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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000088&sid=ad1tFI5vBQq4&refer=culture------------------------------------------------------
`Brokeback' Is Classic Romance; `Crash' Gets Overheated: DVDs (The opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect those of Bloomberg.)
By Peter Rainer
April 12 (Bloomberg) -- What if they gave a culture war and nobody came? Despite all the hoo-ha about ``Brokeback Mountain'' at the time of its theatrical release, the biggest story turned out to be its loss to ``Crash'' for the best-picture Oscar.
Ang Lee's ``gay Western'' did respectable box-office business and was fodder for Leno and Letterman for months. Even Wal-Mart began selling the DVD last week, over the objections of the American Family Association, a conservative religious organization in Tupelo, Mississippi.
Seeing ``Brokeback Mountain'' again on DVD reinforced for me what many thought at the time; gay trappings aside, the film is in many ways a classic Hollywood romance about doomed love. Jake Gyllenhaal's rodeo rider and Heath Ledger's cowboy are unable to live a life together because of when and where they were born.
The film might have been more threatening to mainstream audiences if, instead of ending tragically, it closed on a high note with the guys living blissfully together in a log cabin somewhere. Instead, their victimization is the capstone to the film's sentimentality.
Much of the film, however, transcends schmaltz. ``Brokeback Mountain'' is not only about the miseries of the two men but also about the effect that their long-term affair has on the women in their lives. The performances of Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway have been somewhat overlooked in all the huzzahs for Gyllenhaal and Ledger, but their work gives the film a full-scale resonance it might not otherwise have.
The DVD extras are disappointing. A featurette on Lee is filled with cast and crew comments better suited to a testimonial dinner, while the director himself is overly reticent. Interviews with screenwriters Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry are equally unrevealing. No doubt a fuller ``special edition'' is -- or should be -- planned for the future. (Universal, $34.99.)
`Crash'
And what of the film that unseated front-runner ``Brokeback Mountain'' at the Oscars? Paul Haggis's ``Crash'' was previously available on a single DVD disc and has now been issued in a two- disc format with a few minutes of extra footage.
The anointing of this overheated diatribe will probably prove to be one of Oscar's classic bonehead moments. Maybe not quite as bad as awarding the best picture to Cecil B. DeMille's ``Greatest Show on Earth'' in 1952, but it's close.
Set during a 36-hour time span in a Los Angeles ready to explode from racial and ethnic tensions, ``Crash'' manages the neat bait-and-switch tactic of exploiting those tensions while seeming to address them.
The cast, including Matt Dillon, Don Cheadle and Terrence Howard, is better than this film deserves. Extras include a video of Bird York's Oscar-nominated theme song, ``In the Deep.'' (Lions Gate, $26.98.)
`Edvard Munch'
The British filmmaker Peter Watkins has had a long and infuriating career as the director of such films as ``Culloden'' and ``The War Game,'' a nuclear holocaust drama that gave me nightmares as a kid.
His 1976 ``Edvard Munch,'' which runs almost three hours, is Watkins's highly idiosyncratic take on the great Norwegian artist. The cast is amateur but the visuals are sophisticated.
The DVD contains a 24-page booklet featuring Watkins's self- interview. In English, Norwegian and German, with optional English and French subtitles. (New Yorker, $29.95.)
Last Updated: April 12, 2006 00:14 EDT
