Brokeback Mountain - Humph

Just rented the video.

Watched it and couldn't care about the characters until the last 10 minutes.

Yes, it's beautifully shot, production values are superb, and some of the acting is excellent. But, maybe it's just me, the film did nothing for the first 30 minutes. And you "could see the acting" by the guy who played Jack. I have a lot of respect for Ang Lee as a director and the screenwriting team is top notch, but the film could have been so much tighter - 2hrs & 14 minutes is long.

I got the feeling that they were trying to put get a quart out of a pint pot. I'm fully appreciative of films that take their time and are not action oriented, but we were bored for a good portion of the film.

It received such extravagant praise that I was really expecting Lawrence of Arabia or Dr Zhivago. Maybe I'm just dim and clueless, but for the life of me, I could not see what these two guys saw in each other that caused such great passion.

I was not one of the It Getters in regards to this film.

However, I read a review by someone on DU (Plaid Adder?) -- who saw a completely different movie than I saw. She had such sensitive perception into the characters and the story and enlightened me to wonderful details of the film-- and made me feel like a dolt. I plan to see it again and appreciate what I missed the first time.

I thought it was a good movie. I kind of looked at a little differently than most people. I looked past the gay part and thought that it was more about life and how we get caught up in lives that we don't want to be in and feel trapped and unfullfilled and have difficulty finding moment of real joy. Sometimes it seems that we don't live life, our lives live us. Am I'm making any sense?

I can understand your reaction. I honestly loved the movie but I come at the subject from an admittedly biased perspective and can easily see how you might find the movie boring.

Thats why DU is so much fun. Unlike the poor fools at Free Republic, we are able to have different opinions about major subjects and maintain friendship and respect. They "zot" people who have unaceptable opinions. We talk. Thats the difference in us and them.

Thought it was one of the best told love stories I have seen. It is a subtle movie that may require more than one watching. The movie caused me to think about so many things - the real test of a movie in my opinion.
I wished it was longer.

beautifully shot but also because McMurtry's and Osana's script was so evocative of the western landscape.

There IS a wind-blasted boredom to a landscape like that, and these two men inhabit that landscape, which is real out the window of their trucks and also psychological, because they lack the words to express who they really are.

McMurtry has said he believes "literature should accord with the land." It's his special talent to make that resonant with the psychological make-up of characters. He works the same magic over the landscape of THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, set in one of those wind-blasted small towns in Texas.

Not trying to pick a fight here, but still felt the film is a landmark masterpiece.

So much of the film is so subtle, it depends on non-verbal cues and what ISN'T said to fill in the details of what makes its characters tick. Lots of men, especially American men, especially in the West, and especially those from Jack and Ennis' backgrounds, don't express themselves verbally because they don't have the verbal skills to do so, or don't want to tip their hand emotionally. (Lest you think this is condescending, I have relatives who were raised by an abusive alcoholic man who grew up just like Ennis, aside from their sexual orientation--closed off, wounded, uncommunicative, heavy drinkers, and afraid to be affectionate with those they love.)

There's also a lot going on in the set-up, comparing the sweeping "natural" vistas and the unfettered life Jack and Ennis experience there (hence their "return to Eden" moment where they jump naked into the lake) to the cramped, desolate lives of town (where movies go from the big screen to tiny television, and natural panoramas give way to a tiny postcard in a closet next to a trailer window). It's about the world--society, the American West, and a man's heart--collapsing in on itself.

No worries if you don't like it, but personally, after a cautiously positive reaction the first time, the second viewing is what convinced me that it was a masterpiece, and really made the emotional connection.

I was a bit disappointed. I can't exactly explain why - it was just a feeling most of all.
I went to see it during a mid-week matinee (spring break) and it was me, my husband, and a bunch of older (retired-age) people.

I remember thinking that the writers could have gone a little further to make the point that we, as a society, sometimes force people into living lies. This I already know (and I have a friend whose husband of 10 years came out of the closet after trying to live as a heterosexual for his entire life, as he had been taught was the "normal" way to live, which devastated his wife, his daughter, and him - they are doing their best to adapt but it's very hard). I don't know that the average movie-goer might think of that while watching the film. We see Michelle William's pain at finding out that her husband has been in love with another man - we feel for her and how much that must have hurt. But, we don't get shown the big lesson - that we ask to be lied to. We ask gay people to live the heterosexual life and when they realize they can't (or more importantly, shouldn't!), we get angry at them for the pain they've caused their families, ex's, children, etc., etc.

Recently, I was teaching about prejudice and discrimination and I made the above point in class. I also wore my "gay? fine by me." t-shirt to class that day. A few days later, a student emailed me saying how she really appreciated what I had to say that day (and my shirt). She told me about her own personal story of how her father told her mom (at the age of 40) that he was gay and they subsequently divorced. She said it was a very difficult experience for her family but that my lecture that day made her feel normal and not embarrassed and that she understood her dad for the first time since the divorce (which had been fairly recent). She said that she's kept a good relationship with him because he's a good father, but that it was really hard for her to understand why/how he didn't know his own sexuality before then.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that, although I don't think that movie-goers always need to be hit over the head with the moral of the story, I think that Brokeback Mountain could have used a bit more of it. I thought the best part of the movie, by the way, was the scene at Jake Gyllenhaal's parents house (with Heath Ledger in Jake's old room). That was very well done.

Anyway, my two cents. :)