We Can't Ignore the Subject Much Longer.... BROKEBACK MOUNTA

[Live365]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006050298,00.html

Brad Pitt only had (past tense there) one thing going for him, and you only saw it when he was walking away. Tacky and sad.

It's great about the nominations, though! (though I am a bit confused as to why one actor was Best and the other was Best Supporting. How did they decide which would be which?)

[joequinn]

Yes, it appears to be true that Brad Pitt wants to ride the High Chaparral! In fact, it's being reported everywhere today...

Brad, don't do it! You are not going to get a script from Larry McMurtry; you won't have a director like Ang Lee; and --- let's face the facts, pal --- you don't have the talent of Heath Ledger. Stop, dude! You'll make a fool out of yourself, and you'll damage the cause of universal human rights in the process. There are other and better ways for you to save your career --- how about a little Shakespeare? Hey, it worked for Brando in the early 50s, and maybe it can work for you too...

But, Brad, take my advice --- don't saddle up! Please...

[joequinn]

Good Lord! The gay cowboys are hot on the trail of Bush...

http://www.suntimes.com/output/marin/cs ... ol011.html

A paragraph from the article:

"According to the Jan. 24 edition of People Magazine, "Brokeback Mountain" was playing to big crowds in two theaters in Waco, Texas. A theater manager told the Los Angeles Times that it was the second most popular film at the multiplex. And I should mention, the theater in question is the one closest to the Western White House, Bush's Crawford ranch."

[joequinn]

It ain't just gay cowboys either....

http://www.latimes.com/media/graphic/20 ... 721512.gif

Check out this shocking graphic on the regional popularity within America of all five of the BEST PICTURE nominated films! What an eye-opener!

Do you remember H. G. Wells' prediction in THE TIME MACHINE that the human race would start separating into (blue) Eloi and (red) Morlocks? I think that I can see it already... Can't you?

[joequinn]

Just a minute ago, I saw a TV commercial for the JEEP COMANCHE (at least I think that that SUV was the one being advertised). The SUV is standing at a Rocky Mountain rest stop, and all of its passengers are standing outside the vehicle admiring a glorious view of a snow-crested mountain range. I was thinking to myself, "wow, that reminds me of the mountains in BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN!" when one of the characters turns to another and says, "Looks even better than the movie, doesn't it?" End of commercial...

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is starting to enter the American collective unconscious. This commercial convinces me of it. After all, those advertising executives and bean-counters have ice water in their veins. They never take a risk on something that might blow up in their faces, do they?

Wow!

[Joolz]

Joe... my daughter remarked that "fishing trips" will never be seen quite the same way...

Sorry it took me so long to post something more on your thread, as I'd promised I would, Joe. To be honest, I am still processing this film. But I'll add these reflections to the mix here...

What this film really is not about, despite all the hoopla from the bowels of America's repressions, is "gay cowboys." Granted, that has become the buzz... but what this film really is about is not sex, but love, and in particular, it is about forbidden love. It's about what happens to two people when their love for one another is seen as forbidden, taboo. It's about how very deeply that hurts--not only those who happen to fall in love with the forbidden one, but also how much it hurts all those around them--family, friends, communities--as they try to live up to society's expectations, hiding behind a mask of repression that even they themselves cannot see through clearly.

In times past, the couple in question might have been inter-racial, or inter-faith, or maybe of two different age groups. In this case, they happen to be of the same sex (I was going to say gender, but that isn't exactly accurate as gender roles can be variable within cultures, while one's sex is not). The outcome is the same when their love is forbidden.

It's also about how, as you pointed out in a previous post, Joe (and I don't have your post handy to quote, so I'll paraphrase), love is a force of nature, as reflected in the powerful backdrop of the raw wilderness in this film.

We don't always have the luxury of choosing the one who captures our heart. The arrows of Eros rarely strike where we would wish them to (which is the whole idea of Eros' arrows in the first place). It just doesn't work that way. Eros could care less about what's taboo. But when those arrows strike far and wide of the mark that's deemed acceptable, they shred our flesh to the bone, rip open our hearts, and leave us gushing rivulets of pain in our wake. We suffer. Each and every one of us.

