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If you've read the Datebook section of the newspaper in the past month or
two, chances are that you've heard of this new movie called Brokeback
Mountain. It's slightly less probable that you have actually seen it,
however. When a couple of my friends and I set out on a quest to see the
movie after its initial release, we were shocked to find out that it was only
playing in one theater in San Francisco, despite the fact that it was
expected to have a warm reception in our liberal city. The Chronicle featured
the movie twice before it was released to the public and one of these
articles was a featured Datebook front page. At the least, we were bewildered
at the fact that only one theater had had the financial foresight to run the
movie. We were also annoyed that it was clearly enjoying the same amount of
popularity that it would have had it been playing in major theaters, and we
could not get tickets in the sold out theaters for love or money.
On our third try going to see the movie, we realized that we could
reserve tickets online. As we finally took our seats and waited for the movie
to start, my friend and I were squeaking with anticipation. We had been
discussing the movie for weeks, and we were excited to see it. My friend and
I squeezed each other's hands when we saw the two gorgeous stars of the film
appear on the screen in front of us. Little did we know that they would age
about thirty years over the course of the film, gain more facial hair and
become decidedly less attractive.
The film Brokeback Mountain was based on a
short story written by Annie Proulx, a master at describing lonely scenes in
the rural Midwest. Her stories are brilliantly narrated, usually melancholy
and sometimes verge on depressing because of the intense sense of loneliness
which is typically portrayed in them. The director Ang Lee, did a wonderful
job of letting the loneliness of rural life carry over into the movie,
which featured wide sweeping shots of mountains, fields and small towns. The
only problem in the translation came in the length. Annie Proulx wrote
a short story, but Ang Lee made an exasperatingly long
movie. I found out that there is such a thing as too many wide sweeping
shots of the rural Midwest, as well as too little dialogue. This feeling was
absent from Proulx's story not only because of the length but also because
the medium of fiction allows the writer to fill in empty places with
description and the characters do not need to constantly be doing something
entertaining. The readers of Proulx's short story, for example, might be
interested to read a long but well written description of Ennis cooking beans
over a fire, but the audience of the movie probably does not want to see the
equivalent of that scene on film.
Although in the beginning some of the love scenes between the two main
actors were pretty hot, they were overpowered by the intense loneliness of
the story. Their separation was hard to bear, especially because their lives
were extremely boring and unhappy when they were away from each other and
did not make for a good movie. That said, it didn't really seem like they
were as in love as they were made out to be (no pun intended). Their love
seemed to be mostly comprised of carnal acts, longing, and talking about how
they missed the other, how they wanted to be together and how in love they
were. There were a few scenes in which they showed genuine affection, but
more often their affection was conveyed by discussing it, rather than
showing it.
The whole movie was depressing in that you can't help but want them to
just be together. Their lives are so sad and they are rarely persecuted for
their homosexuality, but the fear of being persecuted costs them their
lives together. The film is set in a time when sodomy was still illegal,
causing homophobia to be not only rampant, but also legally enforced. Whether
one loves the movie or not, it is an undeniably strong case against
homophobia, which should not be ignored in the current political climate.
When popular opinion discredits same sex marriage it is obvious that we
heterosexuals still often view homosexual relationships as somehow less than
our heterosexual relationships, even if we claim to accept them. Whether
the movie is boring or interesting, it brings gay discrimination into the
limelight while using an older storyline to illuminate the still present
problem. As art often has the power to draw attention to important social
issues, hopefully Brokeback Mountain will make people think twice
about homophobia in their own lives. Despite its flaws, it is an important
cultural statement and should be seen by every American, regardless of
age, sex, race or sexual orientation.
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