It's time for my obligatory post on Brokeback Mountain. Everybody else is doing it, so I might as well do it too.It's finally been released in Memphis, and if a bomb had gone off at Studio on the Square last night, it would have wiped out half of Memphis' gay population. Perhaps I shouldn't give the radical right any ideas.
I read the short story and knew what to expect. Or at least I thought I did, but I didn't expect my reaction to be so visceral. I had to sit through the closing credits and cry. In fact, I can hardly look at that picture right there and not be moved to tears again.
It's powerful. And I wonder if this film resonates as strongly with straight audiences as it does with the gay audience. I guess it would have to. Having seen the movie now, I'm especially awed by the fact that a heterosexual woman crafted this story so beautifully and the screenplay was adapted by Larry McMurtry. At any rate, it certainly does indicate the talent of Annie Proulx, McMurtry, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal.
Proulx said in an Advocate interview that this story took twice as long to write as a book because, "Because I had to imagine my way into the minds of two uneducated, rough-spoken, uninformed young men, and that takes some doing if you happen to be an elderly female person."
It's a powerful lesson about a lot of things. Don't think that the gays have cornered the market on what gays think and feel. Don't think that the straights have a monopoly on love.
And if the story teaches anything at all -- and I will defer to Virginia's assessment on this one -- "It is also one of the saddest things I've ever read because their feelings are so much larger than their own abilities to express them: their tragedy is the failure to embrace what gives them joy."
Do not let your life go by without learning what brings you joy and embracing it.
5 comments:
we were going to go last night but it was sold out.
if i feel up to tomorrow.. (bad health day today) ... then we'll go after our lunch.
I had to sit through the credits just to compose myself, too. Thanks for posting the link to the Annie Proulx interview; I hadn't seen that and wondered how she came to write the story.
I went to that theater last night. Wonder if I saw you.
Great review, Skipper. What do you think of Jeremy C. Cox’s review at http://www.pajiba.com/brokeback-mountain.htm ???? Aside from the rather bizarre “as do most homosexual encounters …” phrase, I think it’s really good. I particularly like how he tries to give the actresses their due. Their performances were phenomenal. So far they’ve been lost in the shuffle. Len
The best post about Brokeback Mountain I have read to date. And as far as those hairy muscle hugs, anytime.
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