15 years of Brokeback Mountain

Cast- Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway, Michelle Williams

Director- Ang Lee

Cowboys, roping cattle, riding bulls and the western landscape - western classics are known for the cowboy and cowgirl romance at the countryside, a love for freedom of the wide-open west or it can be called a different kind of love. Brokeback Mountain is a movie of same sorts but with a cowboy romance, redefining the term ‘a man’s man’.

With the experimentation of genre and the evolution of cinema, we have seen many masterpieces created, revolutionary cinema, talking about the taboo and unacceptable, putting into limelight this form of cinema. In today’s world, a large amount of cinema is inspired by the new reforms happening around the world, bringing up the revolution, following the lines of ‘Gay romance’. The emergence of queer romance can be traced back to the early 1950s and 1960s, in response and rejection to the Hays Code- a production code that “formalized the verdict that homosexuality could not be represented in actors or words on the screen.” The Hays code upheld a moral standard and prohibited any sort of ‘indecency’, hence the filmmakers found strategies to create queer stories, curved around mainstream romance. Many filmmakers gave rise to the expression of queer cinema through the genre of camp- a style of exaggeration that inverts the linear narrative style and artistic aesthetics that are often identified with high art cinema. It is not uncommon to see the dark side to queer cinema it is many a times coupled with trauma, invasion of privacy, gruesome violence like execution resulting from the taboo and the real world crimes. However, over the years, the world of cinema has let down the guard and added gay romance into the mainstream romance genre; it has also helped in shining light on the LGBTQ+ community.

Films if one chooses to look close enough; have veiled messages that reflect society today.

Brokeback Mountain, directed by Ang Lee, based on a novel of the same name, written by Annie Proulx, runs around the lines of western, romance and drama. The film had the most nominations at the 78th Academy Awards, where it won three- Best Director, Best Adopted Screenplay and Best Original Score.

The two main characters of the film are heterosexual cowboys who have a sexual attraction in each other’s presence. The film can be viewed from different viewpoints. One can be the cowboys—secretly in love but afraid to come out during a time infamous for crimes against gay romance. The other can be of the family life of the respective characters, the chocked-up wife of Ennis and the blinded girlfriend of Jack.

The movie initiates with the two protagonists working on the fields of the Brokeback Mountain, we see a sense of attractive and frustration building up. The film has been categorized under the ‘the gay cowboy movie’ over the years. The first few minutes develop a clear male gaze, with Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) looking at Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) through the side view mirror. The gaze has been further expanded with several other instances of the gaze, like the presence or watch of the sheep of the cowboys’ sexual encounter, their owner’s stare through the binoculars from a distance and the final gaze when the men meet after an interval of four years. According to Laura Mulvey, the male gaze theory is the male gaze is the act of depicting women, in the visual arts and literature, from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents the women as sexual objects for pleasure of the male viewers. However, the film Brokeback Mountain develops the male gaze within the characters showcased as bisexual, homosexual or rather a sexuality to explore. The Los Angeles Times declared the film to be, “a deeply felt, emotional love story deals with the uncharted, mysterious ways of the human heart just as so many mainstream movies have done it before it. The two lovers here just happen to be men.”

The movie has been shot majorly from a low angle and with the subtle backdrop of the western mountains’ landscape sets the mood of the story. With many sky shots to determine the time of day, and multiple close-up shots determine the expression and the mind-state of the characters. The picturesque landscape makes the movie aesthetic in every frame, choosing a different angle and view point to get a different shot each time. There are scenes presenting the increasing attraction between the men, Ennis is using one of his water rations to bathe. The scene is unfocused, his bare frame is blurred, and the camera slowly focuses on Jack’s eyes, a side gaze, signifying his sexual attraction. The slow paced shots of the mountains stand in contrary to the hurriedness of the sexual encounters, setting a balance. The scenes prior to their surrender tend to have an erotic undertone, yet speaking in assistance of Laura Mulvey’s essay “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, however, the desirable object here is a male, in contrary to the use of females in the dominant cinema. Ang Lee captured the complexity and conflict of breaking these barriers in a sensitive way, and compels us to think about the way men look, touch, and love each other, and how we as a culture prevent them from doing that.

