I finally go to see the film Brokeback Mountain and fail to understand what the fuss is about. I’ve read the Annie Proulx short story: unusually, you can read the story in less time than it takes to sit through the movie adaptation. Perhaps it’s because I already know the story, or perhaps it’s because it’s more about denial and frustration than love, but I leave the cinema unmoved to tears save for one moment: and that was the trailer for ‘March Of The Penguins’. <\/p>\n
‘Brokeback’ starts brilliantly: the sexual tension between the two male leads in the first half-hour is truly astounding and genuinely sensual. After that, it becomes a slow, scenically attractive study of macho Mr Ledger’s failure to accept his feelings. He channels his frustration into manly violence and mumbling (I could have done with subtitles), while doe-eyed Mr Gyllenhaal flutters his long eyelashes at Mexican rent boys by way of compensation for Mr Ledger’s lack of commitment. <\/p>\n
Mr G is more accepting of his nature: he knows the two men are meant to be together, but Mr L insists this is impossible. It doesn’t help that the latter is haunted by a childhood trauma, where he was shown the grisly results of a local queerbashing. He mumbles ‘If you can’t fix it, you’ve got to stand it’, which is also the last line in the Proulx story. <\/p>\n
The movie starts out impressively as a celebration of the effect of Mother Nature (you come out whistling the scenery) upon Human Nature, suggesting that gayness is utterly natural and instinctive: literally as old as the hills. Those ‘purple-headed mountains’ in the hymn All Things Bright And Beautiful rather spring to mind. Less inneundo-minded, the implicitly Sappho-erotic ‘Picnic At Hanging Rock’ could also be compared. Ancient, magnificent, mysterious landscapes tampering with the emotional world of humans. <\/p>\n
But then it becomes a rather depressing and old-fashioned tale about the need to deny such feelings once set in motion. It’s about homophobia, both internalized and institutionalised. It even has a very obvious metaphor for ‘closeted’ at the end. And yet, it’s been presented to the world as nothing to do with gayness per se. This is what really annoys me. <\/p>\n
I appreciate that the producers have toned down the actual depiction of homosexuality in order to get as many people to see it as possible. I’m reminded of Quentin Crisp lamenting that The Naked Civil Servant had to be a TV movie, because a cinema release would have only been seen, as he puts it, ‘purely by gay men and liberals wishing to be seen going into and coming out of the cinema.’ For Brokeback, I would add to that list fans of male beauty and women fascinated with gay men (as long as they’re attractive): I noted most of my fellow cinemagoers were female. <\/p>\n
To this end, Brokeback Mountain wants to have its gay protest cake and eat it. The boy-on-boy action and male nudity is kept to a curiously prudish minimum. The director, Mr Lee, seems more interested in showing us the breasts of the protagonists’ wives than the men’s own nether regions. Why? <\/p>\n
All in all, it’s lovely to look at, and a pretty good adaptation of the original story… but one which isn’t all that original. Worryingly, I’m most reminded of the groundbreaking 1960 UK film “Victim” in which Dirk Bogarde plays a barrister blackmailed into revealing his love for a rent boy. It’s not a great film because it’s too aware that it’s trying to Do Good in its call for toleration. Likewise with Brokeback Mountain: at face value it’s smothered by its own message. But even this is smothered in turn by the presentation, distribution and promotional spin telling critics and moviegoers how to interpret the film. Don’t you dare call it a gay cowboy movie, they instruct, it’s more about love, pure and simple. Well, that’s at best missing the point, at worst a promotion of ignorance and negative connotations with homosexuality. <\/p>\n
So you either adore Brokeback Mountain as a pretty romance, meaning you’re not paying too much attention. Or you realise what it’s actually about, and are then left feeling it’s a quaint period piece in the old-fashioned ‘gayness can come to no good’ ilk.<\/p>\n
It’s certainly not a patch on Mr Lee’s other movies like the excellent ‘The Ice Storm’. Still, it IS much better than his previous opus, ‘Hulk’. Another movie with not enough gay sex in for my liking. And why did The Hulk’s trousers never rip off along with the rest of his clothes? Oh, I’ve stopped being serious now, haven’t I. Actually, did you know the reason for the 70s ‘Incredible Hulk’ TV series altering Bruce Banner’s name (as it was in the comic) to David Banner? Because the name ‘Bruce’ was thought to be… too gay. It all links, you know. <\/p>\n
Anyone who calls Brokeback Mountain a ‘universal love story’ is in denial. About a movie about denial. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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