November 30th  2005

Brokeback Mountain 
Entertainment Weekly Review
Grade: A
Reviewed by Owen Gleiberman

Brokeback Mountain is that rare thing, a big Hollywood weeper with a beautiful ache at its center. It's a modern-age Western that turns into a quietly revolutionary love story. In 1963, Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), a couple of dirt-poor ranch hands, take a job guarding a flock of sheep on Brokeback Mountain, a pristine jutting vista nestled in the lush Wyoming wilderness. Ennis, a crusty, taciturn loner with a scowl that might have been carved into his pale face, and Jack, an amateur rodeo rider who has held on to his optimistic boyishness, are youthful anachronisms, relics of the fading days of the Great Plains culture. But they're still cowboys to the core; they've fallen into this life because it feeds something in them.

To keep the coyotes away, Jack is assigned to sleep near the flock, but mostly the two men have hours, days, and weeks on their hands. They jump on horses to guide the sheep across meadows and rivers; they sit around a campfire, heating canned beans and swapping stories and a bottle of whiskey. Then, one night, when it's too cold for either one of them to sleep outside, they do something that the old movie cowboys never did: They wrap their bodies in a rough embrace and, without a hint of seduction, they have sex, an act that's as shocking to them as it is to us.

Because it feels right, they do it again as the days go by. Yet what is it, exactly, they're feeling, this urgent seizure of loneliness and affection and desire? Ennis and Jack, who've been raised in a world where to be ''queer'' is not to be a man (and is therefore unthinkable), can't grasp the feeling that's come over them because they literally don't have the words for it. In their very innocence, they are, in an odd way, a bit like the ancient Greeks, who saw homosexuality as an exalted expression of male friendship. Ennis and Jack call each other ''friend,'' and they mean it, but their bond evolves into a delicate, suspended romance, and Brokeback Mountain becomes their Eden, the craggy cowboy paradise from which they are destined to fall.

Adapted from Annie Proulx's brilliant 1997 short story, Brokeback Mountain was directed by Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) from a script by the venerable Western novelist and screenwriter Larry McMurtry (Lonesome Dove) and Diana Ossana, and together they have coaxed Proulx's anecdotal, through-the-years narrative into a wistful epic of longing and loss. Lee stages the picture with an enraptured tranquillity that lets each emotion shine through. At times, it's a bit too tranquil, especially in the episodic second half, but when Brokeback Mountain takes off, it soars.

Ennis and Jack drift into their separate lives, each caught in a fractured marriage with children, but they reunite over the years, going on fishing trips where no fishing gets done, sharing, however fleetingly, the connection they can barely speak of. They're products — victims — of a closeted culture, yet secrecy and repression work on them in a special way. They're men who have fallen in love without quite realizing that's what's happened to them, and the glory of Brokeback Mountain is that in tracing their fates, treating their passion as something unprecedented — a force so powerful it can scarcely be named — the movie makes love seem as ineffable as it really is.

Jack, a shade more comfortable with his nature, talks of getting a ranch together, but Ennis will have none of it: Stung by childhood memories of a rancher who lived with a man and got bashed for it, he fears — he knows — that exposure could kill them. In the classic Westerns, the cowboys were often men of few words, but Heath Ledger speaks in tones so low and gruff and raspy his words just about scrape ground, and he doesn't string a whole lot of those words together. Ennis' inexpressiveness is truly ...inexpressive, yet ironically eloquent for that very reason, as tiny glimmers of soul escape his rigid facade. Ennis says nothing he doesn't mean; he's incapable of guile, yet he erupts in tantrums — the anger of a man who can't be what he is and doesn't realize the quandary is eating him alive. Ledger, with beady eyes and pursed lips, gives a performance of extraordinary, gnarled tenderness. Gyllenhaal is touching in a different way, his puppy eyes widening with hope, then turning inward and forlorn.

As the movie goes on, Ennis, penniless and alone, becomes a shard of a man, nurturing a lost dream. Brokeback Mountain has a luscious doomed tenor that, at times, makes it feel like Edith Wharton with Stetsons. It's far from being a message movie, yet if you tear up in the magnificent final scene, with its haunting slow waltz of comfort and regret, it's worth noting what, exactly, you're reacting to: a love that has been made to knuckle under to society's design. In an age when the fight over gay marriage still rages, Brokeback Mountain, the tale of two men who are scarcely even allowed to imagine being together, asks, through the very purity with which it touches us: When it comes to love, what sort of world do we really want?

- posted by Ally 
- credits: EntertainmentWeekly.Com
-

 November 30th  2005

Jake Goes for 'Broke'

Gyllenhaal and Lee on 'Brokeback Mountain.' Plus, an Oscar preview of
the Best Picture race
Nov. 29, 2005

2005 keeps getting better and better for Jake Gyllenhaal. Earlier
this fall he drew raves for his supporting role opposite Gwyneth
Paltrow in "Proof." In November, he opened the Gulf War
drama "Jarhead" to a box-office weekend that exceeded expectations.
And in December audiences will finally get a chance to see the young
actor in one of the best movies of the year, "Brokeback Mountain."

Playing Jack Twist was admittedly a challenge for Gyllenhaal. Yes,
Twist is a closeted gay cowboy living in an era and setting where he
couldn't be public about his feelings. But he's also a charismatic
charmer who coaxes out an incredibly quiet and intense Ennis (Heath
Ledger). Actors tend to wince when asked about "chemistry" with a co-
star -- they are actors after all; they are paid to make it appear
natural. But, Gyllenhaal and Ledger (who gives a career-defining
performance) obviously have something special on screen
in "Brokeback." Moviegoers have to believe their relationship would
last for decades, and the early (and only) love scene is a big test
in that regard.

