Brokeback Mountain Tribute Page

Brokeback Mountain'

by Allan Hunter

Cinema's most iconic love stories all end in tears. There was no happy-ever-after ending for Rhett and Scarlett in Gone With The Wind or Rick and Ilsa in Casablanca. Ali MacGraw died in Love Story and Celia Johnson chose the option of least resistance in Brief Encounter by returning to her husband. Brokeback Mountain is a worthy addition to such enduring classics, a sombre tale of impossible love that almost feels like a deliberate antidote to Hollywood candyfloss.

Ang Lee's imposing, beautifully judged film has a depth of feeling all too rare in modern cinema. Slow-moving and understated, it builds into a soulful heartbreaker that rests lightly on the shoulders of two exceptional performances from Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal. The easy label of a gay cowboy drama barely does justice to a film suffused with sadness and tenderness that can speak to anyone who has longed for something that can never be.

The film begins in the summer of 1963 and marks the passage of time in subtle changes of hairstyle, appearance and attitude that never jar. Jack Twist (Gyllenhaal) and Ennis Del Mar (Ledger) are two Marlboro Man cowboys hired to tend a vast flock of sheep on the isolated Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming. In the peace of the mountains, a warm friendship develops that eventually becomes sexual. Both men are overwhelmed by the emotion of the relationship yet neither can articulate what it means to them or take a chance that it could last away from the Eden-like simplicity of their wilderness.

The men drift into marriages and family life, but their time on Brokeback Mountain returns to haunt them and eventually defines and destroys their sense of happiness.

Based on a short story by Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain values restraint and economy. Much is left unsaid but nothing is ever in doubt. Ledger's Ennis conserves his emotions the way a miser hordes his wealth. A shrug of the shoulders, a distressed look and a mumbled aside are the only clues to the way he has been bruised by life. He is a damaged individual when he arrives at Brokeback Mountain and even love cannot heal him. He is the one who urges caution and preaches realism when the more hot-headed Jack suggests they could buy a ranch and build a life together. "It ain't going to be that way," he declares with a chilling finality.

The prejudice and opposition the two men might face are like invisible forces, revealed only in fleeting moments and incidents.

The film gives some weight to the women in their lives, with Michelle Williams impressing as Ennis's feisty wife Alma and Anne Hathaway breathing life into the sketchily drawn Lureen, Jack's tough, ambitious wife. What matters most, though, are the performances of Ledger and Gyllenhaal, who are convincing as men of the West and as individuals doomed by their feelings and the times in which they live.

Despite media controversy about their physical intimacy in the film, what ultimately dominates is the emotional bond they forge in an elegiac adult love story destined for Oscar glory.

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