sheer wonder of ever getting to feel that way at all; some never do.
But it also makes you realize that years down the road there may come a moment — not courtesy of a postcard, but of an Internet search engine — when James Taylor's lyric will prove wrong:
You always thought that you'd see them, baby, one more time again. But you never did. And now you never will.
And then that closet — its shirt and its memories — will be all that any of us have left. Yet for all the pain, we wouldn't have missed that person, not a single bit of them, for the world.
And that, I think, is why after two hours and 14 minutes, Brokeback Mountain finds us, gay and straight, male and female, young and old, in our seats with eyes closed and streaming, and heart constricting, as undone as we were a lifetime ago when we first laid eyes on them, and undone once again.
Some loves, it turns out, are forever.
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And that, I think, is why after two hours and 14 minutes, Brokeback Mountain finds us, gay and straight, male and female, young and old, in our seats with eyes closed and streaming, and heart constricting, as undone as we were a lifetime ago when we first laid eyes on them, and undone once again.
Some loves, it turns out, are forever.
Thankx for posting x
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Not exactly a new article, but a good and true one in my opinion
Why 'Brokeback' strikes a chord
Lauri Githens Hatch
from Democrat and Chronicle
(March 2, 2006) — Three times I saw Brokeback Mountain: Once to see it; once to take two teen stepdaughters to see it; and once to watch everyone around me see it.
And when the lights came up for the third time, to reveal for the third time faces of all ages and races streaked with tears, then I knew.
This movie isn't about the life-defining sexual relationship that two men didn't get to keep.
This is about the life-defining love that none of us got to keep.
We've been focusing on the wrong body part, folks. This film ends focusing on two entwined shirts because of the organ that rests just beneath them — the human heart, and the space in it that each of us reserves for our own love that never grows old.
You know the one. The person you weren't looking for and, God knows, weren't prepared for, but who found you nonetheless, reached in and rearranged the inner workings of your heart, transforming you — over years or maybe overnight — from girl to woman or boy to man.
And right now, that is the love that dare not speak its name.
Why? Because after dating for as long as we do, and dating as many people as we do, and marrying as late as we do, there's no excuse for not getting it right when we finally do pair off. There's no excuse for lingering feelings. They're not just uncool, they're downright unseemly. They bespeak mess, emotional complexities and the mysterious many-chambered mansion that is the human heart — the thing we like to believe we can control like an internal iPod: Download and add this person, delete those. Ping. Gone.
Except some loves never really do go. And what does it take to bring yours back to you? The purplish sky at dusk? The scent of an autumn night? For thousands, it is this movie.
It is almost impossible to see it and not feel some internal door that you've kept carefully closed for years suddenly bang open, and then blowing through your life again is all of it: Your meeting. Your discovery. The years between you. The tears between you. And then, ultimately, the truth you both knew like you knew your names: Right person, wrong time. To paraphrase Stephen Sondheim: You should have belonged together. But you did not belong together.
Perhaps a war got in your way. Or parents. Or religion. Or geography. Or simply diverging paths that you each chose to follow, only to turn around at the end and find the other gone.
Of course, whether it's a blessing or a curse, modern life makes it easy for us to partly retrieve what was lost — to find these people so indelibly ingrained in us. In a café, at work, in the dark of a quiet house late at night, we can tap computer keys, search and find. Sending an electronic hello isn't necessary — sometimes it's enough just to know they're alive.
Never for a moment would we give up the lives we've painstakingly carved out since them.
But never for a moment either would we — can we — give up that Jack, that Ennis, that defining love that molded us as surely as our childhoods.
Maybe we have children to mark that time together. Maybe a picture. Maybe nothing at all tangible. But deep inside, we all have a closet. And in it rests a shirt; and the memory of the person who filled it; and of the person you were, with them.
Brokeback Mountain makes you realize the beauty and sheer wonder of ever getting to feel that way at all; some never do.
But it also makes you realize that years down the road there may come a moment — not courtesy of a postcard, but of an Internet search engine — when James Taylor's lyric will prove wrong:
You always thought that you'd see them, baby, one more time again. But you never did. And now you never will.
And then that closet — its shirt and its memories — will be all that any of us have left. Yet for all the pain, we wouldn't have missed that person, not a single bit of them, for the world.
And that, I think, is why after two hours and 14 minutes, Brokeback Mountain finds us, gay and straight, male and female, young and old, in our seats with eyes closed and streaming, and heart constricting, as undone as we were a lifetime ago when we first laid eyes on them, and undone once again.
Some loves, it turns out, are forever.
That is absolutely beautiful! Took my breath away.
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Just heard, Brokeback Mountain will be available on Comcast On Demand starting May 18th.
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NewsTrack
Farrell out, Ledger in for Dylan biopic
LOS ANGELES, May 4 (UPI) -- Colin Farrell has reportedly been replaced by "Brokeback Mountain" star Heath Ledger in Bob Dylan biopic, "I'm Not There," it was reported Thursday.
FoxNews.com reported director Todd Hayes was forced to make the last minute hire after Farrell dropped out of the project for undisclosed reasons.
The film -- which actually has six different actors playing the folk-rock icon -- is to start shooting this summer.
Joining Ledger in the cast are Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Christian Bale and Julianne Moore, sources told FoxNews.com columnist Roger Friedman.
More than a dozen classic Dylan songs will performed by acts such as the White Stripes and Aimee Mann.
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"Brokeback” star to shoot in Romania in June
http://www.nineoclock.ro/index.php?page=detalii&categorie=culture&id=20060508-503146
Australian actor Heath Ledger, an Oscar nominee for his portrayal of a gay cowboy in this year’s most controversial film to date, “Brokeback Mountain, “ has reportedly been chosen at the last minute to replace Colin Farrell in Bob Dylan biopic “I’m Not There.” According to The Mirror and Fox News director Todd Haynes has chosen to change his lead actor for ‘I’m Not There’ at the very last minute. Ledger is just one of six actors who will portray the singer; others include Christian Bale, Richard Gere, Cate Blanchett. The team is scheduled to begin production in one month at an undisclosed Romanian location. Ledger Neither Ledger, nor any of the other actors are actually playing Dylan. Instead they will be portraying”aspects” of Dylan’s life. The descriptions indicate it’s an art house film, and make it seem as if it will be several abstract representations.
Ledger, who, after the success of such films as “Brokeback Mountain” and “Brothers Grimm”, had decided to take an year off set to raise his baby daughter, has reportedly changed his mind and accepted Haynes’ hasty offer.
by Anna Bello
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A couple of articles.
A though one and a lighter one......
Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005)
(Moses McCluer "Cinema, mon amour")
“I don't know what the pentacost is. I reckon it's when Jesus comes to earth and guys like you and me march off to hell.”
I don’t know if the oppressed gay boys and the perhaps even more oppressed lonely middle-aged fag hags who spend countless hours on the internet gushing over the bee-yoo-tee-ful romance between the hunky Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal are simply unaware of it or in denial, but Brokeback Mountain is an incredibly cynical take on love and romance.(quite offensive, don't you think?) The themes are much darker than “society can keep us apart but can never kill our love,” which is how many who praise the film seem to interpret it; it’s a lot closer to “love will tear us apart,” though even that doesn’t quite work. Ledger and Gyllenhaal’s Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist are deeply in love, but their own neuroses turn what is already a taboo romance into an impossible one.
Whenever Jack suggests that he and Ennis leave their wives to get a ranch and live together, Ennis is reminded of a time when his father took him and his brother to gaze at the corpse of a homosexual rancher who had been dragged by his penis until it was torn from his body. Ennis brings up this lone incident as a reminder to Jack that not only does Ennis not believe they could ever be happy together, but that a part of him hates the love they have. Ennis destroys any chance at contentment: despite his love for Jack, he keeps him at bay, limiting him to “a couple of high-altitude f***s once or twice a year.” In his other life, he drifts from job to menial-labor job, barely supporting his two daughters and suffering wife Alma either financially or emotionally. When Alma sees her husband passionately kissing Jack, she stays with him and allows him to go on their “fishing trips” to Brokeback Mountain together (though still observing that they never bring home any fish) – after all, she still loves him and wants to have a family. The deal-breaker comes when she refuses to have any more children for whom Ennis cannot provide. Even when Ennis finds another woman (played by Linda Cardellini with a passion that shames the brevity of the performance), he allows that relationship to collapse for what seems like no particular reason other than that Ennis is incapable of actually building a meaningful relationship. Ennis, the reluctant lover, the unfaithful husband, the neglectful father, the drifting laborer, does nothing but set himself up for failure.
If Ennis destroys any meaningful connections with others and thus keeps himself lonely and miserable, Jack idealistically jumps into a series of relationships that prove unfulfilling. The film ties Jack’s baggage to his relationship with his father. During Jack and Ennis’s initial stint on Brokeback, Jack cannot seem to stop talking about how disapproving his father is. Daddy’s disregard has made Jack clingy; when he hears of Ennis and Alma’s divorce, he immediately drives from Texas to Wyoming (over 1000 miles) to spend the weekend with Ennis, much to Ennis’s surprise when Jack shows up. However, Jack’s deepest flaw – the one that most drives the story and gives Brokeback Mountain its poignancy – is his idealism. He heads into his unsuccessful relationships because of a desperate need for emotional fulfillment, but if that was all, he would be rather pathetic. Because he does so with a sincere belief that it will work each time, he becomes tragic. Jack and Ennis’s pilgrimages to Brokeback reflect Jack’s naïve belief that he can live in the past, that his and Ennis’s inability to grow as a couple can be a blessing if it means that they will retain the wide-eyed passion that they had when their love was young.
As a story of two people far too f***ed up to do their love justice, Brokeback Mountain is excellent. However, director Ang Lee keeps the film from hitting its potential zenith. His direction is too, for a lack of a better term, polite. Lee lacks the directorial eye to match his characters and setting. For one, the titular mountain and its surrounding wilderness never look like the same majestic place that Jack and Ennis imagine it to be. One need not be Terrence Malick to make forests and lakes and snowy peaks visually appealing, but apparently one only needs to be Ang Lee to make them uninteresting. There’s something to be said about the most striking shot in the entire movie being of a postcard of Brokeback Mountain. Lee makes baby steps at taking on the lyrical style that Jack and Ennis’s spurting relationship requires but never does so completely. While Lee captures the animalistic urges of Jack and Ennis’s first sex scene, a later moment with Jack and Ennis in bed evokes neither their love nor said love’s inevitable collapse. It is presented in the most typical point-and-shoot manner possible. Nothing about the cinematography, editing or mise-en-scène lends insight into the film or its characters (other than that Jack probably paid for the hotel room; no way Ennis could afford such a nice room with his meager wages).
In a trend that runs throughout the entire film, the actors save the scene from Lee’s banality. Ledger’s and Gyllenhaal’s performances are above and beyond what their previous work would suggest they were capable of. The entire cast is excellent: I already mentioned Cardellini, while I am sure you have read enough hyperbolic (if true) praise for Ledger, Gyllenhaal, and Michelle Williams as Alma. Anne Hathaway shines in a thankless role as Jack’s wife Lureen. However, there was no reason the role should have been thankless – it is because neither the script nor Lee felt it necessary to give Lureen a significant character arc. The closest Lureen gets to character development is a bleach job. Apparently Lee felt it was enough to use her to vaguely suggest Jack’s inferiority complex and over-attachment issues and make up for it by giving Lureen a powerful final scene. By fleshing out Lureen as a character, Lee not only could have given Hathaway more to do as a thespian, but could have enhanced Jack’s character by giving him a more complex human with which he can interact when away from Ennis. Instead he leaves both Hathaway and Gyllenhaal to get by on their own, and while both succeed with flying colors, the actors and the film both deserve more from their director.
Then again, maybe Lee painted the film in such broad strokes on purpose. By keeping his film less expressionistic, he kept it less arty, hence its broader appeal. As is, Brokeback Mountain is hailed as a return to the classic Hollywood love story, a wonder in apolitical sentimentality. The underlying film – the better film – would have been neither. However, if Brokeback Mountain had been that film, we would not be hearing its name on Oscar night.
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Movies way more gay than "Brokeback"
By Jeremiah Tucker
THE JOPLIN GLOBE (JOPLIN, Mo.)
I am excited to see “Brokeback Mountain.”
The critically acclaimed movie about the tortured love affair between two cowboys should arrive at my neighborhood theater soon, but I realize that many straight men fear a movie about gay men.
However, I am betting many have already watched far gayer movies than “Brokeback Mountain.”
The entire premise of World Wrestling Entertainment is tanned, oiled, muscular men wearing only Spandex underwear rubbing against each other and pretending to tussle.
There is also a rich cinematic history of unintentionally gay movies. In preparation to watch Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal’s romance blossom on screen, here are 10 movies gayer than “Brokeback Mountain” that you may have already sat through and enjoyed.