"The best metaphor I can give [on doing the scene] is that it felt
like ... when you're terrified of the water, you see a little kid
thrown in and they're trying to get back to the boat as fast as they
can," Gyllenhaal says. "But at the same time, when we were there, we
really went for it. We knew we had to consummate this somehow. It
couldn't just be a story about friendship, because there's a part of
two people connecting intimately, sexually, that drives that intimacy
through the years."

Still, Gyllenhaal's take on both characters differs from the film's
director, producer, screenwriter and Annie Proulx, who wrote the
original short story on which the movie is based. It may also
frustrate some of his and the movie's fans.

"I think it surprises people when I say, 'I think these two guys are
straight, and yet they find each other somewhere.' And I think that
people are like, 'What's that mean?' and ... I don't really know. I
just think that we're both being somewhere -- servicing a story that
is so much bigger than both of us and everybody involved."

Audiences and critics may not agree with Gyllenhaal's evaluation of
Jack and Ennis' sexuality, but they will be hard pressed not to
praise his performance

- posted by Ally 
- credits: MSN.Com
-

 November 30th  2005

Heartbreak range
Hollywood shied away from Ang Lee's subversive western, Katherine
Monk writes.
 
Katherine Monk
The Ottawa Citizen

TORONTO - We've all got a Brokeback Mountain in our lives, says Ang
Lee, director of the new film by that name, about two ranch hands
who fall in love.

"It's a part of human nature to fear desire and to lose control, and
so we begin to indulge in self-denial. Self-denial leads to
darkness ... because it shuts out truth, and then, you have nothing
but the darkness, and regret, and the memory of what might have been.

"Brokeback Mountain is a romantic symbol of what we fail to attain.
It's about loss. It's about fear. It's about the illusory quality of
love."

Lee's vision of Brokeback Mountain emerged against the big Alberta
sky over the course of shooting the movie, based on an E. Annie
Proulx short story and adapted for the screen by fellow Pulitzer
Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana.

Originally published in the New Yorker, and later in a collection of
short stories called Close Range, Brokeback Mountain tells the story
of two ranch hands, Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist.

Macho men who embody the mythic West in their faded dungarees and
dirty Stetsons, Ennis and Jack are quiet fellas who resist personal
intimacy. Yet, when they end up sharing the same tent over the
course of a summer sheep-herding in the mountains, the two men fall
in love. The passion proves overwhelming, but the men feel trapped
by their own desire.

They're two dudes living in America's heartland in the 1960s.
Homosexuals might exist in New York, but not Wyoming. Ennis and Jack
cannot be together, but over the course of a 20-year relationship,
they sneak off on "fishing trips" to recapture that first taste of
love in the shadow of Brokeback Mountain.

"Funny how we say people fall in love," says Lee. "We don't walk
into love, but we fall. It's this impossible, negative space that we
fall into. That's what gives this movie its existential feel,
because the whole drama takes place in that void ... in that
negative space, in longing."

Lee communicates that emptiness in every scene, with arching, aching
skies and a spartan soundtrack of a repeated chord progression on a
guitar. He says he thinks about his visuals intensely before he
starts shooting, and diligently works to create a mood and texture
that will carry the picture thematically. With Brokeback Mountain,
it was especially important, since dialogue and expository dramatic
sequences simply did not exist on the page.

In development for a long time, with directors such as Gus Van Sant
attached to the project during its years in limbo, Brokeback
Mountain first attracted the attention of Diana Ossana, who read it
in the New Yorker in 1997 and cried -- twice -- with her second read
eliciting even more salty streaks than the first.

When Ossana brought it to the attention of her friend and
collaborator McMurtry, they decided to buy the rights and write the
script. Major studios were interested in the project because of the
talent associated with it, but no executive was willing to commit
big dollars for a movie about gay cowboys.

Lee read the Brokeback Mountain script for the first time after he
tasted the sweet smell of success for Sense and Sensibility, his
1995 Academy Award-winner starring Emma Thompson. "I cried when I
read it. I was interested in directing, but it didn't happen then."

Lee went on to direct other projects, such as Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon, Ride with the Devil, The Ice Storm, and Hulk. Lee
says he thought about the script over the years. He never let it go,
and eventually, he and his production partner James Schamus were in
a position to make it happen. Schamus had been made an executive at
Focus Features, Universal's indie arm, which amounted to a green
light for the "gay cowboy" picture.

The budget would be Lee's smallest chunk of coin since he made Eat
Drink Man Woman, but he didn't care. By shooting outside Calgary
with a small crew, and using the landscape as his tailor-made
soundstage, Lee was able to pull off what many critics are
calling "the best film of the year" on $13 million U.S.

As in other Lee movies that take an electron microscope to the
demons lurking in the American psyche, such as his Civil War-themed
Ride with the Devil, and his Watergate-era drama about the lies
behind the nuclear family, The Ice Storm, Brokeback Mountain finds
much of its artistry through subversion of genre expectation.

"I like making dramas about conflict through which you examine
humanity and the complexities of human dynamics," says the Taiwanese-
born director. "This material was like a goldmine.

"Maybe as a foreigner, I have a different way of viewing the United
States. I don't know. To be honest, I don't know why anyone else
didn't make those movies (Ride with the Devil and The Ice Storm). I
think the distance can be good, at least that's what people say.
When I make Chinese films, I hear that I am so full of myself. When
I do American movies, the first thing they notice is the subtext.

