2008 Woodie Awards
Heath Ledger lassoes a worthy performance in "Brokeback Mountain"
Christopher Wood
Issue date: 1/26/06 Section: Arts & Entertainment
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Based on a short story by E. Annie Proulx, Brokeback Mountain tells of two cowboys who fall in love while herding sheep one season in 1963 Wyoming. After they complete their work, the men go their separate ways, each marrying and raising families in different parts of the country. The two lovers occasionally sneak away from their familial and social obligations and resume their relationship.
The film, speedily traversing twenty-plus years, depicts the effects this taboo love has on its participants and their families. Part of Brokeback's drawing-power is the fact that its two stars, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, take on roles here which starkly oppose their Hollywood personas as (heterosexual) sex symbols.
Given this and the film's controversial theme, it is difficult to view Brokeback Mountain objectively (if an impartial viewpoint ever exists within such a subjective medium). The viewer thus spends the first part of the movie distracted, nervously anticipating the circumstances in which its silent-but-strong heroes will shed their macho personas and come together.
Many subtle clues along the way signal the inevitable; in one scene for instance, Gyllenhaal's character Jack Twist laughingly comments on how he and his companion, Ennis Del Mar, will both be sent to hell when the Rapture comes.
Ennis confidently replies with words to the effect of, "Speak for yourself. I don't believe I've ever committed a sin in my whole life." At that moment the two seem to exchange a knowing look in the dancing glow of the campfire.
Many such quiet gazes permeate the film's first sequence. But do I, knowing what's to come, imagine these restrained looks of longing between the two cowboys? Do I put my own meaning into sideways glances and see double-entendres where only harmless conversation exists?
I ask these questions because the film never makes it clear at what point the cowboys find themselves attracted to one another.
Generally in romantic tales there is that first moment of connection between two characters, revealed via stirring music or other cinematic means, signaling to the audience the seeds of love. But then, Brokeback Mountain is not an ordinary love story (at least not in the filmic sense). Maybe the problem is I expect the relationship to operate under the same principles as Hollywood-defined heterosexuality, and the film refuses to conform to viewers' expectations.
In addition to the clashes between nature and civilization and past and present, what dominates the film is the struggle over sexual identity and the demands of society.
Ennis and Jack find themselves cowboys, an occupation and way of life which is the ideal of rugged individuality, the last bastion and pure expression of manhood, and thus of heterosexuality, left in the cultural landscape. These homosexual men struggle to live up to societal norms, partly expressed through a preponderance of westerns in the national cinema, thus making Brokeback a self-reflexive piece in this respect.
After their initial sexual encounter, both men gruffly deny being "queer," and to prove it - to themselves and their community - Ennis quickly gets married.
However, their love for each other remains true and unflagging as their children grow and their marriages wane. They keep their relationship a secret, because their family and friends simply wouldn't understand - or allow it.
Jack, appearing less wise in the ways of the world than his companion, continuously complains about the secrecy involved, lamenting to himself at one point that it's "never enough time [with Ennis], never enough."
Ennis responds calmly with these words: "If you can't fix it, you gotta stand it." Jack's inability to restrain his passions leads him into further complications, while his lover remains the cowboy archetype: silently wrestling with himself while alone on the frontier, which constantly shrinks in size until Ennis is confined to a cramped, dusty trailer at the end of the film.
Heath Ledger's mesmerizing performance as Ennis towers above the work of the other actors, and is Brokeback Mountain's greatest achievement. At first his slurred, indistinct speech seems phony; a twenty-something teen heartthrob trying too hard to be a grizzled cowpoke.
The film progresses, however, and he quickly breaks in his drawl like a pair of work boots. The sound of Ennis's voice becomes an indelible part of his character. His stilted words, coupled with Ledger's facial structure (the knitted eyebrows, the puffy area around his mouth), show a man finding it hard to articulate his feelings.
These bottled-up desires eventually explode outward and manifest in shocking ways.
The first time Ennis and Jack make love (done with a hand-held long take) is particularly jarring, for Ledger's brilliant handling of the dialogue-free scene.
Ennis violently pushes Jack away in the cramped tent when he advances, but he eventually submits to Jack and to his own passions. This scene and several others depict a confused man desperately attempting to reaffirm his manhood by resorting to violence.
Ennis spends his existence caught between the needs of his heart and the demands of his social world. The latter is mostly a silent character in the film (manifested in bit players such as Jack's arrogant father-in-law), but nonetheless ubiquitous and far-reaching in its influence on Ennis.
This character struggles to define and accept who he is, and Ledger makes palpable the pain inflicted on Ennis from this lifelong battle. Despite his family's urgings, he refuses to marry, and distances himself more and more from society, knowing that the world shunned him first for what he is.
Worried about disgracing the cowboy heritage, Ennis ultimately comes to embody its romanticized image - that of the self-exiled nomad, unable to call any physical place home except his heart, and a natural landscape idealized in some hidden corner of the past: Brokeback Mountain.