Brokeback Mountain is a
2005 American romantic-
drama film
that depicts the complex romantic and sexual relationship between
two men in the
American West
from 1963 to 1981.
The film
was directed by Taiwanese
director Ang Lee from a
screenplay by Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry, which they adapted from the
short story Brokeback Mountain by
Annie Proulx. The film stars
Heath Ledger,
Jake Gyllenhaal,
Anne Hathaway, and
Michelle Williams.
Brokeback Mountain won the
Golden
Lion at the
Venice Film
Festival, and was honored with Best Picture and Best Director
accolades from the
British Academy of
Film and Television Arts,
Golden
Globe Awards,
Producers
Guild of America,
Critics Choice Awards,
and
Independent Spirit
Awards among many other organizations and festivals.
Brokeback Mountain had the most nominations (eight) for
the
78th Academy Awards, where
it won three:
Best
Director,
Best Adapted
Screenplay, and
Best Original Score.
The film was widely considered to be a front runner for the
Academy Award for Best
Picture, but lost to
Crash.At the end of its theatrical
run,
Brokeback Mountain ranked eighth among the
highest-grossing romantic dramas of all time.
Plot
Brokeback Mountain is the story of
ranch hand Ennis del Mar (Heath Ledger) and rodeo cowboy Jack Twist (Jake
Gyllenhaal), two young men who meet and fall in love on the
fictional Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming
in
1963. The film documents their complex relationship over the
next eighteen years.
Ennis and Jack first meet when they are hired by Joe Aguirre
(
Randy Quaid) to
herd his sheep through the summer. During the long
weeks of isolation, a bond begins to develop between the two. One
night, after heavy drinking, Jack makes a sexual pass at Ennis, who
initially is apprehensive, but then succumbs to Jack's advances.
Although he warns Jack it was only a one-time incident, Ennis finds
himself becoming involved in both a physical and a powerful
emotional relationship with his partner through the rest of their
tenure. Shortly after learning their summer together is being cut
short unexpectedly, they briefly fight, during which each is
bloodied.
After the two part ways, Ennis marries his long-time
fiancée Alma Beers (
Michelle Williams) and fathers
two children. Jack goes to Aguirre for a job, hoping to find Ennis,
but Aguirre, who is homophobic and secretly witnessed them playing
on the mountain, refuses him work. Jack eventually meets, marries
and starts a family with rodeo princess Lureen Newsome (
Anne Hathaway), but still misses
Ennis, and decides to pay him a visit four years later. Ennis and
Jack subsequently meet again, and Alma accidentally oversees them
kissing passionately. Jack broaches the subject of creating a life
together on a small ranch, but Ennis, haunted by a painful
childhood memory of the
torture and
murder of a suspected
homosexual in his hometown, fears such an
arrangement could only end in tragedy. He also is unwilling to
abandon his family. Unable to be open about their relationship,
Ennis and Jack end up meeting only for infrequent fishing
trips.
As the years pass, the marriages of both men deteriorate. Alma's
awareness of her husband's relationship with Jack have created a
strain on the couple's relationship. They eventually
divorce, with Alma getting custody of the children.
Ennis continues to see his family regularly until Alma, finally
revealing her knowledge of Ennis' affair with Jack, makes
homophobic remarks about Jack during an argument, causing Ennis to
sever his ties with Alma. Meanwhile, Lureen has abandoned her
fun-loving ways and become a strait-laced businesswoman who expects
Jack to settle down and work in sales, a career for which he has
talent but no drive. Hearing about Ennis's divorce, Jack drives to
Wyoming in hopes they can live together at last, but Ennis refuses
to move away from his children and is still fearful of possible
repercussions if their relationship becomes public. Meanwhile,
Ennis meets and later has a brief romantic relationship with a
waitress, Cassie Cartwright (
Linda
Cardellini). While it is obvious that Cassie harbours deep
feelings for Ennis, their relationship is short-lived due to Ennis'
quiet and bitter manner, and Cassie finds another man. Jack and
Lureen meet and befriend another couple, Randall and Lashawn
Malone, and it is hinted that Jack and Randall begin a secret
affair behind their wives' backs.