10. ‘Sidekicks’
This 1992 movie is about a sensitive teenager named Barry played by Jonathan Brandis who can’t stop fantasizing about Chuck Norris. Actual line delivered by Brandis while pining for Chuck Norris -- “Nobody likes me. Why would he?”
9. ‘Footloose’’
There is nothing gay about teaching your buddy to dance, but Kevin Bacon spending hours teaching a naive, muscular farm boy how to do intricately choreographed dance moves should raise a few eyebrows.
8. ‘Road House’
By no stretch of the imagination is “Road House” a chick flick, so why the long, languorous scenes with a shirtless, lubed-up Patrick Swayze practicing his karate? Not to mention Swayze’s curious May-December relationship with “mentor” Sam Elliott.
7. ‘Karate Kid’
Why are the Cobra Kais constantly hanging out together without girls? They play soccer together, ride motorcycles together, take the same karate class, dress like each other, go to dances together -—they even go to the bathroom together. Plus, their complete subservience to their alpha-male “sensei” is a bit creepy, and their aggression toward skinny pretty boy Daniel has a distinct hint of self-loathing — could their fists be masking feelings they’re not ready to admit?
6. The ‘Mad Max’ trilogy
The costume designers for figure skaters couldn’t have designed gayer outfits for the future. Throw in diva Tina Turner and you have three movies that set the mold for Mel Gibson’s orientation-bending “Lethal Weapon” series.
5. ‘Three Men and A Baby’
A movie about three wealthy, educated, good-looking “confirmed bachelors” in their mid-to-late 30s living in a modern, impeccably decorated loft and raising a baby together.
4. ‘Anything With Van Damme’
No man has ever loved doing the splits while wearing next-to-nothing more than Jean-Claude. Possibly his most notorious split is a scene early in “Timecop” where he leaps up to avoid being electrocuted and straddles two pieces of furniture, but then proceeds to bounce up and down, legs splayed, wearing tiny shorts. See also “Kickboxer.”
3. ‘Batman and Robin’
My whole life I defended Batman and Robin as a platonic relationship forged in a mutual dedication to crime fighting. Then Joel Schumacher takes over and suddenly Batman and Robin are dressed in fetishistic latex with Bat nipples and gigantic codpieces prancing around sets that Elton John would find too flamboyant.
2. ‘Rocky 3’
I’ve raced friends before. Sure, we weren’t wearing a mixture of Spandex and obscenely short shorts, but we foot raced. So I can understand how emotions can run high during competition. Even so, none of my races ended in an elated, slow motion embrace in the ocean, nor did my climactic race come after a bunch of oily training sessions with ripped men in dark gyms.
1. ‘Top Gun’
Iceman: “You can be my wingman any time!”
Maverick: “Bull---, you can be mine!”
The homoerotic subtext of “Top Gun” is well documented. Just watch “Sleep With Me” and listen to Quentin Tarantino’s humorous rant about the topic, but watching the movie makes it obvious. Numerous emotional scenes between men just out of the shower, the absurd volleyball match, the too-close bonds between men and Tom Cruise’s apathetic relationship with Kelly McGillis prove a movie can be both awesome and gay.
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"Brokeback” star to shoot in Romania in June
http://www.nineoclock.ro/index.php?page=detalii&categorie=culture&id=20060508-503146
Australian actor Heath Ledger, an Oscar nominee for his portrayal of a gay cowboy in this year’s most controversial film to date, “Brokeback Mountain, “ has reportedly been chosen at the last minute to replace Colin Farrell in Bob Dylan biopic “I’m Not There.” According to The Mirror and Fox News director Todd Haynes has chosen to change his lead actor for ‘I’m Not There’ at the very last minute. Ledger is just one of six actors who will portray the singer; others include Christian Bale, Richard Gere, Cate Blanchett. The team is scheduled to begin production in one month at an undisclosed Romanian location. Ledger Neither Ledger, nor any of the other actors are actually playing Dylan. Instead they will be portraying”aspects” of Dylan’s life. The descriptions indicate it’s an art house film, and make it seem as if it will be several abstract representations.
Ledger, who, after the success of such films as “Brokeback Mountain” and “Brothers Grimm”, had decided to take an year off set to raise his baby daughter, has reportedly changed his mind and accepted Haynes’ hasty offer.
by Anna Bello
This approach is indeed most interesting. Worthy of Todd Haynes, certainly. "Aspects"! Most intriguing!
Thanks ennisandjack!
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4. ‘Anything With Van Damme’
No man has ever loved doing the splits while wearing next-to-nothing more than Jean-Claude. Possibly his most notorious split is a scene early in “Timecop” where he leaps up to avoid being electrocuted and straddles two pieces of furniture, but then proceeds to bounce up and down, legs splayed, wearing tiny shorts. See also “Kickboxer.”
3. ‘Batman and Robin’
My whole life I defended Batman and Robin as a platonic relationship forged in a mutual dedication to crime fighting. Then Joel Schumacher takes over and suddenly Batman and Robin are dressed in fetishistic latex with Bat nipples and gigantic codpieces prancing around sets that Elton John would find too flamboyant.
2. ‘Rocky 3’
I’ve raced friends before. Sure, we weren’t wearing a mixture of Spandex and obscenely short shorts, but we foot raced. So I can understand how emotions can run high during competition. Even so, none of my races ended in an elated, slow motion embrace in the ocean, nor did my climactic race come after a bunch of oily training sessions with ripped men in dark gyms.
1. ‘Top Gun’
Iceman: “You can be my wingman any time!”
Maverick: “Bull---, you can be mine!”
The homoerotic subtext of “Top Gun” is well documented. Just watch “Sleep With Me” and listen to Quentin Tarantino’s humorous rant about the topic, but watching the movie makes it obvious. Numerous emotional scenes between men just out of the shower, the absurd volleyball match, the too-close bonds between men and Tom Cruise’s apathetic relationship with Kelly McGillis prove a movie can be both awesome and gay.
Hilarious!!! And exquisitely on the ball, especally in the above!
Thank you frances! First smile of the day. :)
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Lee lacks the directorial eye to match his characters and setting. For one, the titular mountain and its surrounding wilderness never look like the same majestic place that Jack and Ennis imagine it to be. One need not be Terrence Malick to make forests and lakes and snowy peaks visually appealing, but apparently one only needs to be Ang Lee to make them uninteresting.
ummmm...is this guy visually impaired?
(thanks for posting these nonetheless)
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Lee lacks the directorial eye to match his characters and setting. For one, the titular mountain and its surrounding wilderness never look like the same majestic place that Jack and Ennis imagine it to be. One need not be Terrence Malick to make forests and lakes and snowy peaks visually appealing, but apparently one only needs to be Ang Lee to make them uninteresting.
ummmm...is this guy visually impaired?
Yep, once again I find myself wondering "Were we watching the same movie?!"
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A couple of articles.
A though one and a lighter one......
Grazie, Frances !!!!!!!!!!!! Very enjoyable reading. :-*
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A couple of articles.
A though one and a lighter one......
Grazie, Frances !!!!!!!!!!!! Very enjoyable reading. :-*
Thanks Frances... Sounds like the author of the first one had something stuck up his behind when he wrote that critique. :-\
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A couple of articles.
A though one and a lighter one......
Grazie, Frances !!!!!!!!!!!! Very enjoyable reading. :-*
Thanks Frances... Sounds like the author of the first one had something stuck up his behind when he wrote that critique. :-\
While he was writing the first three lines in particular, yes! ;D
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Lee lacks the directorial eye to match his characters and setting. For one, the titular mountain and its surrounding wilderness never look like the same majestic place that Jack and Ennis imagine it to be. One need not be Terrence Malick to make forests and lakes and snowy peaks visually appealing, but apparently one only needs to be Ang Lee to make them uninteresting.
ummmm...is this guy visually impaired?
Yep, once again I find myself wondering "Were we watching the same movie?!"
Ditto! ::)
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'Brokeback Mountain' hits stores
(May, 10, 2006)
By: Chris Nashawaty (Entertainment Weekly)
With Jay Leno's gay-cowboy gags safely behind us, it's finally possible to take a clear look at one of last year's most controversial movies.
“Brokeback Mountain” is touching, heartbreaking and beautiful to look at. And after watching it again on DVD, I think it's funny how the most controversial thing about the film is how uncontroversial it is.
“Brokeback Mountain” is a love story -- period. It just so happens to be about two rough-and-tumble cowpokes instead of a guy and a girl. Big deal.
Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal play a pair of wranglers who meet in the lush mountains of Wyoming when they’re both hired to look after a flock of sheep.
Over cold, campfire nights, they open up to each other and become friends. Then, on one very cold night, they become more than friends.
There had been a lot of ink anointing Ledger and Gyllenhaal as the next big things in Hollywood. But until this film, there was little on their resumes to back up the hype.
Ledger is remarkable as his character Ennis Del Mar -- the quieter, more haunted of the two -- fights his feelings for Gyllenhaal's Jack Twist.
When their season on Brokeback comes to an end, the two go their separate ways and eventually marry. But every once in a while, they rekindle their relationship on so-called fishing trips.
By the end of the film, when both Ennis and Jack are middle-aged men and they realize that they let their one chance at happiness slip through their fingers, “Brokeback Mountain” becomes something more than just a “gay-cowboy movie.” It becomes the best Hollywood love story in a long, long time.
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'Brokeback Mountain' hits stores
(May, 10, 2006)
It becomes the best Hollywood love story in a long, long time.
So true!
Thanks for posting!
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'Brokeback Mountain' hits stores
(May, 10, 2006)
It becomes the best Hollywood love story in a long, long time.
So true!
Thanks for posting!
Indeed, this is so true.
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Written by Kevin Elphick
Monday, 01 May 2006
Given all the hype around Brokeback Mountain as a “gay cowboy movie,” people are probably past saturation point with reviews and commentaries. But I want to suggest another angle: Brokeback Mountain as a modern day spin on the parable of the Good Shepherds"
;D It was quite obvious to me from the beginning. Everyone knows David's Psalm 23 "The Good Shepherd"; green pastures, still waters, the valley of the shadow of death etc. It's all in there ;)
And then on the other day, it was in February I think, I was listening radio, there's a program "Who is who in literature", they discussed about David, King David. I was like "WOW :o... are they talking about BBM". I've been so stupid.. and the teachers always seemed to skip those best parts ;D Maybe nowadays it's different, probably almost too open, no secrets left to find.
http://www.booksofthebible.com/p1059.html
http://www.theology.bham.ac.uk/guest/Queerying%20Theology/scriptural_scraps.htm ("Attempts to provide a balanced perspective though his work has been criticized by both 'pro' and 'anti'-gay writers..")
It looks like Mr Nissinen knows (at least a little) what he is talking about..? ;D
(He works at University of Helsinki at the Faculty of Theology, Department of Biblical Studies.)
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Written by Kevin Elphick
Monday, 01 May 2006
Given all the hype around Brokeback Mountain as a “gay cowboy movie,” people are probably past saturation point with reviews and commentaries. But I want to suggest another angle: Brokeback Mountain as a modern day spin on the parable of the Good Shepherds"
;D It was quite obvious to me from the beginning. Everyone knows David's Psalm 23 "The Good Shepherd"; green pastures, still waters, the valley of the shadow of death etc. It's all in there ;)
And then on the other day, it was in February I think, I was listening radio, there's a program "Who is who in literature", they discussed about David, King David. I was like "WOW :o... they're talking about BBM"
http://www.booksofthebible.com/p1059.html
http://www.theology.bham.ac.uk/guest/Queerying%20Theology/scriptural_scraps.htm
It looks like Mr Nissinen knows (at least a little) what he is talking about..? ;D (He works at University of Helsinki.)
("Attempts to provide a balanced perspective though his work has been criticized by both 'pro' and 'anti'-gay writers..")
Thank you mélisande for the links. Criticism comes with the territory. And with such a topic, it comes as no surprise...
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Forgive me, the other address was just a hasty pick, not so good idea, I didn't really check it properly.
(spell check/proofreading is nice thing too. dum, not dumb, and it's Swedish word ::) ;D)
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Here's a link to a follow up story about the Australian gay cowboy befriended by Heath Ledger and the reporter who 'broke' the story. Very interesting but lengthy (with a photo).
http://www.ssonet.com.au/display.asp?ArticleID=5341
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Here's a link to a follow up story about the Australian gay cowboy befriended by Heath Ledger and the reporter who 'broke' the story. Very interesting but lengthy (with a photo).
http://www.ssonet.com.au/display.asp?ArticleID=5341
Thanks glacier1. It was very interesting. Neil's sensitivity seemed to have won Adam over in allowing his story to go public. I am glad that the response was positive, especially from his dad.