[joequinn]

In my subjective opinion, it's a story about what happens to you --- and to the innocent people around you --- when you refuse to be your deepest, truest self. How many of us have not uttered "I swear!" in the midst of bitter tears? And how many of us would give everything that we have to go back in time and to redo the past that would cause us to say that phrase in our despair?

The excellence of this movie --- for which Proulx, McMurtry, Lee and the actors are responsible --- is that a particular situation in a particular time at a particular place becomes a universal situation in which each and every one of us can see our own suicidal life-choices. Joolz, you are quite right: this is NOT a "gay cowboy movie." This is a film which employs an unusual, and unforgettable, personal relationship to go far, far beyond all of that into the area of personal experience where all high art dwells...

[Putterputz]

Cheating on spouses and destroying families should always be held in such high regard. Great movie.

[joequinn]

Putterputz, did you see the film? And have you read this entire thread from start to finish?

[Putterputz]

No desire. I love Ang Lee movies just not interested in the topic. Too much of an agenda.
Maybe I am getting old and cantankerous, sorry.
Have you seen 40 year old virgin?

[joequinn]

No, Putterputz, I have not seen THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN. I assumed that it was just trash. But people whose judgment I trust say that it was better than expected, so I intend to see it when the opportunity arises.

Now, Putterputz, if I can say that about THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN, can't you say the same about BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN? If, as you say, the film has "an agenda," well then, it won't bother you one little bit, will it? --- except to make you laugh with contempt. But what if the film does NOT have an agenda? And what if the film just tells a rather sad story about a whole group of people at a certain place and at a certain time? And told expertly, as you yourself would be willing to concede on the basis of previous Ang Lee films that you have seen? What, then, Putterputz? What then?

What if, in spite of everything that you think, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is indeed the finest film of 2005, and you fail to see it? Who's the loser? The film or you, huh?

Just think about these things, Putterputz...

[Putterputz]

I disagree with Hollywood's Political bent these day's. Every "Best Picture" this year has a Political message.
I refuse to spend money on this years crop of crap. It's sad.

I really do appreciate a fine film but ...... here comes the agenda and ruins the whole thing.

I am a conservative. I just see things a little different. Is that so WRONG.

I have gay friends that see it my way.

Maybe I'll watch it on the Sundance Channel in a few months.

[joequinn]

The religious right will tell you that BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is an instrument of "the gay mafia" to "homosexualize" the entire country. But let me tell you, Putterputz, that if there is "an agenda" at work here, then BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is the worst imaginable recruiting tool that it could possibly use! The fear, the loneliness, the guilt, the shame and the soul-numbing pain in this film would never turn anyone in his or her right mind consciously gay. Nobody is going to harm you as a result of this film, Putterputz. Indeed, on the contrary, anybody who sees this film --- with the heart above and beyond the eyes --- will be far more willing to let you be whatever you really and truly are. Because if you really and truly are what you are supposed to be, then you won't be threatened by other people and you won't try to do absolutely unforgiveable things to them that will destroy your own humanity.

If the film comes on THE SUNDANCE CHANNEL and you see it there and then, well then, you have done all that I ask. But if and when you see it then, you will remember what I have said to you and you will wish that you had seen it earlier on the big screen, the way it ought to be seen, where the glory of the West can shine in all its splendor...

[Putterputz]

Joe... it's only a movie!

[joequinn]

Yes, Putterputz, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is only a movie, and someday people will be watching it in the offhanded way that today they watch, say, TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD. But we are so constructed that we live a second life beyond our senses and our circumstances and our conscious selves in the world of the visionary imagination by means of art, including cinematic art. Yes, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, like TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, is only a movie, a construct, a dream. But as my favorite modern poet once wrote, "in dreams begin responsibilities."

Yes, maybe art cannot make the world a better place. Maybe that is entirely too much to ask of art. But art, including cinematic art, can lessen the frigid terror of the human condition by exposing great evils precisely as the great evils that they are. And maybe, just maybe, such exposure is the net result of the responsibilities that we take upon ourselves when we dare to see life on the silver screen --- not as we would like it to be or as we fear that it might be --- but as it actually is and as we know, deep down inside, that it actually is...

Yes, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN is only a movie. But sometimes, in being nothing more than what it is, a work of art can become the doorway to another world and another self...