At the end of a camping trip, Ennis tells Jack he has to cancel
their next outing because of his job, and an argument erupts. Ennis
blames Jack for "making me the way I am" and for being the cause of
his conflicted emotions, feeling they have trapped him and ruined
his life. Jack attempts to hold him and there is a brief struggle,
but they end up locked in an embrace. Despite the quarrel, they
still part as friends.
An unspecified amount of time later, a postcard Ennis sent to Jack
is returned stamped "Deceased." In a telephone conversation, Lureen
tells Ennis that Jack died while changing a tire that exploded, but
it is revealed that Jack was killed for being a homosexual. Lureen
tells Ennis that Jack wished to have his ashes scattered on
Brokeback Mountain, but she didn't know where it was. Ennis travels
to see Jack's mother and father (
Roberta
Maxwell and
Peter McRobbie),
where he offers to take Jack's ashes, but the father flatly refuses
the request. Jack's mother asks Ennis if he would like to see
Jack's childhood bedroom before he leaves. There he discovers on a
hanger in the closet the old blood-stained shirt he thought he had
lost on Brokeback Mountain, learning instead that Jack had stolen
it. Here it waits on a hanger, tucked inside the also blood-stained
shirt Jack himself had worn in that fight long ago. Ennis holds
them up to his face, breathes in their scent, and silently weeps.
He carries the shirts downstairs with him, and Jack's mother allows
him to keep them, and gives him a bag to carry them in.
In the final scene, 19-year-old Alma Jr. (
Kate
Mara) arrives at her father's trailer with the news she's
engaged. She asks Ennis for his blessings and invites him to the
wedding. Ennis, finally aware of the importance of love in a
relationship and marriage, asks her if her fiancé really loves her.
After Alma's departure, Ennis notices she has forgotten her
sweater, which he folds and puts in the closet. Inside, hanging on
a nail pounded into the door, are the two shirts with a postcard of
Brokeback Mountain tacked alongside. Now, Jack's shirt is tucked
inside of Ennis's. Ennis carefully fastens the top button of Jack's
shirt, and with tears in his eyes mutters, "Jack, I swear..." while
slowly straightening the postcard.
Cast
Production notes
While the
movie is set in the Big Horn
Mountains of Wyoming
, it was
filmed almost entirely in the Canadian
Rockies in southern
Alberta.
The
"Brokeback Mountain" in the movie is so named because the mountain
has the same swayback curve as a brokeback
horse or mule, which is swaybacked or sagging in the spine, is
actually a composite of Mount Lougheed south of the town of
Canmore
to Fortress
and Moose Mountain in Kananaskis Country
.The campsites were filmed at Goat Creek,
Upper Kananaskis
Lake
, Elbow
Falls
and Canyon Creek, also in Alberta.
Other
movie scenes were also filmed in Cowley
, Fort Macleod
, and Calgary
.
The movie was filmed during the summer of 2004.
Mark Wahlberg declined the starring
role, saying he turned down the opportunity because he was "a
little creeped out" by the gay cowboy storyline and sex
scene.
Commercial success
Brokeback Mountain cost about
U.S.$14 million to produce, excluding
its reported advertising budget of $5 million. According to
interviews with the filmmakers,
Focus
Features was able to recoup its production costs early on by
selling overseas rights to the film.
The film
saw limited release in the United
States on December 9, 2005 (in New York
, Los Angeles
, and San Francisco
), taking $547,425 in five theaters its first
weekend.
Over the
Christmas weekend, it posted the highest
per-theater gross of any movie and was considered a box office
success not only in urban centers such as New York City
and Los Angeles
, but also in suburban theaters near Portland
, Houston
, Chicago
, Dallas
, Denver
, and
Atlanta
. On
January 6, 2006, the movie expanded into 483 theaters, and on
January 13, 2006,
Focus Features, the
movie's distributor, opened
Brokeback in nearly 700 North
American cinemas as part of its ongoing expansion strategy for the
movie. On January 20, the film opened in 1,194 theaters in North
America; it opened in 1,652 theaters on January 27 and in 2,089
theaters on February 3, its widest release.
Brokeback Mountain's theatrical run lasted for 133 days
and grossed $83,043,761 in
North
America and $95,000,000 abroad, adding up to a worldwide gross
of more than $178 million. It is the top-grossing release of
Focus Features, ranks fifth among the
highest-grossing westerns (since 1979) and eighth among the
highest-grossing romantic dramas (1980-Present).