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Thank you Glacier1 very good and positive article
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" I remember when my dad read it, he was in tears and said “I just learnt things about you I never knew.” But I learnt things about myself too "
Very good article, thank you
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From BBC NEWS
Tales of the City 'best gay read'
Armistead Maupin's chronicle of life in 1970s San Francisco, Tales of the City, has been named Britain's favourite gay novel in a public poll.
The six-volume series was chosen by members of the public as part of the Big Gay Read competition.
"It's wonderful to know that the joy and fulfilment I've found as a gay man has somehow contributed to the joy and fulfilment of others," said Maupin.
He will collect his award at Manchester's Queer Up North festival.
Tales of the City started life as a daily serial in the San Francisco Chronicle, before being collected into a novel in 1978. Five more books followed.
The novels have sold millions of copies worldwide, and were turned into a TV mini-series in the 1990s.
Maupin faced strong competition from British writers for the prize. Sarah Waters' novel Tipping The Velvet took second place, and Alan Hollinghurst's Booker Prize-winner The Line of Beauty, was eighth.
Waters is the only author to have two books in the top ten, with Fingersmith taking fifth place.
Most of the winning novels have been adapted for television, including Jeanette Winterson's Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit and Jake Arnott's The Long Firm.
Annie Proulx's short story Brokeback Mountain, which became the Oscar-winning film of the same name, also made an appearance, at number seven.
TOP FIVE GAY NOVELS
Armistead Maupin Tales of the City
Sarah Waters Tipping the Velvet
Jeanette Winterson Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit
Jackie Kay Trumpet
Sarah Waters Fingersmith
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If the poll were made here in the USA, I suspect that Waugh's 'Brideshead Revisited' would be somewhere on the list.
(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.bbc.co.uk%2Fnol%2Fshared%2Fspl%2Fhi%2Fpop_ups%2F05%2Fentertainment_itv_at_50%2Fimg%2F10.jpg&hash=967dc62ca5577aa2f8348cb3ace668dc329d9661)
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'Brideshead Revisited' was a huge hit here also, as so many other Brit series.
(DVD was April's book club offer.)
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'Brideshead Revisited' was a huge hit here also, as so many other Brit series.
(DVD was April's book club offer.)
mélisande, thank you. :)
To visit Castle Howard and read 'Brideshead' -- memorable. It is as memorable as visiting Chatsworth and reading Austen.
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'Brideshead Revisited' was a huge hit here also, as so many other Brit series.
(DVD was April's book club offer.)
Anthony Andrews/ Sebastian :
I think what is important is not whether they have a consummated
homosexual affair but that this is a very important love, obviously of some depth - the most important Ryder has had
It sounds familiar...
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'Brideshead Revisited' was a huge hit here also, as so many other Brit series.
(DVD was April's book club offer.)
Anthony Andrews/ Sebastian :
I think what is important is not whether they have a consummated
homosexual affair but that this is a very important love, obviously of some depth - the most important Ryder has had
It sounds familiar...
Perhaps it is just my makeup, but I have always thought that there was something missing in the affair with Julia, in both book and the series.
For Ryder, it was with Sebastian that he grasped the defining moments. Perhaps this was why it never worked with Julia...
Sorry, I am perhaps leading this into OOT territory...
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Hope this isn't OT, but the Guardian ( London) reported today that a new exhibition has just opened at the National Gallery. It contains works of art from Ancient Greece and Rome - they all graphically depict sexual acts. At one point in the exhibition the curator has put two modern image, one of which is of Jack and Ennis, fully dressed.
If nothing else, it shows how the movie has permeted the culture in areas one might not have expceted it to.
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Hope this isn't OT, but the Guardian ( London) reported today that a new exhibition has just opened at the National Gallery. It contains works of art from Ancient Greece and Rome - they all graphically depict sexual acts. At one point in the exhibition the curator has put two modern image, one of which is of Jack and Ennis, fully dressed.
If nothing else, it shows how the movie has permeted the culture in areas one might not have expceted it to.
HOW INTERESTING!
Thank you for sharing!
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(...) At one point in the exhibition the curator has put two modern image, one of which is of Jack and Ennis, fully dressed.
HOW INTERESTING!
Thank you for sharing!
Extremely interesting news, welshwitch ! Thanks so much !
P.S. Tpe, yes, so off topic, but a subject I'd love to pursue...
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Hope this isn't OT, but the Guardian ( London) reported today that a new exhibition has just opened at the National Gallery. It contains works of art from Ancient Greece and Rome - they all graphically depict sexual acts. At one point in the exhibition the curator has put two modern image, one of which is of Jack and Ennis, fully dressed.
If nothing else, it shows how the movie has permeted the culture in areas one might not have expceted it to.
Beautiful. Simply beautiful.
That pic is not out of place.
I just got the catalog of the Simeon Solomon exhibit that is now showing in the Villa Von Stuck in Munich. As permanent book markers, I have placed extra copies of our BBM postcards in the catalogue.
Ennis and Jack are timeless.
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I've just found the links of the Guardian's article and of the Exhibition.
Thank you again for sharing, welshwitch. Indeed
http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1773177,00.html
http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/compass/ixbin/hixclient.exe?%7BUPPER%7D%3Av2_free_text_tindex=warren+cup&_IXDB_=compass&_IXSPFX_=..%2Fcompass%2Fgraphical%2Fsummary%2F&_IXFPFX_=..%2Fcompass%2Fgraphical%2Ffull%2F&_IXNOMATCHES_=..%2Fcompass%2Fgraphical%2Fno_matches.html&%24+%28with+v2_searchable_index%29+sort=.&_IXsearchterm=warren%2520cup&submit-button=summary
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Thank you for those links, Frances. Anyone up for a rendez-vous at the BM next week ? :)
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I just got the catalog of the Simeon Solomon exhibit that is now showing in the Villa Von Stuck in Munich. As permanent book markers, I have placed extra copies of our BBM postcards in the catalogue.
Ennis and Jack are timeless.
(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.art-connection.com%2Fnew%2FPiccadilly_Gallery%2Fpaintings%2F016749%2Fpicture.jpg&hash=1c1228a1d109ad71cb7c8e79e69e15ba195d12ae)(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bioscop.cz%2F_web%2F_filmy%2Fb_zkrocena_hora%2Ffotografie%2F014_zkrocena_hora.jpg&hash=f0562d9850173b7d01b00e4f59c24a73614b66d8)
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Thomas, simply brilliant. 8)
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It's not as good as yours, Thomas, but....
(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi25.imagethrust.com%2Fi%2F409157%2Fbrokeback10940001.jpg&hash=9d6b512639584d3db9eb67d6644e1d1ec9a12c99)
Achille and Patroclus
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Oooooooooohhhhhhhhhhh, Frances ! Yes, it is very good !!!!!!!!!!
(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fbestsmileys.com%2Fcheering%2F2.gif&hash=5c6f975b5b7b1ed861c19f6491c2324b5bb5779a)
(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fbestsmileys.com%2Fcheering%2F2.gif&hash=5c6f975b5b7b1ed861c19f6491c2324b5bb5779a)
(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fbestsmileys.com%2Fcheering%2F2.gif&hash=5c6f975b5b7b1ed861c19f6491c2324b5bb5779a)
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It's not as good as yours, Thomas, but....
(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi25.imagethrust.com%2Fi%2F409157%2Fbrokeback10940001.jpg&hash=9d6b512639584d3db9eb67d6644e1d1ec9a12c99)
Achille and Patroclus
(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.emsf.rai.it%2Fdati%2Finterviste%2Fimages%2Fachille.jpg&hash=9aaa70ff8f16ae0dcfb7eb6c63197691ff6b51aa)
We are reading each other's mind frances.
I sent a pix of this to Lost_Girl 2 days ago. I also have it in my collection. I think you read my mind...
(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.philipresheph.com%2Fdemodokos%2Fbook1%2Filiad55.jpg&hash=3ee131b13484f164b59fa794fbc427a596f557b9)(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pleasedancewithme.com%2FClipArtBrokeBackMountainHeathLedgerShirt3.gif&hash=f1bb4b2b3edd708fb6a48d5973fbc2a1bfd80c04)
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Today#s "Guardian" (London) had a story about a new exhibition ay the National Gallery. It's of erotic objets d'art from Ancient Greece and Rome, and at one point the curtor has included two modern images, oneof which is of Jack and Ennis ( fully dressed, but you can;' have everything). Just sjows how our movie is getting in everywhere!
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Yes indeed, welshwitch. Links to articles on that exhibition have been posted by Frances :
http://www.ennisjack.com/index.php?topic=3862.msg112522#msg112522
;)
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Lovin the art guys :)
Cable Positive to Benefit from Brokeback
http://www.multichannel.com/article/CA6334027.html?display=Breaking+News
5/11/2006 4:05:00 PMNBC Universal Cable will donate $10,000 to Cable Positive tying in with the video-on-demand and pay-per-view premiere of Brokeback Mountain May 18.
The programmer said it will donate $1 to Cable Positive for every Brokeback Mountain e-card sent via Universal Pay-Per-View & On Demand’s Web site (www.universalvod.net).
NBC U Cable will also contribute an additional $5,000 to each participating local Cable Positive chapter.
Time Warner Cable of New York City said it will match NBC Universal Cable’s contribution and donate a portion of Brokeback Mountain on demand buys to the cable industry’s AIDS-awareness organization’s New York chapter. Time Warner’s promotion will be supported by cross-channel, radio, online and e-mail.
BrokebackMountain won Academy Awards for “Best Achievement in Directing,” “Best Original Score” and “Best Adapted Screenplay.”
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Thanks ennisandjack. Interesting piece of news.
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The Authentic Life
It thrived at Walden Pond, not ‘Brokeback Mountain’
By PAULINE PARK
Monday, April 17, 2006
Henry David Thoreau might well have been thinking of Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist when he wrote that "the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." While Thoreau’s "Walden" long predates Annie Proulx’s "Brokeback Mountain" short story and the Ang Lee film based on it, the transcendentalist philosopher’s magnum opus remains as relevant today as was published in 1854.
Much of the comment about the film, just released on DVD, has focused on its transgressive love story. But if "Brokeback" speaks powerfully to gay and non-gay audiences alike, it is because the film not only articulates the tragedy of true love constrained and ultimately defeated by homophobia, but also speaks to the tragedy of life not truly lived.
Thoreau could have been describing the "Brokeback" Wyoming of the 1960s when he wrote, "The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels. How worn and dusty, then, must be the highways of the world, how deep the ruts of tradition and conformity!"
Jack attempts to persuade Ennis to climb out of the rut of heteronormative expectations in rural Wyoming, but Ennis is traumatized by a childhood episode in which his father took him and his brother to see a dead gay man who was tortured and beaten to death for having the temerity to live openly with another man.
So Ennis’ fear of violence is a realistic one. But in choosing to live his life from a script written by someone else, Ennis is false to himself and to everyone else—and above all, to the one person who loves him for who he truly is. In their final encounter, Jack confronts Ennis with the desperately sad truth that they have wasted their lives in outward conformity and secret transgression. Ennis has settled for mere existence, wasting years in a loveless marriage, unable to overcome his fears. The price of outward conformity to a rigid code of heteronormativity is a slow inward death for both of them.
CANONICAL PHILOSOPHY may have little appeal to most people, whether LGBT or otherwise. But at its most practical, philosophy poses basic questions that we all face as human beings: What is life and how shall we live it? In "Walden," Thoreau offers this answer: "I did not wish to take a cabin passage, but rather to go before the mast and on the deck of the world, for there I could best see the moonlight amid the mountains. I do not wish to go below now."
What is that "moonlight amid the mountains" of which Thoreau speaks? It is the sheer exhilaration of the authentic life lived fully in the integrity of one’s own truest self. Ennis and Jack glimpse the literal moonlight amid the mountains when they live on Brokeback and later return to it on their periodic "fishing trips." But only Jack can see the metaphorical moonlight of the authentic life that offers itself to them before they descend from the mountain into the dreary desperation of straight conformity and loveless marriage. Thoreau could well have been describing Jack in the passage in "Walden" in which he famously declared: "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer."
The authentic life is there for the living, and the deepest tragedy of "Brokeback Mountain" is Ennis’s refusal to accept Jack’s invitation to live it. Regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, anyone seeking to live an authentic life need look no further than the conclusion from "Walden" for guidance:
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The Authentic Life
The authentic life is there for the living, and the deepest tragedy of "Brokeback Mountain" is Ennis’s refusal to accept Jack’s invitation to live it. Regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity, anyone seeking to live an authentic life need look no further than the conclusion from "Walden" for guidance:
As you had quoted in another thread these words from Walden:
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.
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"the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation". :(
Great article - thanks for posting it.
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Yes, an excellent article. And the references to Jack's ability to see the metaphorical moonlight are wonderful. I love that character and I love to see new ways to appreciate him. Thanks for sharing.
