One of the things that made me so emotional at the end of Brokeback Mountain was the symbolism of the two shirts that Ennis takes from Jack’s childhood home. First of all, the way he smelled them when he picked them up, and felt the fabric of the shirts was just such a nice touch because it showed how much Ennis missed Jack without saying it (because Ennis is a man of few words).

It was also so nice for Ennis to be able to have something tangible to remember Jack, something to take back with him, for Jack’s father would not allow him to take the ashes. For me, it also drew back on the fact that Jack initially took the shirt from Ennis (without his knowledge) so that he could have something tangible of Ennis (though in that case it wasn’t as meaningful with Ennis still being alive).

My favorite thing about it was that Ennis reversed the order of the shirts. It felt as though when Jack put Ennis’s inside, it was as if he was keeping Ennis within him, and potentially hidden from his parents. (However the father  mentions that he knew of Ennis). Meanwhile, when Ennis has the shirts hanging next to the picture with Jack’s shirt on the inside, it’s as if Ennis is keeping Jack forever in his heart, since he is no longer with him. The shirts along with the image of Brokeback, hanging on the back of Ennis’s door, seemed to serve as a memory and a nostalgic past that he could never go back to — which was both oddly romantic and heartbreaking.

This is a very well made film with some important messages. First and most obviously it shows the issues that come with homophobia. Almost every character that finds out about Jack and Ennis’ relationship are hostile towards it. Another thing it brings up is how homosexuality was perceived in the time and place of the film. It’s almost treated as a disease, even by the two men. Ennis says “You’ve done this to me” and Jack says “I wish I knew how to quit you.”

There also seems to be a gap in the film between love and family. Ennis leaves his wife and kids often to visit with Jack, and even when sitting with his daughter later in the film his new love interest pulls him away to dance. Jack’s family is somewhat dysfunctional, and he leaves to visit Ennis often. And when Jack hears about Ennis’ divorce he comes up to see him, but has to leave because his kids are there with him. It seems like the two things can’t be together in the film. Only at the end when Jack is dead can Ennis be with his daughter and go to her wedding.

One thing I was wondering about was the label that is usually slapped on the film. Usually the association with Brokeback Mountain is that it is a gay cowboy movie, or a gay western, but I disagree. First of all, when I think cowboy/western. I think of the type of film with the one small town in the desert and shootouts, not Wyoming in 1964. I also am not sure if the characters can be called gay. Ennis has sex with his wife and has a new girlfriend. And Jack has a wife and kid as well. Are they bisexual? Or something else, just two men who love each other? Do we need labels?

Ang Lee could very easily be considered one of the best directors of all time (easily one of the best foreign directors to ever work in Hollywood). Just look at the best films he has directed:

1. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon(2000) — Oscar, Best Director
2. Hulk (2003)
3. Brokeback Mountain (2005) — Oscar, Best Director
4. Life of Pi (2012)

While Lee was born in Taiwan and educated in America, he refutes any notion that he is either a Chinese or American filmmaker:

I was never a citizen of any particular place… My parents left China to go to Taiwan. We were outsiders there. We moved to the States. Outsiders. Back to China. Now we were outsiders there, too – outsiders from America.

This sense of independence (or ostracism, if you prefer) translates to Brokeback fairly noticeably. Lee himself even admitted: “What do I know about gay ranch hands in Wyoming?” Without getting too sappy or poetic, the final product reveals that Lee may or may not know a whole lot about gay ranchers, but he certainly knows a lot about love.

In viewing the director’s work in the four previously mentioned films, one will notice that Lee brings a distinct artistry to his projects. Crouching Tiger is a wuxia film, meaning that it is about ancient China and martial arts. As his first major motion picture, Lee took advantage of the opportunity and essentially painted a colorful picture that would be a hallmark of his later work. The scene where two main characters are fighting in an orange setting amidst flying arrows is choreographed beautifully and represents a much larger conflict between the two characters. Furthermore, the arrows literally look like calligraphy-brush strokes when juxtaposed against the orange background. The way Lee frames his establishing shots is truly a testament to his ability to direct camerawork.

Hulk may be a little different considering it was more of a commercial exploit rather than an artistic piece, yet the artistry still finds its way into the super hero film.