The film
was released in London
, UK
, on December
30, 2005, in only one cinema, and was widely released in UK
on January
6, 2006. On January 11,
Time Out
London magazine reported that
Brokeback was the
number one movie in the city, a position it held for three
weeks.
The movie
was released in France
on January
18, 2006, in 155 cinemas (expanding into 258 cinemas in the second
week and into 290 in the third week). In its first week of
release,
Brokeback Mountain was in third place at the
French box office, with 277,000 people viewing the movie, or an
average of 1,787 people by cinema per week, the highest such figure
for any film in France that week. One month later, it reached more
than one million viewers (more than 1,250,000 on March 18), with
still 168 cinemas (in the 10th week).
Released in Italy
on January
20, the film grossed more than 890,000 euros in
only three days, and was the fourth highest-grossing film in the
country in its first week of release.
Brokeback Mountain was released in
Australia on January 26, 2006, where it landed in
fourth place at the box office and earned an average per-screen
gross three times higher than its nearest competitor during its
first weekend despite being released in only 48 cinemas nationwide.
Most of the Australian critics praised the film.
Brokeback
was released in many other countries during the first three months
of
2006.
The film was released
in Peru
and in the
Netherlands
on February 16, and opened in Germany
on March 9. It premiered in Brazil on
February 3 and quickly topped the charts with more than 100,000
viewers.
The movie was released in India
on March
10.
During
its first week of release, Brokeback was in first place in
Hong
Kong
's box office, with more than US$473,868 ($22,565
per cinema).
Brokeback Mountain was the highest-grossing movie in the
U.S. from January 17 through January 19, 2006, perhaps due
primarily to its wins at the Golden Globes on January 16. Indeed,
the movie was one of the top five highest-grossing films in the
U.S. every day from January 17 until January 28, including over the
weekend (when more people go to the movies and big-budget films
usually crowd out independent films from the top-grossing list) of
January 20-22. On January 28, the movie fell out of the top five
and into sixth place at the box office during that weekend before
entering the top five again on January 30 and remaining there until
February 10.
The movie
was released on January 20, 2006, in Taiwan
, where
director Ang Lee was born. It ran until April 20.
The pair
of shirts from the film sold on eBay on
February 20, 2006, for US
$101,100.51
The buyer, film historian and collector Tom Gregory, called the
shirts "the ruby slippers of our
time," and intends never to separate them. The proceeds will
benefit California children's charity Variety, which has long been
associated with the movie industry.
Reception
Professional film critics have heaped praise on
Brokeback
Mountain. The film won four
Golden Globe Awards, including Best
Motion Picture-Drama, and was nominated for seven, leading all
other films in the 2005 awards.
It won the Golden
Lion at the Venice International Film
Festival, as well as the title Best
Picture from the Boston
Society of
Film Critics, the Dallas
-Fort Worth
Film Critics Association, the Florida
Film Critics Circle, the Las
Vegas
Film Critics Society, the Los Angeles Film Critics
Association, the New
York Film Critics Circle, the San Francisco Film Critics
Circle, the Southeastern Film Critics
Association, the Utah
Film
Critics Society, and the British Academy of Film and Television
Arts (the BAFTAs).
Brokeback Mountain received an 87 percent "fresh" rating
on
Rotten Tomatoes, compiled from
223 reviews, with the consensus that "a beautifully epic Western,
Brokeback Mountain's gay love story is embued with heartbreaking
universality, helped by the moving performances of Ledger and
Gyllenhaal." The film was given a "two thumbs up" rating by
Ebert and
Roeper, the former granting a four-star review in the
Chicago Sun-Times. The
film received "circumspect" positive reviews from
Christianity Today.
Conservative radio host
Michael Medved gave the film three and a half
stars, stating that while the movie's "
agenda" is blatant, it is an artistic
work.
The film's significance has been attributed to its portrayal of a
same-sex relationship without any reference to the history of the
gay civil rights movement. This
emphasizes the tragic love story aspect, which leads many
commentators to effectively compare Ennis and Jack's drama to
classic and modern romances like
Romeo and Juliet or
Titanic, often using the term
star-crossed lovers. This link to
classic romances is no coincidence: the poster for the film was
inspired by that of James Cameron's
Titanic, after Ang Lee's
collaborator James Schamus looked at the posters of "the 50 most
romantic movies ever made".
