Brokeback Mountain

[rm]

It's sort of one of those "what's all the fuss about" movies, bcause it's really such a small film, that succeeds entirely on the smallest details of both performance and design since so much of the film is about reticence both necessary and not. I mean, yeah it's "the gay cowboy" movie, but I recommend this film to the dissatisified.

Comments

[heron61.livejournal.com]

It definitely looks worth seeing and I'm very much looking forward to doing so, but it's also painfully obvious (based on the trailers I've seen) that it (like so many other films with queer protagonists, and especially with gay male protagonists) will end with at least one of the two main characters dying in some premature fashion (I'm betting from either AIDs or bashing). Knowing that this almost certainly happens in Brokeback Mountain won't stop me from seeing or enjoying it, or even necessarily make it a less good film, but I'd dearly love to see more films where more gay men survive. A combination of the use of character death to promote sympathy that started with gay male characters in the 1970s, with the AIDs epidemic of the '80s enshrined gay men dying as an exceptionally enduring archetype both inside and outside of gay male culture.

In any case, Ang Lee and gay cowboys, there's no bad there...

[rm.livejournal.com]

You know, I get this complaint, I really do, but I truly think it's over looking so many things just about the nature of story telling. Serious films, dramatic films, and this is uterly both, if they're about love stories, are about tradgedies. And while someone more tolerant of the romantic comedy or other lighter genre could argue we need more queer films in those categories, and while we could all argue that it would be nice for there to be minor queer characters in films with a purpose other than to be the queer character, the fact is, people don't get the girl, or the boy in dramas. American Beauty, The English Patient, name any big drama you want, and I will argue that we find the ones where people fail or are thwarted infinitely more believeable than the ones where they win out in teh end. I mean, until Ron Howard starts making gay romance films, we're not going to get a happy ending, and do we really want that so bad we'll put up with a Ron Howard gay romance film?

Considering the time, and place of this film, any other ending would have been not just implausible, but completely non-relevatory about any of the characters. Unless we only make films about the here and now in a few select number of locales, the threat of this kind of thing, if nothing else, is part of the gay experience.

You should see the movie, because while it fits into the conventions you're mentioning, it's so utterly matter of fact and just about the chocies we make and the lies we try to believe.

I don't want us to feel like we can't make a gay rtagic love story because then peopel will be all "oh see, the gays re miserable or whatever." Why should we have to smile extra hard? Ya know?

[coyotegoth.livejournal.com]

I agree with this; the solution will be founds when there are twenty gay-themed movies a year; some happy, some not.

[ladypeculiar.livejournal.com]

and do we really want that so bad we'll put up with a Ron Howard gay romance film?

Aaah! Gaaah! No! We don't!!

[heron61.livejournal.com]

I completely and totally agree and am also very much looking forward to seeing this film. However, a failed romance need not always end in death. More importantly, I'm not in any way complaining about this film, but about the lack of any alternative to gay male romance ending in death. The percentage of films about tragic het romances where one of the people involved dies is significantly lower that the percentage of queer (and especially gay male) romances where one of the people dies.

That said, I'm not complaining about this wonderful-sounding film, but about the lack of other tragic or non-tragic alternatives to having at least one gay man die.

And while someone more tolerant of the romantic comedy or other lighter genre could argue we need more queer films in those categories

I completely understand that statement. A completely unrelated complaint of mine is about the alternatives presented in modern film of romantic tragedy and modern romantic comedy. Prior to the mid 1960s, there was no shortage of deeply romantic films that portrayed positive romance that were not comedies of the sort so popular and common today. Dear gods, I'd like to see more positive portrayals of romance that didn't start with the two people hating each other or involve them deliberately humiliating each other. Also, as I mentioned here, I wish that modern het romantic films were not quite the cesspits of sexism that they so often are. However, none of that has anything to do with Brokeback Mountain, which I'm very much looking forward to seeing.

[heron61.livejournal.com]

Very true. That would end all such complaints by me. Of course, these days, I fear that the result will be bucket-loads of shuddersomely offensive queer romantic comedies to go alongside the bucket-loads of shuddersomely offensive straight romantic comedies. I'm looking forward to hopefully someday seeing modern films about romance that do not involve the awkward juxtaposition of vile and archaic stereotypes with modern concerns. Of course, to get to that point, most people will have had to have actually internalized the real lessons of feminism and I'm far from certain that this will happen anytime soon.