Brokeback, an independent film, was definitely Lee’s return to respecting the beauty of nature. The shots of the mountain and the badlands are charmingly reminiscent of the establishing shots in the bamboo fight scene in terms of coloring, shot length, and mood in conjunction with the context. Lee even matches violence in both films as a metaphor for sex, but he does it in an understated fashion.

Life of Pi follows a similar aesthetic path.  Shots of the boat show Pi’s isolation and despair just as the very first shots of Jack and Ennis show that they are isolated while they wait for the sheep-owner to show up to his trailer. Both are composed much like an impressionist painting, i.e. utilizing the rule of thirds and often saving distinct colors for only the most important objects in the frame.

I love Ang Lee’s films for all of these reasons and I look forward to seeing whatever comes next.

I had never seen this film before we started it on Wednesday – This film definitely deserves its praise from a cinematic and psychosocial perspective.

Firstly, the performances. I was truly impressed by the leading men (and women) in the film. This type of role takes guts, research, and vulnerability that is incredibly difficult to portray on screen. Heath Ledger (speaking in a voice similar to Tom Berenger in Platoon, the height of masculinity), dances between masculine detachment to loving happiness when he lets his guard down with Gyllenhaal (Jack). The moment that really stuck out to me above all else was when they reunite for the first time after their first time on Brokeback and Michelle Williams (Alma) sees them kissing. The moment really captures the gravity of the situation the two (or 3) are in. Ennis had never really showed that kind of joy and raw sexual energy with his wife (minus the one scene where he flipped her on her stomach to be in the same sexually dominating position he was in with Jack in the tent). Building off that moment, Williams does an extraordinary job throughout the film of showing her pain at seeing her husband is gay – but the way she portrays it is NOT out of disapproval for his sexual preference, but out of her feeling dejected and lied to… The fact of the matter is, she did love the father of her children and just wanted a normal marriage and life. Jumping back to the male leads, the pent up aggression, frustration, and energy they expose in the solitude of the wilderness juxtaposes their home lives so bluntly and makes their situation incredibly clear.

One of the questions surrounding these men, is, if they are gay… how do they manage to consummate their heterosexual marriages? Do they have bisexual tendencies or does their wish to stay closeted in a bigoted society enable them to perform sexually in their normal home lives? It’s another layer to a complicated narrative that looks at this micro relationship in solitude while examining the macro relationships in the social context in the stark mid-west towns they call home.

Next, Ang Lee, who took home the best directing statue for his film, does an excellent job of capturing the starkness, bluntness, and loneliness of middle America. It reminded me of Malick’s Badlands or Payne’s Nebraska. The shots color structure, visual spacing, and phallic nature  allow the naturalness of the male relationship to unfold more realistically. Furthermore, the costuming is masculine but neither man is overly fit, leading to characters disguised as classic men, though hiding their true feelings beneath the clothes. Fitting (no pun intended) that the final shot in Jack’s shirt, covering Ennis’s shirt in the closet as the starkness of the country waits outside the window with a storm looming in the distance.

There’s also a TV show on Showtime called Shameless where two of the main characters in the ensemble are teenagers who are gay and in love. The show treats their relationship as having one of the characters be open about their homosexuality while the other is a gun touting south-side Chicago hoodlum who would rather use violence to cover up his homosexuality than admit it to the world (or his father) and face the backlash. By the most recent season, however, the hoodlum character has come out and has declared his love for the other. Now, the show treats their homosexuality the same way it treats it heterosexual relationships on the show, which is an incredibly impressive feat.

People have been talking about ebert’s review of the film. Here is an excerpt that I completely agree with:

“But it’s not because of Jack. It’s because Ennis and Jack love each other and can find no way to deal with that. “Brokeback Mountain” has been described as “a gay cowboy movie,” which is a cruel simplification. It is the story of a time and place where two men are forced to deny the only great passion either one will ever feel. Their tragedy is universal. It could be about two women, or lovers from different religious or ethnic groups — any “forbidden” love.”

That’s why the film works. It’s because this is a love story. A love story that travels through time, societal change, and family life that could happen to any one, gay, straight, or bi. It doesn’t matter. These are two people who loved each other, but society said it was wrong. Maybe that’s the best way to simplify.