There was also disagreement among reviewers, critics, and even the
cast and crew as to whether or not the two protagonists of the film
were actually gay,
bisexual, heterosexual,
or under no sexual label at all. Most often the film was referred
to in the media as the "gay cowboy movie," but a number of
reviewers wrote that Jack and Ennis were bisexual. Sex researcher
Fritz Klein also asserted his opinion
that the movie was "a nice film with two main characters who were
bisexual", and further analyzed that Jack is more "toward the gay
side of bisexuality" and Ennis is "a bit more toward the straight
side of being bisexual". In an article in
American Sexuality
Magazine, bisexual activist Amy Andre critiqued the media's
avoidance of the use of the term "bisexual" in association with
Brokeback Mountain:
Gyllenhaal himself took the opinion that Ennis and Jack were
heterosexual men who "develop this love, this bond," also saying in
a
Details interview: "I
approached the story believing that these are actually two straight
guys who fall in love." Still others stated that they felt the
characters' sexuality to be simply ambiguous.
Clarence Patton and
Christopher Murray said in New York's
Gay City News that Ennis and Jack's
experiences were metaphors for "many men who do not identify as gay
or even queer, but who nevertheless have sex
with other men". A reviewer at Filmcritic.com wrote, "We
later see Jack eagerly engage Lureen sexually, with no explanation
as to whether he is bisexual, so in need of physical intimacy that
anyone, regardless of
gender, will do, or
merely very adept at faking it." Ledger was quoted as stating in
Time: "I don't think Ennis
could be labeled as gay. Without Jack Twist, I don't know that he
ever would have come out.... I think the whole point was that it
was two souls that fell in love with each other." Conversely,
others stated that the characters were undoubtedly gay, including
GLBT non-fiction author
Eric Marcus, who
dismissed "talk of Ennis and Jack being anything but gay as box
office-influenced political correctness intended to steer straight
audiences to the film".
Roger Ebert also
agrees that both characters are gay, although in doubt of it: "Jack
is able to accept a little more willingly that he is inescapably
gay." Annie Proulx herself said "how different readers take the
story is a reflection of their own personal values, attitudes,
hang-ups", and the film's producer James Schamus said, "I suppose
movies can be
Rorschach tests
for all of us, but damn if these characters aren't gay to
me."
When Ledger and Gyllenhaal were asked about any fear of being cast
in such controversial roles, Ledger responded that he was not
afraid of the role, but rather he was concerned that he would not
be mature enough as an actor to do the story justice. Gyllenhaal
has stated that he is extremely proud of the movie and his role,
regardless of what the reactions would be. Although he has
repeatedly stated that he is
heterosexual, he regards rumors of him being
bisexual as flattering. Both have stated
that the sex scenes in the beginning were difficult to do. Lee
found the first scene difficult to film and has stated he has great
respect for the two main actors for their "courage". Ledger's
performance was described by
Luke Davies
as a difficult and empowering portrayal given the environment of
the film, stating: "In Brokeback Mountain the vulnerability, the
potential for danger, is so great - a world so masculine it might
destroy you for any aberration - that [Ledger's] real brilliance
was to bring to the screen a character, Ennis Del Mar, so
fundamentally shut down that he is like a bible of unrequited
desires, stifled yearnings, lost potential."
On January 3, 2006,
Universal, the
studio of which Focus Features is the specialty division, announced
that
Brokeback Mountain was the most honored film of 2005.
The independent website criticstop10.net backed that assertion,
reporting that
Brokeback Mountain was the most
frequently-selected movie on reviewers' year-end Top Ten lists of
2005.
On March 9, 2006,
Brokeback Mountain made the news yet
again when a press release was sent to more than 400 media outlets
announcing that nearly $26,000 had been raised for an ad to be
posted in the
Daily Variety
on March 10, 2006. This $26,000 had been raised by just over 600
fans through an online donations site, affiliated with a
non-studio-sponsored online forum which is devoted to the film and
the book. The story was quickly picked up by several outlets
including
Yahoo!,
The Advocate, and
The New York Times. The ad served as
a simple show of fan support despite its losing the Best Picture
Oscar.