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National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's 17th Annual Leadership Awards
The Task Force played host to more than 450 people Saturday night, May 6, at the district's Omni Shoreham Hotel overlooking Rock Creek Park. The event, a dinner marking the Task Force's 17th Annual Leadership Awards, paid tribute to three people and an institution: Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), a longtime ally of the gay community; Annie Proulx, author of the gay-themed short story Brokeback Mountain, which garnered much attention as a film a few months ago; Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.), a possible contender in the 2008 presidential race, and a supporter of same-sex marriage; and Food & Friends, the metro area's non-profit provider of groceries and prepared meals to thousands of ill clients and their families
Proulx did not offer a politician's enthusiasm. Instead, she appeared somewhat bashful as she took the lectern, her soft monotone a sharp contrast to the other speakers' styles. ''They never told me I'd have to say something, but I will,'' she deadpanned.
Proulx, in from Wyoming for the awards dinner, spoke about her stretch of the country as a ''mean, spare, hard'' place. ''It's a tough place. I like it because it's a tough place. Its beauty is hard and subtle."
That hardness comes with a particular challenge.
"People don't really disturb the ancient traditions of rural places, and that's too bad," she said. "You really have to take a look at what's not right, and not support the status quo.''
She closed with an invitation, observing that there are many GLBT people from her part of the country, but that they often leave her rough terrain in favor of gay-friendly cities. With an apparent desire to turn that tide, she imparted, ''If any of you are contemplating a move to the country, do it.''
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(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.metroweekly.com%2Fscene%2Fthumbnails%2Fthumb_2006-05-11_728_17109.jpg&hash=bda90a0dcaa6ec5a00ece82b683ddaf87619f812)
National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's 17th Annual Leadership Awards
The Task Force played host to more than 450 people Saturday night, May 6, at the district's Omni Shoreham Hotel overlooking Rock Creek Park. The event, a dinner marking the Task Force's 17th Annual Leadership Awards, paid tribute to three people and an institution: Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), a longtime ally of the gay community; Annie Proulx, author of the gay-themed short story Brokeback Mountain, which garnered much attention as a film a few months ago; Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.), a possible contender in the 2008 presidential race, and a supporter of same-sex marriage; and Food & Friends, the metro area's non-profit provider of groceries and prepared meals to thousands of ill clients and their families
Proulx did not offer a politician's enthusiasm. Instead, she appeared somewhat bashful as she took the lectern, her soft monotone a sharp contrast to the other speakers' styles. ''They never told me I'd have to say something, but I will,'' she deadpanned.
Proulx, in from Wyoming for the awards dinner, spoke about her stretch of the country as a ''mean, spare, hard'' place. ''It's a tough place. I like it because it's a tough place. Its beauty is hard and subtle."
Superb.
That hardness comes with a particular challenge.
"People don't really disturb the ancient traditions of rural places, and that's too bad," she said. "You really have to take a look at what's not right, and not support the status quo.''
She closed with an invitation, observing that there are many GLBT people from her part of the country, but that they often leave her rough terrain in favor of gay-friendly cities. With an apparent desire to turn that tide, she imparted, ''If any of you are contemplating a move to the country, do it.''
A very difficult challenge.
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Not exactly new..but new to me
'Brokeback Mountain': A Dissenting View
by Dale Carpenter
(Bay Area Reporter)
In a 1980 essay entitled “The Boys on the Beach,” conservative writer Midge Decter described the gay men who summered at Fire Island in the 1960s:
No households of wives and children requiring security; no entailments of school bills, doctor and dentist bills; no lifetime of acquiring the goods needed for family welfare and the goods desired for family entertainment, with a margin left over for that greatest of all heterosexual entailments, the Future: no such households burdened the overwhelmingly vast majority of homosexuals.
Homosexuality, argued Decter, is a flight from adult responsibility. Heterosexual men who accept their share of the burden to raise the next generation feel “mocked,” especially by gay men, because male “homosexuality paints them with the color of sheer entrapment.” Being gay, she concluded, means “taking oneself out of the tides of ordinary mortal existence.”
From early on in Brokeback Mountain, the Oscar-contending film by director Ang Lee, I found myself thinking about Decter's essay.
The basic story is by now familiar: two young men, Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), meet and fall in love in 1963 while tending sheep in the mountains of Wyoming. Subsequently, they each get married and have kids but get together a couple of times a year to go “fishing,” the euphemism they give their wives for the periodic renewal of their affair. The story ends in 1983.
There's much to admire in this film. Ennis and Jack bust stereotypes of gay men. They aren't effeminate. When they meet, they are modern “cowboys” who live on profanity, fighting, country music, beer, and hard work for low pay. Yet their masculinity is also not the posed hyper-masculinity of leather, Levi, and uniform fetish scenes.
There's no mention of Stonewall, Harvey Milk, or even San Francisco. It's a welcome corrective to the urban-centered study of gay life in America.
For the most part we do not see sensationalized homophobia. That would be too easy. Instead, we see the everyday contempt for gays that still suffuses life in much of the country. Disdain for homosexuals mostly comes to Ennis and Jack in the sneers of others and in their own shame.
Still, the film—or more precisely, the gay reaction to it—offers some support for the hoary notion that homosexuality is “taking oneself out of the tides of ordinary mortal existence.” Critics have rushed to praise Brokeback Mountain as a universal love story. Perhaps that's true, but it's not the whole story.
It's almost never mentioned that their affair is juxtaposed to the consequences of neglecting life's obligations. The first time Ennis and Jack have sex they shirk their responsibility to watch the flock. That night, a sheep is killed by a wolf; the aftermath is graphically depicted. A large portion of the flock is ultimately lost while they frolic.
More importantly, in their occasional fishing retreats, Ennis and Jack leave behind families. They are adulterers. This doesn't seem so terrible in the case of Jack, whose cartoonish wife is obsessed with her career and her press-on nails. But in the case of Ennis the result is poignant. Rushing out of the house to meet Jack, Ennis bodily passes off his two daughters to his wife (Michelle Williams), who stoically bears the burden left by a homosexual fleeing his entrapment. Eventually they divorce.
The film speaks powerfully to the sense of lost love and opportunity every closeted gay person must feel. “Heartbreaking” is not too strong a word to describe the loss this film confronts us with. But it's difficult to buy the widespread idea that the love between Jack and Ennis is an unvarnished good thing made tragic only by a homophobic world.
Part of the reason is that the love story itself is a bit strained. Hollywood delights in acting of the stumbling-and-mumbling sort (think James Dean and Marlon Brando) because it is thought to convey authenticity. Ledger in particular nails this style. But the spare dialogue between Jack and Ennis puts a lot of interpretive pressure on the meaningful glances they exchange.
Their sexual intimacy seems contrived. The sex—full of wrestling and snorting—is the kind that a person who's neither gay nor a cowboy imagines gay cowboys must have.
But the deeper reason their love doesn't completely register is that every time they go off together one is left wondering, what about the kids? What Ennis and Jack experience as an exhilarating liberation from the mundane and the stifling is for their families an abandonment. Ennis at least talks about living up to his familial obligations, but in truth he's checked out of them almost from the start.
For these reasons, I couldn't quite join in the symphony of sniffles I heard in the theater at the undeniably sad end of the film.
Yes, the world around Ennis and Jack channeled them into unhappy heterosexual lives. All concerned—including their families—would have been better off if that hadn't happened. By itself, that's a powerful argument against homophobia.
I don't have good answers to the problems confronting Ennis and Jack in their time and circumstance. I only have more questions than are currently being asked. Once families have been formed, do the interests of those families count for anything at all? Do we think Ennis and Jack have no obligation except to fulfill their own deepest desires? Do we really believe that the only tragedy in the film is the thwarted love of these two men? Why is nobody in the gay community even considering the moral complexity Brokeback Mountain presents?
Which brings us back to Midge Decter. Much that's happened in the past quarter-century has thoroughly discredited her view of homosexuality as escapism. She was wrong about gays even then, and she's more wrong now. But you would not know that from the sentimental and myopic reaction to this film, which sees in a multi-layered calamity only a beautiful but doomed gay romance
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Life is never tidy. Life is never neat.
I think the reviewer assumes too much that most of us who love BBM love it for pure sentiment.
I can say at least this: I love BBM because love is never tidy; love is never neat; love is never fair.
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Re: "Brokeback Mountain": a Dissenting view by Dale Carpenter -
I'm not sure where to start with this one. Why do so many people feel the need to oversymplify and over-categorize everything? First, Midge Decter's original theory about homosexuality is as ridiculous as it is ignorant. When I think of the gay people I know that wanted to have children (not to mention the ones lucky enough to do so), I can't help but wonder at her willful blindness. And though D.C. says she was wrong, most of his article supports a lot of what she was saying. As if the choices these characters made were easy ones. As if life is ever that 'tidy' or 'neat' (which as tpe pointed out they are Not). And anyone who thinks the movie glossed over the toll their relationship took on their families simply wasn't paying attention! Did he not see the reunion kiss scene?! I agree with tpe that Carpenter doesn't seem to give the audience enough credit. And he certainly isn't seeing what we see. Clearly, his own pre-formed ideas about homosexuality influenced his interpretation of this story. It's too bad he missed so much of what was there (some people just can't see it). Who knows? Maybe my awareness of the complexity of these issues shaped my understanding and appreciation of the movie as well. I guess I can only hope so!
And by the way, it bears repeating that the structure and judgements of society (especially society in the time period of this story) are at least partially responsible for the choices these characters (and their real-life counterparts) are forced to make. Ok, end of rant.
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Re: "Brokeback Mountain": a Dissenting view by Dale Carpenter -
I'm not sure where to start with this one. Why do so many people feel the need to oversymplify and over-categorize everything? First, Midge Decter's original theory about homosexuality is as ridiculous as it is ignorant. When I think of the gay people I know that wanted to have children (not to mention the ones lucky enough to do so), I can't help but wonder at her willful blindness. And though D.C. says she was wrong, most of his article supports a lot of what she was saying. As if the choices these characters made were easy ones. As if life is ever that 'tidy' or 'neat' (which as tpe pointed out they are Not). And anyone who thinks the movie glossed over the toll their relationship took on their families simply wasn't paying attention! Did he not see the reunion kiss scene?! I agree with tpe that Carpenter doesn't seem to give the audience enough credit. And he certainly isn't seeing what we see. Clearly, his own pre-formed ideas about homosexuality influenced his interpretation of this story. It's too bad he missed so much of what was there (some people just can't see it). Who knows? Maybe my awareness of the complexity of these issues shaped my understanding and appreciation of the movie as well. I guess I can only hope so!
And by the way, it bears repeating that the structure and judgements of society (especially society in the time period of this story) are at least partially responsible for the choices these characters (and their real-life counterparts) are forced to make. Ok, end of rant.
A very nice rant. :)
You said it better than I could.
It is good nontheless that frances posted this article: to make us realize that the main point of BBM still lies undetected by many people...
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Re: "Brokeback Mountain": a Dissenting view by Dale Carpenter -
I'm not sure where to start with this one. Why do so many people feel the need to oversymplify and over-categorize everything? First, Midge Decter's original theory about homosexuality is as ridiculous as it is ignorant. When I think of the gay people I know that wanted to have children (not to mention the ones lucky enough to do so), I can't help but wonder at her willful blindness. And though D.C. says she was wrong, most of his article supports a lot of what she was saying. As if the choices these characters made were easy ones. As if life is ever that 'tidy' or 'neat' (which as tpe pointed out they are Not). And anyone who thinks the movie glossed over the toll their relationship took on their families simply wasn't paying attention! Did he not see the reunion kiss scene?! I agree with tpe that Carpenter doesn't seem to give the audience enough credit. And he certainly isn't seeing what we see. Clearly, his own pre-formed ideas about homosexuality influenced his interpretation of this story. It's too bad he missed so much of what was there (some people just can't see it). Who knows? Maybe my awareness of the complexity of these issues shaped my understanding and appreciation of the movie as well. I guess I can only hope so!
And by the way, it bears repeating that the structure and judgements of society (especially society in the time period of this story) are at least partially responsible for the choices these characters (and their real-life counterparts) are forced to make. Ok, end of rant.
Well said FlwrChild!
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Don't know if this is OT or not, but last night BBC2 screened the first episode of an adaptation of "The Line of Beauty". As the main character's a twenty-one-year-old gay man, this has inevitably led to references to BBM in the press.
For what it's worth ( yes, I know!) the overtly sexual gay scenes just showed what an amazing job Ang, Jake and Heath did in BBM - these were nothing like.
Maybe you'll get the three parts eventually ?on PBS?
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Don't know if this is OT or not, but last night BBC2 screened the first episode of an adaptation of "The Line of Beauty". As the main character's a twenty-one-year-old gay man, this has inevitably led to references to BBM in the press.
For what it's worth ( yes, I know!) the overtly sexual gay scenes just showed what an amazing job Ang, Jake and Heath did in BBM - these were nothing like.