I totally agree with Annie and Ebert’s point that representing the queer community as a whole is an impossibility. It’s impossible to represent any huge, broad concept in one film. As such, it’s important to discuss how Brokeback Mountain vignettes a queer relationship.

First off, I’d like to say that Brokeback Mountain was an excellent film in the fact that it kept my interest throughout its duration. This is due to the diversity of the shots, the dynamic sound, and the script/concept. The first two are results of great production and they are undeniably excellent on their own merits (Gustavo Santaolella deservedly won the Oscar for Best Original Score).

With great standalone components like sound and visuals, there’s naturally going to be a large audience. With that in mind, the script and the representation of a queer relationship are hugely important because a lot of people are going to see it — the stakes are higher than they would be for your average film. That being said, I don’t think Brokeback Mountain does for queer theory what the class thinks it does and here’s why:

I worked for a 93 year-old guy a couple summers ago and he had this to say about why some men are gay: “A man only turns gay when he can’t handle a real woman.” Obviously he was a product of a different time and obviously I neither agree with nor defend what he said, but the fact remains that certain people like him are going to cherrypick information and turn it all into confirmation bias. Perhaps it’s unavoidable, but Brokeback Mountain is chock full of confirmation bias for bigots who view the film through a lens of bigotry. Honestly, it’s painful to view the film in this light because I really think it’s awesome; however, it is important to identify where the film can confirm horrible, socially conservative biases so filmmakers can wholly avoid or successfully navigate them.

First, Jack couldn’t shoot the coyote for the life of him. Real men have to be able to shoot guns.
Second, Ennis is practically ridiculed for being sick of beans so early on in the summer. Real men can bear minor discomforts.
Third, Jack and Ennis’ employer chastises them for ranching so terribly on Brokeback, “you ranch this and you ain’t never no good.” Real men punch in 9-5 and they do their job well.
Fourth, as Erika Spohrer points out in UFT, they are tending soft, woolly sheep in Wyoming rather than herding cattle in Texas. Real cowboys herd cattle, not sheep.
Fifth, the two men who recognized Jack at the tractor dealership mentioned that he was a terrible cowboy at the rodeos. Real men can ride a bull.
Sixth, neither Jack nor Ennis could keep their wives happy. Real men can keep their wives satisfied (sexually and emotionally).
Seventh, Jack and Ennis aren’t gay — they’re bisexual. Real men aren’t gay and they certainly aren’t bisexual (or perhaps real men at least aren’t indecisive… i.e. they don’t live two lives).
Eighth, Jack doesn’t just die. Death is his punishment for being queer. Retribution?

(To clarify, the stuff I put in bold are all hypothetical bigoted reactions — not my own opinions.)

The list could go on forever but the point remains: when it comes to traditional masculinity, Jack and Ennis fall short. Sure, they were in the west and perhaps you can call Brokeback Mountain a western, but the two men aren’t hypermasculine because they noticeably couldn’t/didn’t handle their environment and they couldn’t/didn’t handle their masculine tasks. To put it bluntly: Jack and Ennis suck at doing traditionally manly stuff. Even Jack’s crowning achievement as a man where he shuts the TV off during Thanksgiving dinner is a struggle and, judging by his wife’s reaction, uncharacteristic.

Look, I’m not saying they had to be the best cowboys in all the land… I’m just saying that they didn’t have to be portrayed as the worst. It makes it seem like the only two representatives of the queer community the viewer is given don’t belong in the west, which is an awfully dangerous implication.

To bring it all back, the film had the first two components (awesome visuals and award-winning sound); however, I would argue that the third component (its Oscar-winning adapted screenplay) still came at the expense of unnecessarily stereotyping the queer community as unmasculine and unfit for the western genre.

Today we spoke in class about the representation of Jack and Ennis as being overtly masculine characters. It could be argued that their representation in this way may makes their homosexual identity more easily digestible to a wider range of audiences; specifically heterosexual males. In Mercer’s piece “Dark and Lovely,” he speaks to the problems this kind of representation presents:

In a situation where the right to representation is rationed and regulated, so that minorities experience restricted access to the means of representation, there is often an assumption on the part of funding institutions and an expectation on the part of the audiences that they should “speak for” their particular community (CV 744).