Reviews
International reception
The title of
Brokeback Mountain has been translated into
several other languages. Often the foreign title is literally
The Secret(s) of Brokeback Mountain (how the
French,
Italian,
Portuguese and
Polish titles translate). In
Canadian French, the title was translated to
Souvenirs de Brokeback Mountain (
Memories of Brokeback
Mountain). The
Region 1 DVD has
English,
Spanish (
Latin
American), French (Canadian), and on some DVDs,
German audio tracks.
The film
also met with mixed reactions in other nations, including the
People's
Republic of China
and Middle Eastern
countries:
- According to news reports, the film has not been shown in
theaters in the People's Republic of China, although it was freely
available in bootleg DVD and video. The reason
given by the state for not showing the movie in theaters was that
the anticipated audience was too small to justify this type of
release. However, foreign media advanced the argument that this was
merely a cover and that government hostility is better explained by
opposition to the homosexuality portrayed in the movie.
Although
the movie wasn't shown in mainland China, the mainland Chinese
media praised Taiwan
-born Ang Lee
for his Best Director Oscar win, but state TV cut part of Lee's
acceptance speech mentioning China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong
, presumably because of the implicit suggestion that
Taiwan and Hong Kong are not part of China.
- Brokeback Mountain did however open
in theaters in Lee's native Taiwan
on January
20, 2006, and Hong
Kong
on February 23, 2006. Such has been the
media coverage of Brokeback Mountain throughout the
Chinese-speaking world that the term "Brokeback" (斷背) has become
synonymous with homosexuality in
contemporary Chinese.
- In the Middle East, the film was a
political issue. Homosexuality remains a serious crime in most
Middle Eastern nations and remains a taboo
subject even in the few nations where it is legal. Israel
was the
only country in the Middle East to show the uncensored version of
the film. Lebanon
was the only Arab country to
show the film, but in a censored format. The film was also
released in Turkey
.
The film
was officially banned from cinema screenings in the United Arab
Emirates
however the DVD release of the film was permitted
to be rented from stores such as Blockbuster video
- On
December 8 2008, the
Italian
state-owned television channel Rai Due aired a censored
version of the movie, removing all the scenes with homoerotic
references. This led to an uproar of protests from viewers
lamenting it was impossible to follow the plot and from Arcigay organisation, considering it like an action
of homophobic censorship. The state-owned television network RAI
has
defended himself stating that it was a mistake of the Italian film
distributor and an uncensored version of the movie was later
re-reun on March 17 2009.
Controversy
Utah theater cancellation
On January 6, 2006,
Utah Jazz owner
Larry H. Miller pulled the film from his Jordan
Commons entertainment complex in Sandy, Utah
, a suburb of Salt Lake City
. The decision was made at the last minute
after entering into a contract to show the film and heavily
advertising for it. He reneged on his obligations approximately two
hours before the first scheduled showing upon learning that the
plot concerned a same-sex romance. Miller stated that the film got
away from "traditional families", something which he believes is
"dangerous".
Focus Features
threatened to sue him and announced it would no longer do business
with him. In a statement the company added, "You can't do business
with people who break their word."
Political pundits
Several political pundits on
Fox News,
including commentators
Bill
O'Reilly,
John Gibson,
and
Cal Thomas, accused Hollywood of
pushing an
agenda with the film. On
December 23, 2005, the network reported that
Brokeback
Mountain was facing "
Brokeback Burnout", citing as
evidence a fall in revenues from Sunday, December 18, 2005, to
Monday, as well as subsequent falls during the week, despite the
fact that nearly all films see smaller business during the week
compared to weekends. O'Reilly has persisted in his criticism,
bringing up the movie as a subject of intense criticism on more
than nine occasions on his show, and a half-dozen times on his
radio program, saying, "I have nothing against the subject matter.
The point is that these newspapers use entertainment to push
political agendas. They do it all the time, it's indoctrination.
I'll predict the movie will get a lot of awards, but will not do
big box office outside of the big cities."
Gene Shalit and The Today Show
The film critic for the U.S. morning show
The Today Show,
Gene Shalit, called Gyllenhaal's character, Jack
Twist, a "
sexual predator" who
"tracks Ennis down and coaxes him into sporadic trysts." This
triggered complaints, particularly from gay media watchdog group
GLAAD, which argued that Shalit's
characterization of the character would be akin to calling
Leonardo DiCaprio's character in
Titanic a sexual
predator for his romantic pursuit of the character played by
Kate Winslet. Shalit later
apologized.