"Obviously, I twist genre a little bit. But you know, I'm a twisted
person in my own mind." Lee smiles. "In the culture in which I grew
up, you express yourself indirectly, which is unlike a lot of
Western drama, where you get very explicit dramatic scenes where
everything is said out loud. We tend to hide behind the scenery,
which can then reflect how you feel, and this idea of indirect
_expression became a very central theme in Brokeback Mountain because
Jack and Ennis can't talk about what they are feeling."

Lee says he used the silence and the elegiacal quality of the
western song, and the western poem, to let the film communicate
emotion when his characters could not.

"I hate calling it a western movie because I think of western and I
think of gunslingers. It's really more of an epic romance. The story
just breaks your heart, and it's that sense of loss that connects it
to the West -- and the loss of the American frontier. You could say
there's an almost dirge-like quality to the movie."

Lee says the low budget, and the fact that he knew he was making a
risky film, stripped him down and somehow purified the filmmaking
experience for him. "This is a subject that repulses straight men,
and so it deals with a lot of repression. Hulk was about fear and
repression, and the cost of that fear and repression on the
individual and society. Ennis has some Hulk elements in him because
he can be extremely violent -- the idea that if you can't fix it,
then you have to stand it. And sometimes, people can't stand it any
longer and they explode.

"The fact is people make choices and some of those choices are for
self-denial. This movie is about two men, and the choices they make.
Some might think the idea of the macho man and romance are
conflicting, but they aren't. Really, they are two sides of the same
coin -- one cannot exist without the other -- complexity in co-
existence."

Lee says he does care what people think about the film and he hopes
the gay subject matter won't cause an uproar in a polarized American
market. After the disappointment of Hulk -- at least in terms of
industry box office numbers -- he said he was happy to make a movie
that he was happy making.

"Brokeback Mountain let me rediscover the joy of filmmaking. ... I
can't say I knew what this movie was all about before I started. I
had definite ideas, yes, of course, but somehow, that's the truly
scary part of making a movie. You don't know what it is -- you're in
the darkness, and that's my Brokeback Mountain," he says.

"With experience, and artistic form, though, you can find your way."

- posted by Ally 
- credits: Canada.Com
-

 November 30th  2005

Out on the Range:
Jake Gyllenhaal goes from Jarhead to ranch-hand.

Movie: Brokeback Mountain
Director: Ang Lee
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway, Randy Quaid
Studio: Focus Features

Did Jake Gyllenhaal freak you out with his intensity in Jarhead? Well, don't worry. He'll warm your heart with his sensitive romantic character in Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee's epic about forbidden love between two modern-day cowboys. Heath Ledger plays the tough-as-nails horseman; Jake gets to be the boy toy. It's a long way from Donnie Darko.

The Wave: With all the hype about you and your big movies, do you feel people are missing the subtleties of the films?
Jake Gyllenhaal: The movies I've been in are full of interesting ambiguity and it's really nice to know that audiences are responding to an ambiguity. They don't always want something totally clear and spoon-fed. I give credit to my generation because I feel like they're really responding somehow to it and it's really cool. Both these movies changed my life in the process of making them.

TW: How did Brokeback change your life?
JG: Ang was someone who didn't say much. Both Heath and I were incredibly surprised to see Ang at press conferences [be] totally articulate and really very clear about what he was saying about the film. When we asked him questions on the set, we got nothing. He really sort of set a stage and he asked us to play whatever we were going to play. He did manipulate us in ways, and that really angered us at times, and then at the same time we feel really proud of the end results.

TW: Does that mean when you finished, you felt like you never wanted to work with Ang Lee again?
JG: Well, yeah. I mean, after I first saw the movie, I saw Heath out somewhere, and I was like, 'Did you see the movie?' He was like, 'Yeah, yeah.' I said, 'What did you think?' He's like, 'I have no f---ing idea.' I was like, 'Me, too.' It's a very interesting thing. When we finished, I was just exhausted emotionally. I think Heath was constantly being pushed back by Ang, pushed back into his skin. I think Heath constantly wanted to get out and Ang kept pushing him back in. And with me, I had heard all these stories from all these actors, their first day of work walking up to Ang and asking him how it was, and Ang saying, 'You'll get better.' So I was so waiting for that because actors have given incredible performances in his movies. I was waiting for this apathy, and the first day of work he walked out to me and was like, 'Great job.' I was like, 'Noooo, that's not good.'

TW: How did you approach seducing a dude?
JG: Ang always said that my character, Jack Twist, has had more experiences with guys before, and he's the more gay of the two of them. And I was like, 'Wow, am I really going to be able to be the one who brings him into this and comforts him somehow? Because I'm just as skeptical of it, also.' Their scene in the tent, where I'm like, 'Come in here,' I act like I know what I'm doing, but I have no idea what I'm doing with this. I'm the one who kind of initiates these sexual encounters, which to me was totally foreign. It's like, how do you do this? Does it look right? I consider it a real movement to get to a place where you see it as intimacy between two people. I had doubts from the beginning whether that was going to work. And I think it surprises people when I say, 'I think these two guys are straight, and yet they find each other somewhere.'