In this case, other homosexual identities are neglected for one which, as aforementioned, that might cater better to heterosexual audiences. Brokeback Mountain does not “speak for” any gay person who does not behave in a way that is typically considered hypermasculine, i.e. fishing, tractor riding, gun wheeling men.

Writing about Brokeback, Film critic Roger Ebert counters this point, saying,

Strange but true: The more specific a film is, the more universal, because the more it understands individual characters, the more it applies to everyone. I can imagine someone weeping at this film, identifying with it, because he always wanted to stay in the Marines, or be an artist or a cabinetmaker (Rogerebert.com).

Watching the scene in which Jack and Ennis are arguing over the brevity of their times at Brokeback, I was reminded of a past long distance relationship that I had and the heartache it entailed. I am sure that others viewing the film each identified with specific points as well.

Despite the pressure and impossibility to represent a whole group of people in a film, Ebert’s argument points to the commercial success of Brokeback. By underrepresenting part of the gay community, Ang Lee is able to have a wider audience empathize with the relationship between Jack and Ennis, thereby potentially supporting those not represented in the film.

While watching Brokeback Mountain there were two things that struck me. One was the film, initially, turning a pretty blatant blind eye to the time period in which the movie takes place, which does get corrected with a purpose later on.  The second is the amount of shots that were taken of the Wyoming landscape. As I watched the film, specifically as the two go back to Brokeback over the years, I saw how these two points are working in conjugation with each other to highlight the philosophies of Romanticism. Romanticism was a period of art during the 1800’s that focused on getting away from society and reverting back to beauty of nature in response to the industrial revolution. Writers and Poets like William Wordsworth, William Blake,  Henry David Thoreau (later on in the period), and the Hudson River School believed in the transitory and timeless qualities of nature that could allow human to reevaluate the status of their changing society. This philosophies, I would argue, seems to parallel the political message of this film. Keeping this in mind the my original question as to why the time period isn’t really noticed in the film, because Brokeback is an escape from the society and the time that doesn’t accept who their love. This is why we constantly see the long shots of the beautiful Wyoming landscape, nature, in the Romantic sense, is consider to be timeless.

Also, if at this point you don’t agree with this, I found this picture when you look up Brokeback Mountain . The painting being juxtaposed is by Alvan Fisher, a prominent Hudson River School painter.  http://https://www.google.com/search?q=brokeback+mountain+sheepdog+landscape&biw=1366&bih=667&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=W44dVfWRHqW0sASM6ILQBg&ved=0CCMQsAQ#imgrc=Ar2pa_eiG-BGlM%253A%3BH8oVu12I9eujEM%3Bhttps%253A%252F%252Farthistory327.files.wordpress.com%252F2012%252F09%252F1.png%3Bhttps%253A%252F%252Farthistory327.wordpress.com%252F2012%252F09%252F17%252Fbrokeback-mountain-and-the-pastoral-trope%252F%3B850%3B389

In the case study section of Understanding Film Theory, there is a quote about Brokeback Mountain (2005), in which the author states “I am unaware if a single review of Brokeback calling the leads what they are—a sad statement on the invisibility of bisexual experience and the level of biphobia in both the mainstream and gay media.” (196). This quote struck me as interesting when I first read it, and after watching almost all of Brokeback in class, it is easy to contextualize it. The idea of “invisibility” of the bisexual experience was interesting to me. Most obviously, Ennis’ resistance to seeing Jack anywhere but Brokeback points to the need for secrecy in order to have any kind of relationship.

Additionally, however, I thought the incorporation of the masculine identity spoke to the invisibility and taboo nature of two men engaging in a relationship. The use of violence as a signifier of masculinity was especially interesting. To me, this also points to how masculine and queer theory can be intertwined. During the Thanksgiving scene at Jack and Lureen’s house, after turning the TV back on to the football game, Lureen’s father asks Jack “don’t you want your boy to grow up to be a man?” The necessity for sports, especially a sport that lends itself to violence, as a qualification for being a man struck me as interesting. It was an easy way to categorize Lureen’s father as a stereotypical heterosexual man, and thus an antagonist to Jack’s alternative sexual preferences. At the conclusion of the scene, Jack is able to regain control of his house. The most telling part of their power dynamic came at the very end, when Jack took over carving the turkey from Lureen’s father.