In a letter to GLAAD, Shalit's son Peter, who is gay, wrote, "He
may have had an unpopular opinion of a movie that is important to
the gay community, but he
defamed no one,
and he is not a
homophobe." He went on to
say that GLAAD had defamed his father by "falsely accusing him of a
repellent form of
bigotry".
U.S. social conservatives
Several
Christian fundamentalist
groups, such as Concerned
Women for America and Focus on the Family
, lambasted the film heavily even prior to its
release. Following wins by
Brokeback Mountain,
Capote, and
Transamerica at the
2006 Golden Globes, Janice Crouse,
a Concerned Women for America member, cited these films as examples
of how "the media elites are proving that their pet projects are
more important than profit" and suggested that they were not
popular enough to merit so much critical acclaim.
Right-wing radio personality
Rush
Limbaugh has referred to the film as "
Bareback Mountain" and "Humpback Mountain".
Don Imus, another controversial radio
personality, had labeled the film "Fudgepack Mountain".
Criticism of marketing
Some commentators have voiced concerns about the coverage of the
movie's homosexual theme in the mass media both in advertising and
in public events, such as press conferences and award ceremonies.
Several journalists, including
New York Daily News writer Wayman
Wong, Dave Cullen and Daniel Mendelsohn, have complained that the
movie's director, lead actors, and publicity team all avoided using
the word
gay to describe the story and pointed out that
while the movie trailer does not show the two male leads kissing
each other, it nevertheless includes a clip from a heterosexual
love scene.
Quaid lawsuit
On March 23, 2006, actor
Randy Quaid,
who played Joe Aguirre (Ennis and Jack's boss), filed a lawsuit
against Focus Features (LLC), Del Mar Productions (LLC), James
Schamus, David Linde, and Does 1-10 alleging that they
intentionally and negligently misrepresented
Brokeback
Mountain as "a low-budget, art house film with no prospect of
making any money" in order to secure Quaid's professional acting
services at below-market rates. The film had grossed more than $160
million as of the date of his lawsuit, which sought $10 million
plus punitive damages. On May 5, Quaid dropped his lawsuit. Quaid's
publicist said he decided to drop the lawsuit after Focus Features
agreed to pay him a bonus. Focus Features denies making such a
settlement.
Allegations of animal cruelty
The
American Humane
Association raised concerns that animals were treated
improperly during filming, alleging that
sheep
were handled roughly and that an elk appeared to have been "shot on
cue", suggesting further that the animal was anesthetized for this
purpose, violating standard guidelines for animal handling in the
movie industry.
Post-Academy Awards reaction
Some critics accused the Academy of
homophobia for failing to award the Oscar for
Best Picture to
Brokeback Mountain and instead giving it
to a rival nominee,
Crash. Michael Jensen notes that
prior to the Oscar ceremony,
Brokeback Mountain became
"the most honored movie in cinematic history", winning more Best
Picture and Director awards than previous Oscar winners
Schindler's List and
Titanic combined, and
pointing out that prior to
Brokeback, no film that had won
the Writer's Guild, Director's Guild, and Producer's Guild awards
failed to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, and that only
four times in the previous twenty-five years had the Best Picture
winner not also been the film with the most nominations. He also
notes that only once before had a film not even nominated for the
Golden Globe's Best Picture (Crash) go on to win the Academy
Award.
