| Field | Details |
|---|---|
| Movie Name | Brokeback Mountain (2005) |
| Director | Ang Lee |
| Writer | Larry McMurtry, Diana Ossana (based on Annie Proulx’s short story) |
| Lead Actor | Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal |
| Cast | Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway, Randy Quaid |
| Genre | Drama, Romance |
| Release Date | December 9, 2005 (USA) |
| Duration | 2 hours 14 minutes |
| Budget | Approx. $14 million |
| Language | English |
| IMDb Rating | 7.7/10 |
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Ennis del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) meet when they are hired to tend sheep on Brokeback Mountain during the summer of 1963. Ennis is the archetype of the American cowboy, stoic and taciturn. Jack, who dreams of becoming a bronco busting rodeo star, is loquacious, cheerful, and open. One thing leads to another between these young men of such opposite temperaments and a summer romance blossoms in the isolation of their mountainside campsite. When the summer ends, they return to their separate lives, with Ennis in particular anxious to marry fiancée Alma (Michelle Williams). Jack, too, eventually settles down to life with Lureen (Anne Hathaway, finally leaving The Princess Diaries behind) and even manages to raise his station in life by marrying into her well off family. Brokeback Mountain becomes a memory until Jack roils the waters by contacting Ennis.
Based on an Annie Proulx short story and adapted by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, Brokeback Mountain takes place over a period of 20 years. The gorgeous expanse of countryside (mainly Alberta, Canada, subbing for the United States) dwarfs the human figures moving across the landscape. It is a small, intimate story that is given epic weight by the expanse of time and by the way both men’s lives are consumed in their efforts to keep their relationship concealed. Their love may be pure, but the secrecy is a poison that visits itself on them and their families.
The cast relies on very little makeup to suggest the passage of two decades, time passing instead through clothes, music, and hair (particularly Hathaway’s). But it is these outer cues that are the most poignant, because eventually the 1960s give way to the ’70s and ’80s. In another part of the United States, Stonewall was taking place, gay men were establishing a beachhead in San Francisco’s Castro district, and the closet was starting to fly open. But, for Ennis and Jack, all of that may as well be happening on Mars. While Jack complains that their relationship is limited to “a couple of high altitude f*cks” and would happily start over somewhere else, Ennis is more circumspect. “We could end up dead,” he cautions Jack, terrified at what might happen if anyone finds out about the true nature of their friendship. It never occurs to him that his reticence by itself constitutes a tragedy.
In the end, the film belongs not to Lee or the writers but to the two actors at its center, Ledger and Gyllenhaal. Gyllenhaal is fine, the young colt who grows increasingly sadder with the passage of time, but it’s Ledger who is truly transcendent. This is his third movie this year channeling Val Kilmer, he was the best part of Lords of Dogtown, and he was excellent as conscientious con man Jacob Grimm in The Brothers Grimm. With Brokeback Mountain, he breaks through to another level. Ennis is a man of few words who rarely shows what he’s feeling, but Ledger, through body language and expression, is able to convey each conflicting emotion that has turned Ennis’ life into something akin to purgatory.
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