Furthermore, the allusions to violence between Jack and Ennis were interesting. Whenever they were intimate, they each faced an inner struggle that externalized itself in near violent rages. Even when they hugged, both Jack and Ennis had a tight grip and their bodies became noticeably stiffer. This violent, animalistic nature juxtaposed against the fact that they were two men falling in love. The tenseness and anger trapped in their bodies points to the taboo nature of their relationship; they both know that what they are doing is not considered right by the hetero-normative society they live in. At one point this violence does boil over when Jack lassos Ennis; their ensuing playful wrestling ends with Ennis punching Jack. Thus, while the movie is not overtly brutal, the tenseness and hidden rage within Jack and Ennis points to a certain type of violence. This violence demonstrates the inner turmoil of the characters as they attempt to reconcile with the near invisibility of bisexuality in their world.

Last week, a major focus on feminist theory was the objectification of women in film through the three male gazes. While not all of feminist film theory focuses on “the gaze” or how to reverse it, a good portion of the scholars we read discussed the gaze. Not all scholars were as thorough about discussing the gaze as, say, Mulvey, but could not avoid mentioning it in some capacity. This points to the pervasiveness of the male gaze in film.

I found it interesting, then, that the male gaze was seldom discussed in the chapter on masculinity. Obviously the male gaze would take on a different persona. The camera’s male gaze, for instance, would not be as prominent, as the camera’s male gaze was predominately utilized to show fragmentations of women in order to objectify them. However, that still leaves two gazes: the male protagonist and audience

While the male protagonist gaze and audience gaze predominately deal with how a man will look and act around a woman, I believe they are applicable to masculine theory. In Steve Neale’s piece in chapter 10 of Understanding Film Theory, he writes that “in order to divert any homophobic or homoerotic feelings, the male body is defaced in some manner as a way of relieving the sexual tension. This can also apply to male friendships on screen.” This “defacement” of the male body occurs in order to distract from any voyeuristic pleasure on the part of the audience. To me, this implies a heterosexual male audience gaze. If the voyeuristic pleasure took into account a heterosexual female audience or homosexual male audience, then detracting from the voyeurism wouldn’t be necessary. Additionally, the need to undermine any sexual tension between male friendships because they run the risk of exuding homosexual tendencies implies a heterosexual male gaze.

The rest of the chapter discusses the changing definition of masculinity. However, it does not discuss whose “gaze” is considered in the shifting masculinity. Do men go from “beefcakes” to vulnerable to meterosexual for the sake of a male audience or female audience? Or both? It was interesting to me the absence of a more in-depth analysis of gaze that accompanied these shifts considering the prominence of gaze concerns about gaze in feminist film theory.

“In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto the female figure, which is styled accordingly. (UFT 155).

I would argue that Mamma Mia (2008) does not “return” the gaze, but reverses it by either directly objectifying men, or at least denying them the opportunity to command control of the passive female.

Until the wedding scene in which Donna (Meryl Streep) reluctantly agrees to marry Sam (Pierce Brosnan), Donna maintains power in her relationships with all of her former love interests, even demanding that they leave the hotel. It is only until Donna marries Sam that her position of power is altered- and even in that case Sam does not gain power, but their relationship becomes ‘even/neutral’.

Donna’s best friend, Tanya (Christine Baranski), similarly maintains control in her relationship with her admirer Pepper (Philip Michael). Tanya uses her overt sexuality to subject Pepper to her whims. Although she is an object of Pepper’s desire and therefore his “gaze”, Tanya commands ultimate control, denying his advances.

Rosie (Julie Walters), another of Donna’s best friends, is the active female in relation to a passive male, Bill (Stellan Skarsgard). Rosie’s “determining gaze” occurs in one of the final scenes of the film, where she pursues a reluctant Bill relentlessly until he finally returns her advances.

The relationships between men and women in this film reflect the authorship of an all female production team. With their influence, women in this film escape the gaze, allowing them to deflect it, control it, or use it to their own devices.