Colors play an important role in setting the mood of the film, the frames’ color scheme need to be considerate of the essence of the story. Low mellow colors are use to represent melancholy or gloom, for example, the whitewashed walls and the light blues used in the initial scenes of Brokeback Mountain, coupled with zero dialogues but a slow and steady music piece to set the atmosphere from the succeeding episodes. Colors have been used to prompt the feel, with bright colors used to depict happiness, mellow colors to depict the melancholy. Brokeback Mountain has a varied color scheme, from scene to scene or frame to frame. The mountains and the vibrant colors are appropriate for a beautiful romance. There are several sky shot (during the golden hour) to note a semi-climax and to soften the roughness of the protagonists’ sexual encounters. The use of colors helps bring out the several metaphors and emotions within the frames. Further, the accurate use of silhouettes and the brightly lit sky filled with clouds is a contrast to the lonesome cowboy life of the protagonists.

The women characters have been neglected throughout the film, putting them on the sideline, letting the protagonists explore their sexuality and being ignorant to the clear picture in front of them. The feminist film theory suggests that the females have been used as objects rather than characters of worth in the movie. With the tagline of the movie being ‘Love is a Force of nature’, the cowboys marrying their respective wives can be seen as the force of the society. Unable to accept his sexuality, Ennis is seen having difficulty accepting his bisexual form due to his childhood trauma. The scenes shift immediately, connecting the different periods without a break. The film follows the old set notions of masculinity but also we see Ennis hanging between the cowboy image and detachment until Jack put his guard down. The concept of masculinity can be deliberated, following the norms of the west countryside. The shots color structure, visual spacing, and phallic nature allows the naturalness of the male relationship to unfold more realistically. The shots taken are bold but seamless extractions of the beauty inside the moments of life. The film’s cinematography is one of the best in the business, with clear shots and the slow pace; it gives the viewers time to invest in the characters.

The constant flashbacks to the initial years of Ennis’ childhood help the movie build its complexity and the personality of the scared bisexual, unwilling to accept his sexuality, willing to live in a lie, with his wife and children. The protagonists are developed as two different individuals with different difficulties and experiences, hence reasoning their current character. The physical presence of the Brokeback Mountain is also an integral part of their relationship; it represents the outback wilderness and experience of the cowboys and is usually associated with the notion of masculinity and rugged experiences. The ‘binoculars scene’ becomes the first appearance of rough homosexual masculinity drawing back to regular violent white male values. The symbolic binoculars view of the horseman shows the usual perception of white make homophobic members of the society. There are other instances of aggression caused due to the virtual and physical distance between the protagonists. The main characters of the film reflect specific queer identity and self-identity feature through their actions. The film does not draw lines around the sexuality of the characters, they are felt free to discover the unforeseen and perhaps examine their sexuality in a flamboyant manner. Brokeback Mountain is a period piece; its thematic issues remain relevant in our society today.

The cinematographer, Rodrigo Prieto, made a mark as it got the audience to think about the end of the movie, the ambiguity whether Ennis’ version was what happened is correct or is it a manifestation of his fears. Since Ennis didn’t actually witness Jack’s death, the flashback or the shift in scene can be just Ennis’ imagination. Ennis has developed as a character that has lived his life in fear, hence he imagines the worst. By ambiguity, it is meant that the end is left to open interpretation rather than a clear narrative end.

The movie, a masterpiece, with magnificent cinematography, has set a bench mark in the world of cinema. The subtle close ups with voice-overs of the other protagonists, the movie has a double perspective, letting the viewer know the actions and reactions simultaneously. The movie is mainly captured in landscape shots with the clouds covering a half of the screen and rest half by the cowboys and mountains. The far viewpoint shots showcase the chaos of a family house. Majorly the film is shot in low angle landscape or an over-the-shoulder shot of person standing in front and focus. The aesthetics and the eye-pleasing captures of the mountains, sheep’s, water bodies etc add to the beauty of the film. The scenes of affection or encounters have been shot with a close eye, giving us a ‘in the moment’ experience. The movie ends with Jacks dead and the color scheme is once again applied here, back to the mellow colors, with whitewashed walls and light blues prevailing, the movie ends on an ambiguity and a tone of melancholy. The close shot of Ennis’ face shows the depression and isolation with the movie had begun. The movie shuts down with a close up shot of the last postcard receive and a single pair of clothes, emphasizing on the prevalence of Ennis’ initial existing loneliness.

Images from Google