Awards
Brokeback Mountain won 71 awards and had an additional 52
nominations. The winners include three
Academy Awards for Best Director, Best
Adapted Screenplay, and Best Score as well as four
Golden Globe awards for Best Motion
Picture-Drama, Best Director, Best Song, and Best Screenplay and
four
BAFTA Awards for Best Film, Best
Director, Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor
(
Jake Gyllenhaal). The film also
received four
Screen Actors
Guild nominations for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best
Supporting Actress and Best Ensemble, more than any other movie
released in 2005. The film is one of several highly acclaimed
LGBT-related
movies of 2005 to be nominated for critical awards; the others
are:
Breakfast on
Pluto,
Capote,
Rent, and
Transamerica. Some of the most
significant awards and nominations for
Brokeback Mountain
are listed below:
Won
| Academy Awards record |
| 1. Best Director, Ang Lee |
| 2. Best Original Score,
Gustavo Santaolalla |
| 3. Best Adapted Screenplay,
Larry McMurtry, Diana Ossana |
| Golden Globe Awards record |
| 1. Best Director, Ang
Lee |
| 2. Best Motion Picture —
Drama |
| 3. Best Original Song,
Gustavo Santaolalla, Bernie
Taupin |
| 4. Best Screenplay, Larry
McMurtry, Diana Ossana |
| BAFTA Awards record |
| 1. Best Direction, Ang
Lee |
| 2. Best Film, Diana Ossana,
James Schamus |
| 3. Best Supporting Actor,
Jake Gyllenhaal |
| 4. Best Adapted Screenplay,
Larry McMurtry, Diana Ossana |
|
- 78th Academy Awards: Best
Director (Ang Lee), Best Adapted Screenplay
(Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana), Best Original Score (Gustavo Santaolalla)
- 59th BAFTA Awards: Best Film
(Diana Ossana and James Schamus), Best Supporting Actor
(Jake Gyllenhaal), Best Director
(Ang Lee), Best Adapted Screenplay (Larry McMurty and Diana Ossana)
- Broadcast Film
Critics Association Awards 2005: Best Picture (Diana Ossana and James
Schamus), Best Director (Ang Lee), Best
Supporting Actress--(Tie) (Michelle Williams), Best
Original Song (Emmylou Harris,
Gustavo Santaolalla, and
Bernie Taupin, "A Love That Will Never Grow
Old")
- Directors Guild of
America Awards: Director of the Year Award — Theatrical
Motion Picture (Ang Lee)
- European Film Awards: Best
Director (Ang Lee)
- GLAAD Media Awards:
Outstanding Film — Wide Release (Ang
Lee, Diana Ossana, and James Schamus)
- 63rd Golden Globe
Awards Best Motion Picture — Drama (Diana Ossana and James
Schamus), Best Director — Motion Picture (Ang Lee), Best Screenplay (Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana), Best Song (Gustavo Santaolalla and Bernie Taupin, "A Love That Will Never Grow
Old")
- Independent Spirit
Awards: Best Picture (Diana Ossana
and James Schamus), Best Director
(Ang Lee)
- MTV Movie Awards: Best
Performance (Jake Gyllenhaal), Best
Kiss (Heath Ledger & Jake Gyllenhaal)
- Producer's Guild
Awards: Producer of the Year Award — Theatrical Motion
Picture (Diana Ossana and James Schamus)
- Time Magazine: TIME 100: The
People Who Shape Our World (2006) (Ang
Lee)
- Venice
International Film Festival: "Golden
Lion" for Best Film (Ang Lee)
- Writers Guild of America
Awards: Best Adapted Screenplay (Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana)
- National Gay Pride Association: Best Motion Picture (2006)
(Diana Ossana and James Schamus)
- Australian Film
Institute award for Best actor in an International film
Heath Ledger
Nominations
- 78th Academy Awards: Best
Picture (Focus Features: Diana Ossana and James
Schamus), Best Actor in a Leading Role (Heath Ledger), Best Actor in a Supporting Role
(Jake Gyllenhaal), Best Actress in a
Supporting Role (Michelle
Williams), Best Cinematography (Rodrigo Prieto)
- 59th BAFTA Awards: Best Actor
(Heath Ledger), Best Supporting Actress
(Michelle Williams),
Best Cinematography (Rodrigo Prieto),
Best Score (Gustavo
Santaolalla), Best Editing (Geraldine Peroni and Dylan Tichenor)
- Broadcast Film
Critics Association Awards 2005: Best Actor (Heath Ledger), Best Supporting Actor (Jake Gyllenhaal), Best Writer (Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana)
- European Film Awards:
Screen International Award (Ang Lee)
- 63rd Golden Globe
Awards: Best Actor — Motion Picture Drama (Heath Ledger), Best Supporting Actress —
Motion Picture (Michelle
Williams), Best Original Score (Gustavo Santaolalla)
- 49th Grammy Awards: Best
Compilation Soundtrack Album For Motion Picture, Television Or
Other Visual Media (Gustavo Santaolalla, producer)
- Independent Spirit
Awards: Best Male Lead (Heath
Ledger), Best Supporting Female (Michelle Williams)
- Screen Actors Guild:
Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role (Heath Ledger), Outstanding Performance by a
Male Actor in a Supporting Role (Jake
Gyllenhaal), Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a
Supporting Role (Michelle
Williams), Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion
Picture (Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway, Randy Quaid, Linda
Cardellini, Anna Faris)
DVD release
This film is the first to be released the same day as both a DVD
and a downloadable movie available via the
Internet.