TW: Are you and Heath now best buddies for life?
JG: We knew each other before we filmed this movie. We had both been on an extensive, really intense, audition process for Moulin Rouge with Baz Luhrmann. There was me and Heath and Ewan [McGregor] as the last three for that role. I had just gotten this little puppy, and I feel like I was the puppy of all the three of them. I was just amazed to be in there auditioning. Baz never let us see each other. We'd be ushered into a room and locked in, and the other would go out and audition with someone and then ushered back in. So I heard him by name for a long time, and when we were both not cast, we became friends out of jealousy.

TW: I've got a sensitive question about the bull riding: Did you hurt your privates and how did you protect them?
JG: Who are you writing for?

TW: I'm just a guy.
JG: Thank you for the empathy. No, I didn't really hurt anything, at least, not right now that I know of. Maybe there's long-term damage.

- posted by Ally 
- credits: TheWaveMag.Com
-

 November 30th  2005

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN REVIEW
Rolling Stone Magazine
****

Ang Lee's unmissable and unforgettable Brokeback Mountain hits you like a shot in the heart. It's a landmark film and a triumph for Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, who bring deep reserves of feeling to this defiantly erotic love story about two Wyoming ranch hands and the external and internal forces that drive them from desire to denial. Directed with piercing intelligence and delicacy by Lee, the film of Annie Proulx's 1997 short story -- the unerring script by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana is a model of literary adaptation -- wears its emotions on its sleeve.

That leaves the film vulnerable. The media keep tagging it as the gay cowboy movie, the queer Gone With the Wind, the Western that puts the poke in cowpoke. Coupled with the rise of homophobia as church and state shout down gay marriage, the film is up against it.

Do me a favor: See the movie first and make your judgments later. It's an eye-opener. The story begins in 1963, when ranch boss Joe Aguirre (Randy Quaid) hires Jack Twist (Gyllenhaal) and Ennis Del Mar (Ledger) to herd sheep up on Wyoming's Brokeback Mountain. Ennis is quiet, but whiskey and Jack's talk about his rodeo riding loosens Ennis' tongue and his inhibitions. One cold night they share a bedroll. Jack gives the impression of experience. For Ennis, this is nothing he'd done before, but no instructional manual is needed.

Proulx writes it this way: "They never talked about sex, let it happen, at first only in the tent at night, then in full daylight with the hot sun striking down, and at evening in the fire glow, quick, rough, laughing and snorting, no lack of noises, but saying not a goddamn word except once Ennis said, 'I'm not no queer,' and Jack jumped in with 'Me neither.' "

Lee and the gifted cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (Amores Perros) transform Proulx's terse prose into expansive visual poetry. Shooting in Alberta, Canada, Lee avoids trite postcard prettiness to find the beauty and terror in nature that mirror the vivid and sometimes violent relationship between the two men. "It's nobody's business but ours," Jack tells Ennis.

He's wrong, of course. Joe spots them with his binoculars and never hires them again. Ennis marries Alma (Michelle Williams) and has two daughters. Jack moves to Texas, marries Lureen (Anne Hathaway) and has a son. Living a lie is easier than dealing with the truth, at least it is for Ennis until Jack pays a visit -- his first in four years.

Lee's filmmaking mastery has never been more evident. Watch the skill with which the Taiwanese director of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Sense and Sensibility walks the volatile ground of this reunion scene. Ennis can't contain his excitement. Running down the steps to greet his friend, he collides with Jack's body, kissing him fiercely and Jack returning the heat. Alma sees it too, from the window, finding reinforcement for something she's always felt. Without dialogue, Lee creates a whole world that can be read eloquently and movingly on the faces of the actors.

And what actors. Though the characters must age twenty years, Lee has cast the film young, a risk that pays major dividends. Hathaway (The Princess Diaries) excels at showing Lureen's journey from cutie-pie to hard case. And Williams (Dawson's Creek) is a revelation, using what Proulx calls Alma's "misery voice" when her husband goes fishing several times a year with Jack. Who can blame her? They never bring home any fish. When Alma remarries and lets Ennis feel the knife of her resentment, Williams lets it rip.

Of course, the movie would not work at all if the two lead actors didn't deliver the goods. Gyllenhaal finds the reckless core in Jack, who cruises alleys and bars in Mexico when Ennis rejects his offer to settle down and run his father's ranch. Ennis lives in fear of coming out -- he relates a harrowing childhood incident in which he saw a man tortured and killed for the crime of living with another man. And so he forbids himself happiness with the one person he has ever truly loved.

Ledger's magnificent performance is an acting miracle. He seems to tear it from his insides. Ledger doesn't just know how Ennis moves, speaks and listens; he knows how he breathes. To see him inhale the scent of a shirt hanging in Jack's closet is to take measure of the pain of love lost. As Jack told him once, "That ol' Brokeback got us good." That's the key reason -- besides its daring, its bravery, its dead-on relevance to right now -- that this classic in the making ranks high on the list of the year's best movies. It gets you good.

PETER TRAVERS
(Posted Dec 01, 2005)

- posted by Ally 
- credits: RollingStone.Com
-

 November 30th  2005

Plot: From Academy Award-winning filmmaker Ang Lee comes an epic American love story, based on the short story by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Proulx. Early one morning in Wyoming 1963, Ennis del Mar (Ledger) and Jack Twist (Gyllenhaal) meet while lining up for employment with local rancher. Working as sheepherders up on the majestic Brokeback Mountain, they gravitate towards camaraderie and then a deeper intimacy. At summer's end, the two part ways and over the next four years lead separate lives - getting married, having kids and settling down. Then one day, Jack visits Ennis in Wyoming and it is clear that the passage of time has only strengthened the men's attachment. In the years that follow, Ennis and Jack struggle to keep their secret bond alive. They meet up several times annually. Even when they are apart, they face the eternal questions of fidelity, commitment and trust. Ultimately, the one constant in their lives is a force of nature – love.