Maybe you'll get the three parts eventually ?on PBS?
Thanks welshwitch. I was not aware of an adaptation of "The Line of Beauty". Yes, I would be interested in seeing all 3 parts and compare it with the book itself.
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It is good nontheless that frances posted this article: to make us realize that the main point of BBM still lies undetected by many people...
So true, tpe, so despairingly true.
Don't know if this is OT or not, but last night BBC2 screened the first episode of an adaptation of "The Line of Beauty". As the main character's a twenty-one-year-old gay man, this has inevitably led to references to BBM in the press.
I haven't read that one, but I have two other worls by A. Hollinghurst. Do I gather that this BBC production doesn't err on the side of subtlety ? :-\ (OT, sorry)
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Heard on CBC Radio
Two Gay officers of the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) will marry soon in Nova-Scotia. Theey are allowed to wear their Parade Uniform for the occasion since it's a tradition for the RCMP members. Tradtion also have offcers to remove their boots during the banquet and put them on the table :o
I'll surf the net like crazy to find something ''official'' to post here, there must be something on some gay online magazine. Google this time was helpless. :P
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I found a couple of articles for you.
I found a few articles on the RCMP wedding.
This one is short: http://winnipegsun.com/News/Canada/2006/05/18/1585745-sun.html
METEGHAN, N.S. -- On a Friday night this June, Const. Jason Tree and Const. David Connors will don their scarlet dress uniforms, stand before family, friends and co-workers, and wed in what will apparently be the first same-sex marriage in RCMP history. In an interview in their Meteghan home yesterday, the men said they've had great support from the national police force, the community and their families. The pair will be married by a justice of the peace in Yarmouth, N.S., on June 30.
http://www.365gay.com/Newscon06/05/051806mounties.htm
Gay Mounties To Wed
by Derwin Parsons, 365Gay.com Atlantic Canada Bureau Chief
May 18, 2006 - 5:00 pm ET
(Halifax, Nova Scotia) In what may be Canada's highest profile gay wedding of the year two Mounties will wed next month in Nova Scotia.
It is the first same-sex marriage within the RCMP. and the couple will wear the distinctive scarlet dress uniforms the force is known for worldwide the Chronicle Herald newspaper reports.
Const. Jason Tree, 27, and Const. David Connors, 28, met while in high school. They've been a couple since their university days eight years ago.
In an interview with the Chronicle Herald Tee said they have never experienced a problem on the force. They are so well liked members of the force, also in their dress tunics, will form an honor guard at the wedding.
"This is a first for us," RCMP spokesperson Sgt. Skidmore told the paper. "Certainly, the RCMP welcomes a workforce that is representative of Canadian society, and that is the case here."
Canada last year became the fourth country in the world to legalize same-sex marriage (story). The legislation was passed by then Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberal government. The new Conservative government has pledged to overturn the law.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said he expects to introduce the bill in the fall. (story)
Earlier this week Canadians for Equal Marriage, a national group that supports same-sex marriage said that a survey it conducted of Members of Parliament oppose re-opening the marriage debate.
Before he could put a repeal bill before the House Harper would need approval of a majority of MPs to reopen the issue. CEM's poll showed that 158 MPs would vote against re-opening, 137 would vote for it, and 12 are undecided or will abstain.
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I'm a proud Canadian tonight :'(
Thanks for posting LuvJackNasty ;)
OT :-X They won't never be able to back off this bill, it's too late
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I'm a proud Canadian tonight :'(
Thanks for posting LuvJackNasty ;)
OT :-X They won't never be able to back off this bill, it's too late
You are so right -- to be so proud.
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From Volver's press conference in Cannes (May, 18, 2006) :
Finally, asked the inevitable question about whether he has been tempted lately to make a movie in Hollywood, Almodovar said that while he hasn't found the right U.S. project, he did consider one recent film. "I've had some doubts (about making a film in America)," he said, "I was offered 'Brokeback Mountain', (that was) the only one I thought about for some time."
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From Volver's press conference in Cannes (May, 18, 2006) :
Finally, asked the inevitable question about whether he has been tempted lately to make a movie in Hollywood, Almodovar said that while he hasn't found the right U.S. project, he did consider one recent film. "I've had some doubts (about making a film in America)," he said, "I was offered 'Brokeback Mountain', (that was) the only one I thought about for some time."
No comment on his abilities as a director, but thank heaven he passed.
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I'm a proud Canadian tonight :'(
Thanks for posting LuvJackNasty ;)
OT :-X They won't never be able to back off this bill, it's too late
I'm proud with you! That article about the mounties was so great.. aw. they met in highschool! <^( <^( <^(!
Now YAY for Canada... dont vote to overturn the law.. ! ;D
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'Brokeback' clip stirs anger at school
BOYD COUNTY TEACHER SHOWED CLASS FILM SNIPPET
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/state/14616137.htm?source=rss&channel=kentucky_state
ASSOCIATED PRESS
An English teacher at an Eastern Kentucky school that has been divided over gay issues showed a snippet of Brokeback Mountain to her students in a class.
About 21/2 minutes of the film was shown last week in a senior cinematography class at Boyd County High School, Superintendent Howard K. Osborne said yesterday.
The brief showing of the film, which centers on the sexual relationship between two male sheepherders, upset at least one parent who had a student in the class. Nothing with sexual content was shown.
Osborne said Brokeback Mountain won't be shown again at the school. He declined to say if any action was taken against the teacher who showed the film.
"We've had an investigative inquiry and we've taken appropriate action," Osborne said. He declined to comment further, calling it a "personnel matter."
Osborne said there have been few complaints from parents over the showing of the film. The film won the Oscar this year for its director, Ang Lee.
Students in Boyd County have been divided in recent years over gay issues since a group of students petitioned to form a gay awareness club at the high school in 2002. A lawsuit ensued, and the school district later settled. The agreement called for anti-harassment training for all staff and students.
Kelley Smith said she was upset the film was shown at all.
"If she wanted to show it in class she should have gotten parents permission and if some students wanted to see it, it should have been their choice," said Smith, whose son, Chris, 17, was in the class.
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ennisjackandjack, thanks for posting this article.
Need parents' permission to show the film? It is a cinematography class and BBM is has one of the best cinematography, no? Besides, no sexual content was shown. I will be outraged if the teacher is punished. ^*) Sorry, I needed to vent.
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I will be outraged if the teacher is punished.
Me, too. That is outrageous!
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Yes, I agree, but nothing surprises me about the way schools are run these days. In the UK teachers would also be afraid to show BBM, I think, ( though maybe for a different reason than in the States, where it seems to have acquired some political associations? ) and administrators are afraid of their own shadows. Let's just keep everything nice and bland then we won't have any trouble seems to be their mantra.
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I'm not sure the date of this.. but still .. ^*) :X ^*) :X ^*) :X ^*)
Why I'm Not Going To See Brokeback Mountain or Countering The Brokeback Hype
It's bad enough that Brokeback Mountain has been relentlessly overhyped like no movie in recent memory, so much so that even George Bush is getting questioned about it.
But, last night, I actually had someone, who was completely puzzled, say to me that she'd been watching the coverage of Brokeback Mountain and didn't understand how it could be such an enormous blockbuster hit. Maybe that's a small thing, but for me, it was the last straw.
Let me interject a little reality into the tsunami of ballyhoo that surrounds Brokeback Mountain. Let me take just a moment to counter the overbearing wave of condescending media hucksters and Hollywood high pressure salesmen that have almost been berating the public into watching this film.
First of all, Brokeback Mountain isn't even close to a mega-hit. In fact, numerous movies that are considered mediocrities are topping it at the box office. If you look at the top 50 grossing movies in the theaters right now, here's where Brokeback Mountain, which has been out 9 weeks now, ranks in total gross:
1) Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: $285.5M
2) The Chronicles of Narnia: $271.9 M
3) King Kong: $209.9M
4) Polar Express: $173.6M
5) Chicken Little: $133.4M
6) Walk the Line: $102.1M
7) Fun with Dick and Jane: $101.4M
8) Flightplan: $89.5M
9) Cheaper by The Dozen 2: $78.1M
10) The Family Stone: $58.6
11) Yours, Mine, & Ours: $52.6
12) Memoirs of a Geisha: $51.2M
13) Syriana: $45.4M
14) Hostel: $42.7M
15) Brokeback Mountain: $42.1 M
Wow. It even lost to Cheaper by the Dozen 2 which featured a dog attacking Steve Martin's crotch in the promos. That is impressive. On the other hand, forty million dollars is a lot of dough for a movie about gay cowboys / sheep herders. I mean, you should be able to make a movie like that for about $2000 bucks. What do you need a lot of cash for? Cowboy hats? Chaps? Sheep? Still, given that Brokeback Mountain got 10 times more free publicity than even the most successful movies on this list, the fact that it's in 15th place is stunningly unimpressive.
For that matter, so are all the Golden Globes that it won because let's face it, it didn't win 4 Golden Globe prizes because it's a good movie, it won 4 Golden Globes because it's about gay cowboys. And Hollywood thinks more prudish, conservative Americans should be exposed to movies featuring gay cowboys, so they're using the awards to send a message. They do this same thing every year. This year it's gay cowboys, next year it'll be handicapped lesbian Eskimos, and two years from now it'll be Latino union activists fighting Republicans to save the rainforest.
So, if the movie can't be all that good, who's going to see it?
Gay men, women who want to see a movie about relationships, men who want to prove they're not homophobic, guys who got tricked by the hype, and the same sort of people who go to art galleries, look at a pile of crap that looks like a construction accident, and pretentiously rave about the symmetry and use of color because they think it makes them sound sophisticated.
After all, why would a normal man want to go see this film? Men don't even want to go see relationship movies that feature men and women, so why would they want to see a movie about two gay cowboys hopping in the saddle together?
Maybe if the gay cowboys were secretly ninjas sworn to avenge their masters or kill crazy ex-seals out to stop a team of Al-Qaeda terrorists from blowing up school buses full of kids, it might be a movie that could appeal to most guys -- assuming they didn't get all touchy-feely and start grabbing each other like the Hobbits did at the end of "Return of the King."
Whatever the case may be, if people watched the movie and enjoyed it, fantastic, more power to them. But, understand that it's not a classic, it's not a must-see movie, it's just another film that will fade into semi-obscurity like all other lefty cause du jour movies that were promoted before it. The sooner, the better as far as I'm concerned.
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Whatever the case may be, if people watched the movie and enjoyed it, fantastic, more power to them. But, understand that it's not a classic, it's not a must-see movie, it's just another film that will fade into semi-obscurity like all other lefty cause du jour movies that were promoted before it. The sooner, the better as far as I'm concerned.
That's right. As far as YOU concerned, Mister...Mister....what's the name of the author of this "brilliant" piece of....?
I've just checked : those lines were posted in http://www.rightwingnews.com. NO SURPRISE, then.
I don't blame BBM's bad reviews(everyone's the right to have an opinion), but offensive ones. And that's one of those ("This year it's gay cowboys, next year it'll be handicapped lesbian Eskimos, and two years from now it'll be Latino union activists fighting Republicans to save the rainforest")
Thank you Frankie, for sharing
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They are entitled to their opinion. But...their opinion is WRONG. ^*)
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The Sunday Times
'Brokeback' named Top HollyWORD of 2006 Followed by 'Brangelina’, ‘Petronoia,' and ‘Tuxedo’
‘Brokeback’ from multi-Oscar nominated film 'Brokeback Mountain' was named the Top HollyWORD of the Year in The Global Language Monitor's annual survey of words from Hollywood that profoundly influenced the English Language.
Closely following were ‘Brangelina’ from ‘Mr. & Mrs. Smith,’ ‘ ‘Petronoia’ from ‘Syriana,’ ‘Tuxedo’ from ‘March of the Penguins,’ and ‘Pimping’ from “Hustle & Flow’.
Rounding out the Top Ten were ‘Milk Money’ from ‘Cinderella Man,’ ‘Dostoevskian’ from ‘Revenge of the Sith,’ ‘Tepid’ from the 2005 Movie Season, ‘the Inklings’ from ‘The Chronicles of Narnia,’ and ‘Don’t Panic’ from ‘The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’.
"For better or for worse, The Hollywood dream-factory continues to make its contribution to the Global English vocabulary, either by creating new words, such as ‘Brokeback’ or re-defining (and/or transmitting) others,“ said Paul JJ Payack, President of the Global Language Monitor. The Global Language Monitor analyzes and catalogues the latest trends in word usage and word choices, and their impact on the various aspects of culture.
1. Brokeback (Brokeback Mountain) – A cultural phenomenon (Brokeback, Brokedown, etc.) with almost a million references to Brokeback jokes alone on Google. Overall there are some 30 million references though only 10 million saw the movie.