It was
released in the United
States
on April 4, 2006. The film moved more than
1.4 million copies on its first day of release and was the second
biggest seller of the week behind Disney's
The
Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the
Wardrobe. Though the ranking fluctuates daily, by late
March and early April 2006,
Brokeback Mountain had been
the top-selling DVD on
Amazon.com several
days running. The
Region 2 (
Europe)
DVD was released on April
24, 2006, though at first only in the UK. Other release dates are
much later: France on July 19, 2006, and Poland in September, a
considerable time after the theater release in both countries.
The
Region 4 (Australia/New Zealand
/South America)
DVD was released on July 19, 2006.
Brokeback Mountain was re-released in a collector's
edition on January 23, 2007. On that same day,
Brokeback
Mountain was also released as a Combo Format
HD DVD/DVD.
Brokeback Mountain was released
on
Blu-ray Disc on September 30, 2007,
but only in the UK.
Brokeback Mountain was released on
Blu-ray Disc in the United States on March 10, 2009.
Other media
- Brokeback Mountain was parodied in the Family Guy episode "The Tan Aquatic with Steve
Zissou". When Brian asks Devon for
a cigarette, he also gives Brian a copy of his last movie being
Brokeback Mountain from the horses' point of view. When
one of the horses was waiting for Ennis and Jack to get out of bed
for an hour, he peeks into their tent and screams at what he sees,
telling the other horse to run.
- Brokeback Mountain was also parodied in the
Drawn Together episode
"Xandir and Tim,
Sitting in a Tree". The background music heard during some of
their scenes together is very similar to the movie's score.
Xandir's line, "I wish I could quit you", is a variation on the
film's most famous line, "I wish I knew how to quit you".
- The movie also sparked a phenomenon
of spoofs on the internet, the most notable being re-cut trailer, Brokeback To The Future. and Brokeback Mountain:
Christian Edition.
- Comedian Larry The Cable Guy
has been known to give observations on Brokeback Mountain.
On one
occasion while performing stand-up
comedy in British
Columbia
he quiped "Brokeback Mountain, I couldn't believe
that, what the Hell. If John Wayne
was alive today he'd have a patch over
both eyes. Gay cowboy; my buddy was like 'He'd roll over in his
grave.' He'd better stay face up, that sum bitch!" When referring
to John Wayne wearing an eye patch he was referring to the actor's
famous Rooster Cogburn
character.
- Brokeback Mountain was also parodied in Scary Movie 4, with CJ and Mahalik in the
tent.
See also
References
- * Proulx, Annie; McMurtry, Larry; Ossana, Diana (2005, 2006).
Brokeback Mountain: Story to Screenplay. London, New York,
Toronto and Sydney: Harper Perennial. ISBN 978-0-00-723430-1
- http://movies.yahoo.com/feature/forbes-star-misses.html
- . Retrieved on May 27, 2006.
- (Link dead as of February 4, 2007)
-
http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051215/REVIEWS/51019006/1023
-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/global/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=A1&xml=/global/2008/11/21/dubai.xml
- (Link dead as of February 4, 2007)
- AfterElton.com - The Brokeback Mountain Oscar
Snub
- Reference content retrieved on July 23, 2007 no longer supports
Amazon.com sales
ranking statement.
-
http://www.amazon.com/Brokeback-Mountain-Blu-ray-Heath-Ledger/dp/B001QWEE4E/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1234428838&sr=1-4
Further reading
- Proulx, Annie (1997, 1999, 2006). Close Range: Wyoming
Stories
- Proulx, Annie; McMurtry, Larry; Ossana, Diana (2005, 2006).
Brokeback Mountain: Story to Screenplay. London, New York,
Toronto and Sydney: Harper Perennial. ISBN 978-0-00-723430-1
- Packard, Chris; (2006) Queer Cowboys: And Other Erotic Male
Friendships in Nineteenth-Century American Literature. New
York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 1-4039-7597-3
External links