Film Review: It may be breaking new ground in terms of how some audiences react to it, but Director Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain" itself is at once both a classic American western and a sweeping old fashioned romance that will pull at the heartstrings of all but the coldest of people. With an astonishingly delicate and respectful touch, Lee pulls off the tricky feat of expanding Annie Proulx's powerful short story in scale and scope, all the while bringing more heart and realism to the table.

Proulx's story worked because it seemed to almost refuse to be political - and yet calling it a fantasy was too much of a stretch because the tale was written in a style that was very gritty, real and with utterly believable consequences. The result was a simple, powerful and universal fable of a beautiful but tragic love affair between two ordinary people in an unforgiving society - the fact that its between two men became only a minor detail more than anything else.

The film takes it even further into the territory of wide appeal by incorporating more everyday realities into the tale, and handling the subject matter with great care and restraint - all without undermining the emotional power of the story. Another director could've easily turned this into, for lack of a better term, a 'queer movie' - one with an agenda whether it be political, exploitative or merely titilation. Lee never falls into said trap, avoiding anything too overt on any of those fronts. Some could say its too soft (or even frigid) a touch, but by doing so it gives the story more emotional resonance for all audiences.

The strong story and masterful direction is only the start of the film's strengths. Performances are superb all across the board, each character is given time to shine and we explore their many facets. Jake Gyllenhaal finally shows us strong dramatic chops as the more emotionally driven, optimistic of the pair who must contend with the frustration of a love who's more withdrawn and restrained than he is.

Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway do great supporting work as the pair's wives - both very different characters who service the story in different ways yet each actress is always up to the task. The two are given short shrift in the original story but here are developed and add richness to both the plot and the two male characters on which we're focused.

The real showcase here though is Ledger who underplays his role to perfection. He makes a physically imposing rough around the edges figure whom many would immediately write-off as a simpleton, and adds whole levels of complexity, vulnerability and depth throughout. His character, who spends most of the film looking slightly constipated and/or mumbling, ends up being the film's richest - a man struggling to deny who he is to both himself and everyone else, even as that secret destroys the happiness of both him and everyone around him. All these performances are very physical as well, with their tone and looks saying a lot more than their words - its a tricky act to pull off and some audience members may not read into it as much as others.

There's very careful attention to detail - as the characters age throughout the story there's a few convincing changes (for the most part) in make-up, hair, dress and lifestyle. All this is offset with the breathtaking visuals showing off the harshness of both low-income dusty American townships and the picturesque natural landscapes of the Rockies. Rodrigo Prieto's Oscar-caliber cinematography is off-set with a soulful low-key score of mostly simple guitar notes and twangs that seem so inherit to the western genre and yet add another dimension to the sense of soulful longing at the story's heart.

Those worried about explicitness on screen needn't be. Both guys do flash their bums briefly (in both cases whilst washing themselves in stream water), both girls do flash their breasts, and sex scenes are limited to two straight, one gay and in all cases only a few seconds long at most and all with clothes on. In fact its surprising how sex is treated with such kit gloves here - those three scenes are all key to the plot, and the gay romance as such is limited to only a few scant scenes of the two guys hugging or kissing (albeit in such a physically violent way that it removes practically any erotic value).

Lee always wants to make sure this is seen as an emotional love story rather than a physical one so those audiences going to see it for 'man on man action', you'll be somewhat disappointed. On the other side of the coin, the only thing homophobes will get squirmy over isn't what's shown but rather the mild implication that you're probably a closeted gay guy if you take your wife from behind more often than from the front.

If there's a complaint to be had by some it won't be so much the gay romance subject matter as the pacing. At 134 minutes its a long movie that deliberately takes its time with some very slow scenes that are allowed to unfold at a very natural pace. Dialogue is kept to a minimum, especially up front, and many scenes involve characters saying one thing whilst expressing a whole lot more with their eyes or body language.

No better example of this is the entire first act which, with the exception of two short scenes with Randy Quaid as their employer, is simply Jake and Heath on the mountain herding sheep and getting to know each other through several painfully restrained conversations. This act is the film's simplest and most engaging, yet it never convincingly explains what it is that pulls these two together short of loneliness inherit to the job and their blooming friendship. Once they're together it also has little place to go in terms of exploration, aside from Jack's growing resentment of Ennis self-sabotaging their chance to have a life together.

Great sweeping romance films are few and far between these days, even rarer are films made with such care and obvious affection. Sadly whilst it'll be dismissed as the 'gay cowboy' movie by many, they will miss out on what's one of the few times you'll ever see a film adaptation that's at least as good as, and in my opinion much better than, the acclaimed story its based on.

It doesn't matter what your orientation or relationship status in life is, 'Brokeback' is a tale of romance that's never properly expressed and doesn't come with a simple 'happily ever after' conclusion. At times it stretches its credibility or short changes a few things which should've been explored, and it could've been a little shorter. Still, the more I look back on it the richer and more rewarding an experience it seems - how often can you say that about a film these days. - Garth Franklin

3 1/2 stars out of 4.

- posted by Ally 
- credits: DarkHorizons.Com
-

 November 23rd  2005

A Tender Cowpoke Love Story
By RICHARD SCHICKEL
TIME Magazine

Posted Sunday, Nov. 20, 2005
Talk about revisionist westerns! Brokeback Mountain is, as far as one can tell, the first movie to trace the course of a homosexual relationship between a pair of saddle tramps, doing so in considerable--if discreetly visualized--detail, from first idyllic rapture to angry rupture some 20 years later.

Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) meet in the summer of 1963 when they sign on to tend a herd of sheep on the eponymous peak, which director Ang Lee locates high in ravishing Marlboro Country. Ennis is a slow-drawling man's man, a simple soul content to live out a life of low-paying odd jobs. Jack is more restless--a not very successful rodeo rider when the spirit moves him but also a man for other, upwardly mobile opportunities. He's the one who initiates their first sexual encounter, although in the act itself he plays the passive role while Ennis is the aggressor. On the other hand (and that ambiguity is one of the film's strengths), in the rest of their relationship Ennis plays the elusive, more feminine role, and Jack is his determined pursuer.

That first time is supposed to be a one-off arrangement; neither one wants or expects to fall in love with another man. And indeed, after their summer together, each gets married: Ennis to the sweet Alma (Michelle Williams), with whom he has two children, Jack to Lureen (Anne Hathaway), daughter of a prosperous farm-equipment dealer. Four years pass before Jack returns to Ennis and they begin taking "fishing trips" together--even though Jack is becoming something of a yearning prairie cruiser in the interim.

The movie becomes more and more episodic as the years wear on, losing intensity and conviction in the process and betraying the passionate romanticism of its beginnings. Since it was written (from a story by Annie Proulx) by Larry McMurtry and his partner, Diana Ossana, it focuses, as some of his fiction does, on the modern, anti-romantic West, a place of trailer parks and honky-tonks, of small, thwarted hopes, wrangling wranglers and sweet dreams betrayed by raw reality. That sense of place is true to life, one imagines, but it has a dwindling effect on this well-acted and well-made movie. For all its brave beginnings and real achievements--its assault on western mythology, its discovery of a subversive sexual honesty in an unexpected locale--Brokeback Mountain finally fails to fully engage our emotions.

- posted by Ally 
- credits: TIME.Com
-

 November 19th  2005

EUROPEAN FILM ACADEMY ANNOUNCES NON-EUROPEAN NOMINATIONS

The European Film Academy announced the nominations for the award EUROPEAN FILM ACADEMY NON-EUROPEAN FILM 2005 - Prix Screen International. The award, presented by the European Film Academy in co-operation with the trade publication Screen International, honours a film from outside Europe. Past winners have included world-famous directors such as David Lynch and Wong Kar-Wai.

Nominated are:

BATALLA EN EL CIELO (Battle in Heaven), by Carlos Reygadas, France/ Mexico/ Germany/ Belgium

BE WITH ME, by Eric Khoo, Singapore

BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN, by Ang Lee, USA

BROKEN FLOWERS, by Jim Jarmusch, USA

THE CONSTANT GARDENER, by Fernando Meirelles, UK/ Germany/ Kenya

CRASH, by Paul Haggis, USA

C.R.A.Z.Y., by Jean-Marc Vallée, Canada

GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK, by George Clooney, USA

LOOK BOTH WAYS, by Sarah Watt, Australia

SYMPATHY FOR LADY VENGEANCE, by Park Chan-Wook, South Corea

TSOTSI, by Gavin Hood, UK/ South Africa

The winner will be presented during the European Film Awards Ceremony on December 3 in Berlin.

Berlin, November 15, 2005

- posted by Ally 
- credits: EuropeanFilmAcademy.Org
-

 November 19th  2005

Film Fest reveals 2006 honorees
Cronenberg, London, Gyllenhall represent tenure, today, official says
Darrell Smith
The Desert Sun
 November 16, 2005

* Provocative, legendary director, a hot producer on a roll and Hollywood's man of the moment will be honored at the 2006 Palm Springs International Film Festival.

Director David Cronenberg, producer Michael London and actor Jake Gyllenhall will make the trip to Palm Springs for the 17th annual festival, Jan. 5-16. The three will be honored Jan. 7 at the film festival's gala dinner at Palm Springs Convention Center.

The festival, one of North America's largest showcases of foreign language and American independent films, will screen more than 200 films from 60 countries, many of them international Academy Award entries for Best Foreign Language Film. Nearly 106,000 people attended last year's festival, according to event organizers.

Cronenberg, whose latest project is "A History of Violence," starring Viggo Mortensen, will receive the festival's Visionary Award.

Cronenberg has made a career of risk-taking films, from his earliest thrillers "Rage" and "Videodrome" to category-changing works such as "Dead Ringers" and "The Fly," films that helped define the careers of Jeremy Irons and Jeff Goldblum.

London will receive the award for producer of the year for his ensemble comedy-drama "The Family Stone," a star-packed vehicle that includes Diane Keaton, Claire Danes, Sarah Jessica Parker and Luke Wilson.

In a telephone interview, London reacted with gratitude at being named to receive the honor.

"It means a lot. To get your work recognized, it kind of means everything," he said. "It sustains you."

London, a former Los Angeles Times reporter and pop music critic, has been on quite the roll. First came the 2003 duo of "thirteen" which earned Holly Hunter an Oscar nomination, and "House of Sand and Fog," which garnered a nomination for Oscar-winner Ben Kingsley.


But it was the surprise smash comedy "Sideways" that propelled the hot producer into the limelight. The film grossed more than $100 million worldwide for Fox Searchlight, earned a Golden Globe and five Oscar nominations, including a statuette for best adapted screenplay.
It will be London's first trip to the festival.