2. Brangelina (Mr. And Mrs. Smith) – The Brad Pitt – Angelina Jolie romance / relationship / spectacle without the Scientology angle. TomKat (Tom Cruise / Katy Holmes) comes in a close second, with Vincifer (Jennifer Aniston – Vince Vaughn) placing a distant third.
3. Petronoia (Syriana) -- Everything may be connected in this politically-charged thriller and it’s all connected through ‘petronoia’ the (ir)rational fear of the collapse in the oil industry precipitating global economic crisis.
4. Tuxedo (March of the Penguins) – Though the dialogue, not to mention the stars, were a bit stiff, this chronicle about Emperor penguins in their breeding trek across Antarctica flew to remarkable heights. Also, very clever product placement that few apparently noticed: dinner jackets.
5. Pimping (Hustle and Flow) – Evidently ‘Ho’ and ‘bitch’ have already been approved by the network censors, and pimping gets another boost.
6. Milk (Money) (Cinderella Man) – The reason for James J. Braddock’s comeback. He claimed he now knew the reason for his success: He was no fighting for ‘Milk’.
7. Dostoevskian (Revenge of the Sith) – Certainly not for the screenplay, but rather for the completion of Lukas’ multi-generational, six-film saga depicting the ongoing battle between good and evil to a universal audience.
8. Tepid (The 2005 Movie Season) -- With grosses down some 6% from a slow 2004, studio execs blamed everything except uninspiring choices. This was the year of the small film.
9. The Inklings (Chronicles of Narnia) -- The informal writers club to which C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien both belonged. Together the good professors’ films have grossed over $3 billion. Not bad for a couple of Oxford dons. 1
0. Don’t Panic (Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) – Though a flop, the film contained excellent advice for just about any situation in the 21st Century.
11. 1933 (King Kong) – That’s the version you should have seen. “Oh no, it wasn't the airplanes. It was the re-make that killed both beauty and the beast.”
12. Bird Flu (H5N1) (War of the Worlds) – Thanks to HG Wells, a positive use for Avian Flu: destroying alien life forms.
13. Crusaders (Kingdom of Heaven) – Luckily this wasn’t a big enough hit among the infidels to cause any worldwide riots.
14. Folsom (Walk the Line) – The name now is synonymous for the Man in Black.
15. Expediency (Munich) – Some times political values trump moral values.
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Thank you Frances, very good one
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Uncut DVD - May/June 2006
(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fup.mezimages.com%2Fup%2F05%2Fminiature%2Fmini_814728001.jpg&hash=32b008842b02e3223676728fe5663191184249c1) (http://www.mezimages.com/agrandir.php?fi=/05/814728001.jpg)(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fup.mezimages.com%2Fup%2F05%2Fminiature%2Fmini_814730002.jpg&hash=57136669929bf6beae8d59ba5a2124363458bdb5) (http://www.mezimages.com/agrandir.php?fi=/05/814730002.jpg)
(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fup.mezimages.com%2Fup%2F05%2Fminiature%2Fmini_814734003.jpg&hash=4345945ac66d85313d608b3bf98d1f4c41448992) (http://www.mezimages.com/agrandir.php?fi=/05/814734003.jpg)(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fup.mezimages.com%2Fup%2F05%2Fminiature%2Fmini_814738004.jpg&hash=c188be2d471cfdcbeceb2df1bc18139f0a3e4f86) (http://www.mezimages.com/agrandir.php?fi=/05/814738004.jpg)
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ennisjackandjack, thanks for posting this article.
Need parents' permission to show the film? It is a cinematography class and BBM is has one of the best cinematography, no? Besides, no sexual content was shown. I will be outraged if the teacher is punished. ^*) Sorry, I needed to vent.
Same here.
Why do kids need a permission slip to simply watch a gay-themed movie, especially when the only purpose of the clip was to note the cinematography?
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I'm not sure the date of this.. but still .. ^*) :X ^*) :X ^*) :X ^*)
Why I'm Not Going To See Brokeback Mountain or Countering The Brokeback Hype
Who is this filthy barbarian?
I decline further comment. It is beneath contempt.
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Uncut DVD - May/June 2006
Thank you frances. :)
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'Brokeback' clip stirs anger at school
BOYD COUNTY TEACHER SHOWED CLASS FILM SNIPPET
http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/state/14616137.htm?source=rss&channel=kentucky_state
ASSOCIATED PRESS
An English teacher at an Eastern Kentucky school that has been divided over gay issues showed a snippet of Brokeback Mountain to her students in a class.
About 21/2 minutes of the film was shown last week in a senior cinematography class at Boyd County High School, Superintendent Howard K. Osborne said yesterday.
The brief showing of the film, which centers on the sexual relationship between two male sheepherders, upset at least one parent who had a student in the class. Nothing with sexual content was shown.
Osborne said Brokeback Mountain won't be shown again at the school. He declined to say if any action was taken against the teacher who showed the film.
..
Kelley Smith said she was upset the film was shown at all.
"If she wanted to show it in class she should have gotten parents permission and if some students wanted to see it, it should have been their choice," said Smith, whose son, Chris, 17, was in the class.
???? Forgive me but... I really don't understand Americans..or lets put it this way, sometimes it's very hard ^*() Hypocrisy is the word, isn't there a huge adult film industry in LA. Why they don't do anything with that!
Here in Finland film was ranked (I mean the film classifications) age 11 and in Sweden 7. I think 13 (or 15 as the DVD actually is) would be appropriate age, not because of sexual scenes but deep emotional scenes and two three violent ones.
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ennisjackandjack, thanks for posting this article.
Need parents' permission to show the film? It is a cinematography class and BBM is has one of the best cinematography, no? Besides, no sexual content was shown. I will be outraged if the teacher is punished. ^*) Sorry, I needed to vent.
I fully understand your feelings. I get really frustrated too, especially about the double standards and the way Brokeback Mountain is treated like its some kind of hard-core porn movie when there are far more explicit heterosexual films that no-one bats an eyelash at. I really hope that this teacher is not punishes. In fact I think she should be commended for her actions.
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I'm gonna be sick, either I have the flu, or I just read the stupidest thing EVER!
first of all, that article needs to be proof read:
The brief showing of the film, which centers on the sexual relationship between two male sheepherders, upset at least one parent who had a student in the class. Nothing with sexual content was shown.
yup, thats it. It just a sexual relationship, its a 2 hour gay porn, yeah, obviously. ^*) ^*) ^*) ^*) ^*) ^*) ^*) ^*) ^*) ^*) ^*) ^*)
Secondly..
GET A LIFE
First of all, the teacher didnt show the tent scene.. they could have been riding horses together up to the mountain.. OMG HOW OFFENSIVE IS THAT. Plus its a FILM class.. Usually if your gonna be in a film class its not good to be bias and prejudiced.. ugh!
Sometimes America makes me laugh.
K, I'm in Canada and I'm in creative writing.. do you know how many BBM related (gay-themed) stories I've submitted?
Do you know I showed a clip of BBM for my seminar?
Do you know no one had a problem with this?
Do you know I go to a CATHOLIC school?
Catholic school.. "homosexuality is bad" according to our church, but everyone at my school, overwhelming majority, teachers included, have nothing against homosexuals or homosexuality, most have seen BBM and loved it.. My creative writing class had spent a whole 90min class talking about it, and how good it was! CATHOLIC SCHOOL!
That teacher should get a medal for showing such a great film in her class, UGH! ignorance! sorry i had to vent as well...
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BBM mentioned. ;D
Jennis.x
The Calgary Sun
Sun, May 21, 2006
On-screen sizzle
MEMORABLE LIP-LOCKING MOVIE MOMENTS
By LIZ BRAUN
"No, I don't think I will kiss you, although you need kissing, badly. That's what's wrong with you. You should be kissed and often, and by someone who knows how."
(Don't take that personally, gentle reader.)
For the uninitiated, that's Rhett advising Scarlet in Gone With The Wind that she needs more smooch time in her life, and he knows just the guy for the job.
Gone With The Wind is a film that just happens to have a couple of great pucker-up moments. Great kisses of the silver screen (like everything else about the silver screen), are a matter of opinion, not to mention time and place. And age.
If you ask your granny what memorable kisses she saw at the moving pictures, she might say something like From Here To Eternity and mention Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr rolling around on the beach. Hubba, hubba.
A later generation might consider that same Burt Lancaster and Susan Sarandon kissing in Atlantic City for what that kiss represents to each of them; Atlantic City is also the movie in which Toronto blowhard Moses Znaimer gets killed, so it's always worth seeing.
If you ask kids about a memorable kiss at the movies you're likely to hear about Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst in Spider-Man -- Spider-Man hanging upside down in the rain to kiss Mary Jane. This could be because kids understand that with great power of romance comes great responsibility, particularly for genetically modified superheroes. Or maybe it's just something they saw when it was way past their bedtime.
Both men and women vote for the furious reunion kiss between Jack and Ennis (Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger) in Brokeback Mountain.
And most people from other planets cite the smooch between a young Drew Barrymore and E.T. in E.T. -- The Extraterrestrial. Oh, calm down.
All this screen kissing began in 1896 with Thomas Edison's The Kiss (sometimes called The May Irwin Kiss), which was a 20 second Vitascope film.
Perhaps you had to be there? People were mostly scandalized. In the 110 years since, there have been many memorable screen kisses.
Here are a few of the biggies:
- When Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman kiss in Casablanca. At least they'll always have Paris.
- Anytime Humphrey Bogart kissed Lauren Bacall, because of their off-screen relationship, but likely The Big Sleep has the most smoldering of their screen kisses. You know how to whistle, don't you?
- Ingrid Bergman pops up again locking lips with Cary Grant in Notorious. You might want to see Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift kissing in A Place In The Sun, too, and that's enough of the old stuff.
- Sigourney Weaver had her moment as a Major Babe in a film called The Year Of Living Dangerously, and she has a memorable spit swap with Mel Gibson. It was a religious experience, no doubt.
- A lot of people here in the news room insist we mention Colin Firth kissing Jennifer Ehle in the TV movie version of Pride & Prejudice.
- Then there's Michael Douglas and Glenn Close kissing in a forbidden fashion (on the kitchen counter -- like, who'd eat again at her house?) in Fatal Attraction. That was before she boiled the bunny, natch.
- You wouldn't want to miss Holly Hunter kissing wild thing Harvey Keitel in The Piano, or Scarlett Johansson kissing Jonathan Rhys Meyers in Match Point and there was some mighty steamy kissing between William Hurt and Kathleen Turner in Body Heat, right after he throws that chair through the window to get at her.
- Remember Renee Zellweger and Tom Cruise locking lips in Jerry Maguire? He had her at hello, didn't he? He should have quit while he was ahead.
- Leo and Kate in Titanic. Not.
- Jaye Davidson and Stephen Rea in The Crying Game, just before that unexpected penis makes an appearance.
- And finally, do try to see Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty kiss in Splendor In The Grass, because the fundamental things really do apply. As time goes by, don't you think?
http://calsun.canoe.ca/News/National/2006/05/21/1590955-sun.html
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Catholic school.. "homosexuality is bad" according to our church, but everyone at my school, overwhelming majority, teachers included, have nothing against homosexuals or homosexuality, most have seen BBM and loved it.. My creative writing class had spent a whole 90min class talking about it, and how good it was! CATHOLIC SCHOOL!
The one good thing is that there is a lot of passive resistance in the more liberal US Catholic communities. I happen to go to two Catholic churches in Chicago: both totally opposite in outlook. In the more liberal of the two, there is strong passive resistance to every homophobic decree that comes out of the Curia.
As is not a surprise to many of us, Religion is not as 'black and white' as many would want others to believe. To me, this is a good thing.
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Both men and women vote for the furious reunion kiss between Jack and Ennis (Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger) in Brokeback Mountain.
Furious is an understatement! Thanks Jennis. :)
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Both men and women vote for the furious reunion kiss between Jack and Ennis (Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger) in Brokeback Mountain.
Furious is an understatement! Thanks Jennis. :)
understatement = used to make something appear smaller or less important than it really is. It can be used to entertain or to reduce the importance of the truth. ;)
(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv48%2FKennyN%2F20.jpg&hash=7ce64198f9dde9e9f379524b76dda58480b7c2b3)
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Both men and women vote for the furious reunion kiss between Jack and Ennis (Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger) in Brokeback Mountain.
Furious is an understatement! Thanks Jennis. :)
understatement = used to make something appear smaller or less important than it really is. It can be used to entertain or to reduce the importance of the truth. ;)
(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv48%2FKennyN%2F20.jpg&hash=7ce64198f9dde9e9f379524b76dda58480b7c2b3)
Thanks frances. :)
If I had a choice in the wording, I would at least describe that kiss as 'deathless'.
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OMG, didn't realize Jack's nose got smooshed in that scene <sorry OT ;D>
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Love hurts <^( (can actually hear the sound.. ouch :`))
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Both men and women vote for the furious reunion kiss between Jack and Ennis (Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger) in Brokeback Mountain.