He had hoped to attend last January's gala, where director Alexander Payne and actress Virginia Madsen each were honored for "Sideways." Instead, he accompanied Paul Giamatti to New York for award ceremonies there.

"I'd always regretted that I didn't get to go," London said. "In my wildest dreams, I never imagined that I would get to come back."

Jake Gyllenhall was tapped for Rising Star honors in a year when he's become just that.

Gyllenhall has garnered critical acclaim and Oscar buzz for a string of successes in "Proof"; his portrayal of a young Marine in the Sam Mendes-directed Gulf War tale "Jarhead"; and as a Wyoming cowboy in the Ang Lee-directed "Brokeback Mountain."

Actor Terrence Howard also was selected last month to receive a Rising Star award for his performance in "Crash," the film that explored racial dynamics in present-day Los Angeles.

"We are proud to celebrate their unparalleled achievements that have made an everlasting impression on the face of cinema," festival board chairman Earl Greenberg said in a statement announcing the awards.

Later, Greenberg talked about the thinking behind the nominations. In past festivals, awardees have been among Hollywood's biggest names - people like last year's megawatt winners Nicole Kidman, Kevin Spacey, Samuel L. Jackson and Liam Neeson.

Gyllenhall in the midst of his hot streak was the right person at the right time, Greenberg said.

Of Cronenberg: "It goes without saying. This is a major, major filmmaker."

Greenberg also praised London and his film, "The Family Stone."

"You're talking about an incredible film," he said. "We thought it was time to recognize someone young and dynamic."

Recipients of directing, lifetime achievement, acting and music scoring awards are expected to be announced in mid-December, Greenberg said.

The announcements, like those of Gyllenhall , Cronenberg, London and Howard, are expected to attract attention from Oscar watchers.

Now in its 17th year, the film festival is exerting an influence on Hollywood tastemakers come Academy Award time.

"It's become a real event. It's an important landmark each year. The awards are just the tip of the iceberg," London said. "It's definitely become something that filmmakers look to as a pretty important harbinger."

NOTE FROM ALLY: Yes I know I can't believe they spelled his name wrong either. *sighs*

- posted by Ally 
- credits: TheDesertSun.Com
-

 November 16th  2005

Jake
- DETAILS Magazine
By Benoit Denizet-Lewis; photographs by Tom Munro

It's not easy being Jake Gyllenhaal, what with everyone falling in love with you all over the place. Blue-eyed and muscular, with perfect brown hair, thick eyebrows, and consistently heavy stubble, the 24-year-old combines an unforced masculinity with a boyish openness and curiosity. He's not easy to pigeonhole, and he's also disarmingly down to earth, although he'd rather you not say that. "It bothers me when people say, 'Oh, you're so down to earth—for an actor,'" Gyllenhaal tells me over dinner at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles. "Even when they don't say 'for an actor,' I feel like that's the implication. Why are the standards so low for performers? I mean, I appreciate it, but it's still funny that people say that all the time."

People aren't likely to stop anytime soon. Gyllenhaal, that broodingly sexy scene-stealer of small, offbeat films, is about to go very big with starring roles in two of the most anticipated movies of the year. The first, Jarhead, directed by Sam Mendes and based on the best-selling Gulf War memoir by Anthony Swofford, features Gyllenhaal as a disaffected marine. At first glance, he seems like an odd choice for the role of "Swoff." In previous films (Donnie Darko, The Good Girl, Moonlight Mile, and October Sky), Gyllenhaal has played some variation of the sensitive, complicated, mischievous, misunderstood American youth. But Gyllenhaal says he desperately wanted the lead, and he reportedly beat out Tobey Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio.

"My perception of Jake before I met him was that he was one of those drippy indie boys, doe-eyed and always feeling sorry for themselves," says Mendes. "But when I saw him onstage [in the London production of This Is Our Youth], he had a masculine presence I didn't expect. He does things in Jarhead where I had to step back and say, 'Wow, I didn't know you had that in you!' There are moments when he is really ugly, both physically and mentally."

That goes double for his performance in Brokeback Mountain, Ang Lee's beautiful and haunting adaptation of Annie Proulx's New Yorker story, which brilliantly depicts a complicated and painful affair between two young cowboys. Gyllenhaal plays Jack Twist, who is paired with strong, silent type Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) to herd sheep in 1963 on Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming. After plenty of drinking on a cold night, Jack—the more easygoing and talkative of the two—invites Ennis into his tent, where he's soon cuddling up to him. Ennis freaks out, Jack doesn't take no for an answer, belts come frantically undone, clothes come frantically off, and one of them gets frantically *beep* It's a startling sex scene, and it's followed the next morning by predictable affirmations of heterosexuality ("You know I ain't queer"; "Me neither"). But soon enough they're back at it.

By the end of the summer Jack and Ennis are clearly in love, but they can't verbalize or acknowledge it. So they ignore it. The rest of the film follows them as they go on with their respective lives, never able to fully commit to each other but never able to completely let go of each other, either. "Brokeback Mountain takes all your conceptions of America, and the Western, and cowboys, and sexuality, and love, and it stirs them all up," Gyllenhaal says. "In the end, it's about how *beep* hard it is to love somebody, to really be intimate, to really let go and be open to that, no matter what the context."

Gyllenhaal stresses to me the universality of Brokeback's story ("My character could have been played by a woman and it would have made just as much sense," he says), but I'm astonished when he says that he doesn't believe Ennis and Jack are gay. "I approached the story believing that these are actually straight guys who fall in love," he says. "That's how I related to the material. These are two straight guys who develop this love, this bond. Love binds you, and you see these guys pulling and pulling and tugging and trying to figure out what they want, and what they will allow themselves to have."