Furious is an understatement! Thanks Jennis. :)
understatement = used to make something appear smaller or less important than it really is. It can be used to entertain or to reduce the importance of the truth. ;)
(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv48%2FKennyN%2F20.jpg&hash=7ce64198f9dde9e9f379524b76dda58480b7c2b3)
Thanks frances. :)
If I had a choice in the wording, I would at least describe that kiss as 'deathless'.
<OT> fierce ?..just maybe!
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Both men and women vote for the furious reunion kiss between Jack and Ennis (Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger) in Brokeback Mountain.
Furious is an understatement! Thanks Jennis. :)
understatement = used to make something appear smaller or less important than it really is. It can be used to entertain or to reduce the importance of the truth. ;)
(https://ennisjack.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fv48%2FKennyN%2F20.jpg&hash=7ce64198f9dde9e9f379524b76dda58480b7c2b3)
*FAINTS* <^(
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OMG, didn't realize Jack's nose got smooshed in that scene <sorry OT ;D>
Yes,a near broken nose and Heath is about to have his skin ripped off...LOL.
I think 'Frantic' is the word they should have used. ;D
Jennis.x
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'Brokeback' Gang Moves on to Bob Dylan, 'Lust'
Ledger and Williams co-star again, Ang Lee goes Chinese
May 24 2006
http://www.zap2it.com/movies/news/zap-ledgerwilliamsbobdylanangleelustcaution,0,4815825.story?coll=zap-news-headlines
Real-life "Brokeback Mountain" sweethearts Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams will extend their working relationship to another film.
The Oscar-nominated pair has joined the all-star cast of the Bob Dylan biopic "I'm Not There," according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Ledger will be one of seven actors portraying the singer at different points of his life. Williams will play model Coco Rivington, someone who also catches the musician's eye, although in this part of the film, Cate Blanchett will portray Dylan.
The couple joins the already cast Christian Bale, Julianne Moore and Richard Gere. Production is set to begin in July in Montreal.
Ledger and Williams both received Oscar nominations this year for their performances in "Brokeback Mountain." Although they didn't win, director Ang Lee walked away with a statuette.
Following his win, the filmmaker is shifting to the Chinese-language spy thriller "Lust, Caution."
Set in Shanghai during WWII, the project is based on a short story by Eileen Chang. "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" scribe Wang Hui-Ling will write the adapted screenplay.
Production is scheduled to begin in the fall.
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Yes, the Dylan project has been discussed, but the new Ang Lee adaptation is most interesting news. And another short story -- perhaps Ang Lee realized his inner strength in amplification...
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I don't know if it's already posted.
Like the title!
MOVIE OF THE YEAR
My own private Wyoming
(Shaun de Waal - Mail&Guardian Online)
So much has already been written about Brokeback Mountain that it’s hard to know what else to say. One must, though, clear up a small misunderstanding. The movie is said to be about “gay cowboys”, and that’s not quite right.
First, they are not gay as such. Yes, they do gay stuff (like man-on-man sex), but there’s a difference between doing gay stuff and being gay. “Gay” is a term that indicates self-identification as homosexual, usually male, and really came into its own only after the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York, which marked the official beginning of a gay liberation movement in the United States. Brokeback Mountain is very definitely set before that date (it begins in 1963) and is very specifically about men who do not have access to the affirming discourse of gay liberation. Besides, these two men state in so many words that they are “not queer”. This may seem a small point, but it is a key to the movie. It’s about not being gay.
Second, they aren’t really cowboys. They dress like cowboys, big hats and all, and have pretensions of some kind to that role (which may overlap considerably with masculinity itself in this context), but for most of the movie they are in fact glorified shepherds. Yes, one character does a bit of rodeo bull-riding, but such an activity is a kind of staged performance of cowboyness -- and, in itself, that detail says something about the movie’s subtle commentary on role playing and self-identification. (Talking about the cowboy hats, I note that, in what is perhaps a sly dig at old-style westerns, one of the men wears a white hat and the other a black one.)
In the beautiful, perfectly paced first act of Brokeback Mountain, Ennis (Heath Ledger) and Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) meet when they both take the job of looking after a herd of sheep grazing on the side of the said mountain. Isolated together in this rough rural idyll, they discover each other in unexpected ways, and that is the start of a relationship that will last for another two decades or so. But it will have to be conducted in secret, because their society can’t deal with the idea of two men having a sexual liaison, let alone what is nowadays called a “domestic partnership”. This is not just a matter of time but place; we’re in Wyoming, the heart of conservative America. And it’s not as though a huge amount has changed -- this is the state where a young man was famously murdered for being gay in 1998.
The second act of Brokeback Mountain (and it has only two) describes the aftermath of what happened between Jack and Ennis on the mountainside. The first act covers a month or two; the second moves across decades. Ang Lee, who got the Oscar for best director, and his scriptwriters Larry McMurty and Diana Ossana, who also got Oscars, deal expertly with this passing of time. There are no titles or captions to tell us what year we are now in, but a myriad details show the progress of the years. Clothing styles change and children appear and grow, as does Jack’s moustache.
Subtlety is the movie’s strong suit. Despite what may seem potentially shocking material (to most of the US, at least), the tone of the whole is one of delicacy; as he showed in previous movies such as Eat Drink Man Woman and Sense and Sensibility, not to mention Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Lee has a superb touch for the nuances of emotion. His perception of the human heart has more depth and resonance than a thousand ordinary Hollywood movies put together.
Our feelings for Jack and Ennis develop with their feelings for each other, and the cumulative effect of Brokeback Mountain is deeply involving and, finally, heart-breaking. In retrospect, I almost wished I had left at the halfway mark, before Ennis and Jack leave their mountainside and re-enter a world in which their relationship has no room to breathe. I would love to see the first half of Brokeback Mountain again, but I don’t think I’m strong enough to bear a repeat of the second.
It is probably fair to say that Lee simply told the story he wanted to tell, moulding it through wonderful performances and lovely camera-work, and that’s achievement enough. Make no mistake, Brokeback Mountain is a great film. Yet it’s a movie about the closet, and one feels a little distressed that the biggest “gay” movie ever is a tragedy. Certainly, it’s true to the period and locale in which it is set, and the lesson for today’s audiences couldn’t be clearer. But where, say, is the big gay superhero movie? When do we get to shoot and f*** our way across the screen with amoral abandon like James Bond does? The real triumph would be if no one felt sorry for us any more.
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Subtlety is the movie’s strong suit. ...the tone of the whole is one of delicacy; ...Lee has a superb touch for the nuances of emotion. His perception of the human heart has more depth and resonance than a thousand ordinary Hollywood movies put together.
Beautiful and true. And I do love the title of the article.
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But where, say, is the big gay superhero movie? When do we get to shoot and f*** our way across the screen with amoral abandon like James Bond does? The real triumph would be if no one felt sorry for us any more.
Thank you, Frances, for this good article ;)
IMHO, 1) we don't really need a gay James Bond , 2) Jack and Ennis are the only superheroes for me ! ::)
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Subtlety is the movie’s strong suit. ...the tone of the whole is one of delicacy; ...Lee has a superb touch for the nuances of emotion. His perception of the human heart has more depth and resonance than a thousand ordinary Hollywood movies put together.
Beautiful and true. And I do love the title of the article.
Of course you do!
No, we don't need at all a gay James Bond, Stephan.
I found interesting the part about BBM not being a “gay cowboys" movie
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Of course you do!
Now why do you think that?!!!
"I would love to see the first half of Brokeback Mountain again, but I don’t think I’m strong enough to bear a repeat of the second."
I find this most interesting, as many people find the first part relatively static compared to the second. But I agree. I never tire of watching the first part, and I always dread the flowering of the second part.
There is a severe beauty to the entire second part. What metaphor can I use save to call up the vision of that beautiful but severe cult of Hellenism? BBM is a classical piece of Art in many many rich and surprising ways...
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I find this most interesting, as many people find the first part relatively static compared to the second. But I agree. I never tire of watching the first part, and I always dread the flowering of the second part.
Same here!!! I adore the first part of the movie.....and everytime I watch the movie, I want that summer on the mountain to last forever.....because each time, my heart goes up to brokeback with the two of them, and never wants to come down again.....
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I find this most interesting, as many people find the first part relatively static compared to the second. But I agree. I never tire of watching the first part, and I always dread the flowering of the second part.
Same here!!! I adore the first part of the movie.....and everytime I watch the movie, I want that summer on the mountain to last forever.....because each time, my heart goes up to brokeback with the two of them, and never wants to come down again.....
koka, I sort of identify 'islands' in the movie -- parts where I can breathe freely. I think you can guess that almost all of them are the scenes where they are up in the mountains (even the later sadder ones) EXCEPT the last meeting, which has a fiery beauty to it all.
Th only 'island' not situated in the mountains is the reunion kiss. That scene is incandescent. It burns you to ashes.
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I find this most interesting, as many people find the first part relatively static compared to the second. But I agree. I never tire of watching the first part, and I always dread the flowering of the second part.
Same here!!! I adore the first part of the movie.....and everytime I watch the movie, I want that summer on the mountain to last forever.....because each time, my heart goes up to brokeback with the two of them, and never wants to come down again.....
koka, I sort of identify 'islands' in the movie -- parts where I can breathe freely. I think you can guess that almost all of them are the scenes where they are up in the mountains (even the later sadder ones) EXCEPT the last meeting, which has a fiery beauty to it all.
Th only 'island' not situated in the mountains is the reunion kiss. That scene is incandescent. It burns you to ashes.
My thoughts exactly.
and I just have to say- wow, you have such a way with words!!!! beautiful post! thank you.
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I find this most interesting, as many people find the first part relatively static compared to the second. But I agree. I never tire of watching the first part, and I always dread the flowering of the second part.
Same here!!! I adore the first part of the movie.....and everytime I watch the movie, I want that summer on the mountain to last forever.....because each time, my heart goes up to brokeback with the two of them, and never wants to come down again.....
koka, I sort of identify 'islands' in the movie -- parts where I can breathe freely. I think you can guess that almost all of them are the scenes where they are up in the mountains (even the later sadder ones) EXCEPT the last meeting, which has a fiery beauty to it all.
Th only 'island' not situated in the mountains is the reunion kiss. That scene is incandescent. It burns you to ashes.
My thoughts exactly.
and I just have to say- wow, you have such a way with words!!!! beautiful post! thank you.
I have to second that thought. Truly beautiful post tpe - you truly are gifted.
The time up on the mountain is my favourite part of the film also. I love the scenes with the sheep and all the natural beauty. You really feel like you are there. There's a scene where its raining that is really delicate...and of course their first experience of love and the solitude. Amazing. Can't understand how people could find it boring...
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I find this most interesting, as many people find the first part relatively static compared to the second. But I agree. I never tire of watching the first part, and I always dread the flowering of the second part.
Same here!!! I adore the first part of the movie.....and everytime I watch the movie, I want that summer on the mountain to last forever.....because each time, my heart goes up to brokeback with the two of them, and never wants to come down again.....
koka, I sort of identify 'islands' in the movie -- parts where I can breathe freely. I think you can guess that almost all of them are the scenes where they are up in the mountains (even the later sadder ones) EXCEPT the last meeting, which has a fiery beauty to it all.
Th only 'island' not situated in the mountains is the reunion kiss. That scene is incandescent. It burns you to ashes.
My thoughts exactly.
and I just have to say- wow, you have such a way with words!!!! beautiful post! thank you.
I have to second that thought. Truly beautiful post tpe - you truly are gifted.
The time up on the mountain is my favourite part of the film also. I love the scenes with the sheep and all the natural beauty. You really feel like you are there. There's a scene where its raining that is really delicate...and of course their first experience of love and the solitude. Amazing. Can't understand how people could find it boring...
I know/comprehend why some poeple find it boring, but I can't relate to it. it's because I think that people aren't used to being alone with themselves nowadays. In a world where ( as far as the movie industry is concerned ) it's all about action blockbusters, people aren't used to seeing a movie that is slow and oh so simple in its complexity. people don't know how to enjoy scilence. they don't know what it's like to be part of nature- to blend with nature. they're not used to being forced to face and question themselves and everything they are and stand for. therefore, they don't allow themselves to feel the tremendous ( emotional, amond all others ) power that brokeback has. but alas, that is their loss.
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I know/comprehend why some poeple find it boring, but I can't relate to it. it's because I think that people aren't used to being alone with themselves nowadays. In a world where ( as far as the movie industry is concerned ) it's all about action blockbusters, people aren't used to seeing a movie that is slow and oh so simple in its complexity. people don't know how to enjoy scilence. they don't know what it's like to be part of nature- to blend with nature. they're not used to being forced to face and question themselves and everything they are and stand for. therefore, they don't allow themselves to feel the tremendous ( emotional, amond all others ) power that brokeback has. but alas, that is their loss.
I completely agree. I think the adjustment to the slower pace and the silence is uncomfortable for people, especially in the first act. There is also the need to read between the lines and understand the internal dialogue of the characters and all the unspoken emotions at play in the film. I find the film very meditative and the music is just sublime. You also sense the slow passing of time and the 20 years that go by are experienced somehow in the 2 hours of screen time. All done very subtlely. So many films hit you over the head with images and messages, I think BBM is special precisely because it doesn't do that. Instead it evokes gentler emotions. Its a gentle movie.I love that about it.
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I know/comprehend why some poeple find it boring, but I can't relate to it. it's because I think that people aren't used to being alone with themselves nowadays. In a world where ( as far as the movie industry is concerned ) it's all about action blockbusters, people aren't used to seeing a movie that is slow and oh so simple in its complexity. people don't know how to enjoy scilence. they don't know what it's like to be part of nature- to blend with nature. they're not used to being forced to face and question themselves and everything they are and stand for. therefore, they don't allow themselves to feel the tremendous ( emotional, amond all others ) power that brokeback has. but alas, that is their loss.
I completely agree. I think the adjustment to the slower pace and the silence is uncomfortable for people, especially in the first act. There is also the need to read between the lines and understand the internal dialogue of the characters and all the unspoken emotions at play in the film. I find the film very meditative and the music is just sublime. You also sense the slow passing of time and the 20 years that go by are experienced somehow in the 2 hours of screen time. All done very subtlely. So many films hit you over the head with images and messages, I think BBM is special precisely because it doesn't do that. Instead it evokes gentler emotions. Its a gentle movie.I love that about it.
you read my mind girl!
I think brokeback is very mind provoking actually. it challanges you. you're either 'in' or you're not. and if you're in, if you're willing to let go, to allow yourself to experience, to understand, to read between the lines, to feel and to comprehend then you'll be able to fully enjoy the movie and suffer tremendously while watching it- at the same time. but if you remain closed and unwilling to be PART of the movie, then you're just gonna spend two hours of your life sitting in front of a screen and asking yourself what the hell you are doing here. because brokeback is everything but simple- it requires your PARTITIPATION. each time a person sees the movie, he or she becomes part of it and part of the creating process. brokeback is no one way street. it offers you emotions and then it's all up to you to decide what you want to do with them- whether you want to receive them and EXPERIENCE them while watching the movie or whether you want block them and pull back, remaining utterly cold and...closed. so it's all up to you. all the people on this forum, each and every single one of us- we decided to open our hearts&souls, we decided to take the emotions and to experience them on a personal level. thus we took part in CREATING brokeback mountain. and for that I am grateful to all of you.
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I just spoke this morning with my neighbor and 2 gay friends. My neighbor still insists that the first part was too slow.
When you are in the midst of a delicious dream, you never want it to end. Ang Lee articulated this scene with the deliberation and depth that we have come to associate with the pace of his movie-making. It is only fitting that Brokeback mountain itself is established as the primordial character in this story. The mountain as character is in itself a personification of their love.
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'Brokeback Mountain' inspires pop song
Monday, May 22, 2006[/b]
HONG KONG - The Associated Press
In its latest contribution to Chinese popular culture, the movie "Brokeback Mountain" has inspired a new song about forbidden love.
The Oscar-winning gay romance's popularity in the Chinese-speaking world, helped by the fame of its Taiwanese director, Ang Lee, has already made the term "Brokeback" popular slang in Cantonese, the Chinese dialect spoken in southern China, including Hong Kong.
Hong Kong media have used the term "Brokeback" to describe homosexuals or awkward relationships. Some gay activists consider the usage derogatory because it appears to treat homosexuals as exotic people.
Hong Kong lyricist Wyman Wong has gone further, penning a Chinese song whose title comes from the movie's most famous line, "I wish I knew how to quit you."
The song, performed by Hong Kong singer Denise Ho, is on her latest album, "Our Time Has Come."
Let me go out let me fly
Saunter for two days and back to this spot
I will die if caring for you ceased
was it because you hid my soul
I cant even control myself
made too many mistakes because of you
To look you up again I knew
I have to give up happiness as well
How wonderful are you actually
failing to meet someone like you elsewhere
make me revisit this path
close on losing my years of integrity
Yet I took the step
Is there no other in this boundless world
*Wish I could learn to quit you
only to allow me to look for a new confidante
gazing at your beautiful face with the likes of a scenic painting
the leaving me always stay rooted
Wish I was extreme enough to kick you aside
but how do I refuse those welcoming arms
I knew I could win
but I like to lose to you
Just as if you are me
How could I knifed you hurt you with my own hands*
How wonderful are you actually
failing to meet someone like you elsewhere
Beautiful to the extent of being dangerous
close on losing my years of integrity
Yet I took the step
The earth along the way to the hills has turned charred
I could only cut my heart out and give it to you personally
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I know/comprehend why some poeple find it boring, but I can't relate to it. it's because I think that people aren't used to being alone with themselves nowadays. In a world where ( as far as the movie industry is concerned ) it's all about action blockbusters, people aren't used to seeing a movie that is slow and oh so simple in its complexity. people don't know how to enjoy scilence. they don't know what it's like to be part of nature- to blend with nature. they're not used to being forced to face and question themselves and everything they are and stand for. therefore, they don't allow themselves to feel the tremendous ( emotional, amond all others ) power that brokeback has. but alas, that is their loss.
Well said Koka!
From the article:
"Our feelings for Jack and Ennis develop with their feelings for each other, and the cumulative effect of Brokeback Mountain is deeply involving and, finally, heart-breaking. In retrospect, I almost wished I had left at the halfway mark, before Ennis and Jack leave their mountainside and re-enter a world in which their relationship has no room to breathe. I would love to see the first half of Brokeback Mountain again, but I don’t think I’m strong enough to bear a repeat of the second."
Their time up on BBM passes too quickly everytime I watch it. I find their time up on BBM to be bittersweet. I love watching them fall in love and I fall harder with them and each time the end becomes more unbearable.
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I know/comprehend why some poeple find it boring, but I can't relate to it. it's because I think that people aren't used to being alone with themselves nowadays. In a world where ( as far as the movie industry is concerned ) it's all about action blockbusters, people aren't used to seeing a movie that is slow and oh so simple in its complexity. people don't know how to enjoy scilence. they don't know what it's like to be part of nature- to blend with nature. they're not used to being forced to face and question themselves and everything they are and stand for. therefore, they don't allow themselves to feel the tremendous ( emotional, amond all others ) power that brokeback has. but alas, that is their loss.
Well said Koka!
From the article:
"Our feelings for Jack and Ennis develop with their feelings for each other, and the cumulative effect of Brokeback Mountain is deeply involving and, finally, heart-breaking. In retrospect, I almost wished I had left at the halfway mark, before Ennis and Jack leave their mountainside and re-enter a world in which their relationship has no room to breathe. I would love to see the first half of Brokeback Mountain again, but I don’t think I’m strong enough to bear a repeat of the second."
Their time up on BBM passes too quickly everytime I watch it. I find their time up on BBM to be bittersweet. I love watching them fall in love and I fall harder with them and each time the end becomes more unbearable.
Beautifully put!
We fall in love with them as they fall in love with each other. That is why their joy becomes our joy, their pain becomes our pain, their death becomes out death. Their love is our love.
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Beautifully put!
We fall in love with them as they fall in love with each other. That is why their joy becomes our joy, their pain becomes our pain, their death becomes out death. Their love is our love.
here I go :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'( :\'(
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Oh my God.... :-\\ :\'( :\'( :\'(
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This is a link I found from bettermost.net in which the person will be attending teh festival commerating Brokeback Mountain day on JUNE 12 in Castro selling T-SHIRT with quotes of BBM all PROFITS go to the MATHEW SHEPPARD FOUNDATION maybe interesting to take a look at it
Sorry guys I had to delete the link for the following reason, it breaks my heart but all the Mods discussed about it and we have concensus, this is s reminder of our guidelines,
Chameau
"Commercial Messages
Posts/profiles containing promotional messages without prior permission for commercial or charitable products or services -- included but not limited to Internet sites such as blogs, business advertisements and solicitations to business transactions or any personal interests -- will be removed. Unfortunately, it is impossible to verify the validity of each charitable organization, therefore, in an effort to protect our users from fraud, we must prohibit solicitations for charities, and all business transactions. If you receive spam via PM or email of such messages from members, please report it to the administrative staff"
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This is a link I found from bettermost.net in which the person will be attending teh festival commerating Brokeback Mountain day on JUNE 12 in Castro selling T-SHIRT with quotes of BBM all PROFITS go to the MATHEW SHEPPARD FOUNDATION maybe interesting to take a look at it
That's wonderful that the profits will go to Matthew's foundation.Thanks for the link.
J.x
Sorry guys I had to delete the link for the following reason, it breaks my heart but all the Mods discussed about it and we have concensus, this is s reminder of our guidelines,
Chameau
"Commercial Messages
Posts/profiles containing promotional messages without prior permission for commercial or charitable products or services -- included but not limited to Internet sites such as blogs, business advertisements and solicitations to business transactions or any personal interests -- will be removed. Unfortunately, it is impossible to verify the validity of each charitable organization, therefore, in an effort to protect our users from fraud, we must prohibit solicitations for charities, and all business transactions. If you receive spam via PM or email of such messages from members, please report it to the administrative staff"
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I know/comprehend why some poeple find it boring, but I can't relate to it. it's because I think that people aren't used to being alone with themselves nowadays. In a world where ( as far as the movie industry is concerned ) it's all about action blockbusters, people aren't used to seeing a movie that is slow and oh so simple in its complexity. people don't know how to enjoy scilence. they don't know what it's like to be part of nature- to blend with nature. they're not used to being forced to face and question themselves and everything they are and stand for. therefore, they don't allow themselves to feel the tremendous ( emotional, amond all others ) power that brokeback has. but alas, that is their loss.
I completely agree. I think the adjustment to the slower pace and the silence is uncomfortable for people, especially in the first act. There is also the need to read between the lines and understand the internal dialogue of the characters and all the unspoken emotions at play in the film. I find the film very meditative and the music is just sublime.
I am a meditator. I started meditating when I was in high school (89-91) and have had a consistent practice ever since 2000. Meditation has been a powerful tool to me and I just wanted to add to this thread by adding that by calming the mind, but allowing all of our racing thoughts and emotions still (if you need a good metaphor, watch Heath in all his interviews - he can't sit still!) you allow yourself to experience what is called "pure being." You simply "are." By bringing our mind down to a pure state of observation (mindfulness) we do not lose sight of inherent meaning.
Still with me? :)
I LOVE how the movie plays between the serenity and calm abiding of nature accompanies the love of Jack and Ennis. It helps to bring the audience's own mind down to a level of observation where they won't be distracted by anything unnecessary. That coupled with the gorgeous non-spoken dialog Ang works throughout the film with his imagery, and there's no surprise why it received the most Oscar nominations!
:\'(
PSB is striking again...I think I should stop posting til I get a better grip. LOL
Peace,
Jim
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In a sense. the movie is a meditation on the myriad aspect of love. It is hard to view the movie dispassionately without somehow acknowledging the transience of all human emotions. Nevertheless, in the Buddhist sense, the tragedy of Ennis and Jack can cleanse us to a significant degree. It is this purging power that brings us closer to a deeper appreciation of human nature, and that which transcends it in the grand scheme of things.
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It is this purging power that brings us closer to a deeper appreciation of human nature, and that which transcends it in the grand scheme of things.
We could go one step further and discuss how the power of this movie revolves around attachment. Since all emotions begin and end in the mind, the true love so compelling and arresting in this movie already exists in our mind. And if we learn to experience it freely (and not only when someone we have set our desires upon - thus empowering them to be the trigger which brings forward that depth of love from within us) then we can begin to see what love truly is.
But I'm far from enlightened...and I don't know about you...but I still need movies like BBM to help me still feel that love within myself at all. :)
Jim
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It is this purging power that brings us closer to a deeper appreciation of human nature, and that which transcends it in the grand scheme of things.
We could go one step further and discuss how the power of this movie revolves around attachment. Since all emotions begin and end in the mind, the true love so compelling and arresting in this movie already exists in our mind. And if we learn to experience it freely (and not only when someone we have set our desires upon - thus empowering them to be the trigger which brings forward that depth of love from within us) then we can begin to see what love truly is.
But I'm far from enlightened...and I don't know about you...but I still need movies like BBM to help me still feel that love within myself at all. :)
Jim
Jim, we all strive to find the Meaning of the Law.
And yes, I do think BBM is a great mirror that reveals what is deep inside us.
Thanks for your thoughts. :)
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It also has the effects of creating pity and fear in the minds of the audience - it's a tragedy by the Aristotelian definition.