One of the film's producers, James Schamus, is as surprised as I am when I tell him that Jake perceives his character as straight: "Did he really say that? Well, I suppose movies can be Rorschach tests for all of us, but damn if these characters aren't gay to me. I think what Jake might have meant is that these guys lived outside of a social construction of a gay identity. There was no such thing as a gay identity for a cowboy in 1963."

If you believe the rumors in the blogosphere, Gyllenhaal might be looking for his own gay identity. In the month before I met him, two seemingly conflicting rumors circulated. The first claimed that Gyllenhaal gave way to a body double for Brokeback Mountain's nude scenes. The second said that he is bisexual and looking for an opportunity to come out.

Gyllenhaal flatly denies using a body double. As for his sexual orientation, he says this: "You know, it's flattering when there's a rumor that says I'm bisexual. It means I can play more kinds of roles. I'm open to whatever people want to call me. I've never really been attracted to men sexually, but I don't think I would be afraid of it if it happened."

The day after our dinner, Gyllenhaal invites me on a walk with him and his German shepherd, Atticus, in Runyon Canyon, a 160-acre park near the Hollywood Hills. It's a sweltering morning, and soon enough Atticus and I are panting and looking for shade. Eventually we come to rest on a bench facing a huge hill in the distance. Atticus scoots under the bench.

I have yet to ask Gyllenhaal about Kirsten Dunst, and I figure that this is as good a time as any. But he'll have none of it. "I don't want to talk about that," he says politely. When I ask him why, since he used to talk openly about their relationship, he says that was "before there was such an insane interest in it."

Indeed, Jake and "Kiki" (Dunst's nickname) inspire only slightly less rabid interest in the gossip rags than Jessica and Nick do, and the fever only spiked when Gyllenhaal and Dunst, supposedly no longer a couple, recently began appearing everywhere together, including attached at the lips poolside in L.A. (If one celebrity magazine's "body-language expert" is to be believed, the couple is not only reunited but "very much in love.")

Since I've gone and ruined the moment, I change the subject to one of Gyllenhaal's favorite topics: meditation and spirituality. Gyllenhaal studied Eastern religion at Columbia University before dropping out to concentrate on acting, and he says he tries to meditate every day. "I hope I'm a spiritual person," he says. "I'm trying to be a spiritual person."

But how, I want to know, does he stay spiritually balanced? After all, he is literally a child of Hollywood—his father, Stephen Gyllenhaal, is a director (Losing Isaiah), and his mother, Naomi Foner, is a screenwriter (Running on Empty)—and he grew up surrounded by stars: Paul Newman taught him how to drive. Jamie Lee Curtis is his godmother. The road to keeping it real, he admits, has not been easy to find.

"I think even a few years ago I needed a lot more validation," he says. "I needed everyone to like me and think I'm great. But that attention doesn't work for me anymore. I realize that there's nothing at the end of that, so I can either use the validation to try to fill an insatiable hole or I can realize that this job is never going to do that. And yet I still love to act and I still love movies, so how do I approach this in the right way?"

He occasionally approaches it in an annoying way. During the filming of his biggest box-office hit to date, last year's $186 million blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow, the actor was difficult, he admits, often more concerned with being "really artsy" than with hitting his marks. Dennis Quaid, who played Gyllenhaal's father, sat him down and set him straight. "He's like, 'You gotta chill out, it's an action movie,'" Gyllenhaal recalls.

That stubborn streak of individuality can complicate relationships off-set as well. During the filming of Jarhead, Gyllenhaal and his costar Peter Sarsgaard, who happens to date Gyllenhaal's actress sister, Maggie, got into a bitter dispute over an incident neither will now discuss. But they eventually buried the hatchet and are good friends again. "He's completely into whatever he is doing in the present moment, and that draws people to him," says Sarsgaard. "But let me tell you, it can also be really annoying. Sometimes he's just too eager. Especially in the morning. We would be driving to the set, and he would be all revved up and play 'Candy Shop' five times in a row. I'm like, 'Can you please turn off that *beep* song?'"

Not even Academy Award–winning directors can find the switch on Gyllenhaal. "I say this very lovingly, because Jake is wonderful and brilliant, but he can be a little bit of a pain in the ass," says Mendes. "If he gets a bee in his bonnet, he won't let it go. He'll just get blocked sometimes and basically gets stuck putting too much importance on one scene, or trying too hard with being absolutely brilliant. He's also the least technical actor I know. If I say to him, 'Lift the gun at the point when you turn,' he can't do it. He's not an actor who's designed to hit marks. So I just let him do his thing. And I'm not worried that he'll be hurt by what I just said. In a weird way, what turns him on is criticism."

It's not easy being Jake, what with everyone want-ing you. But being wanted is boring. Being tested—well, now, that's something else altogether.

- posted by Ally 
- credits: DETAILS Magazine
-

 November 14th  2005

SCREEN ACTORS GUILD FOUNDATION BENEFICIARY OF L.A. PREMIERE OF FOCUS FEATURES' BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN
Entertainment Desk
By Entertainment Desk
November 1, 2005

Focus Features is gifting the Screen Actors Guild Foundation with the benefit Los Angeles premiere of Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain, the winner of the Golden Lion Award for Best Picture at the 2005 Venice International Film Festival. The film stars Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Anne Hathaway and Michelle Williams.

The Tuesday, November 29 gala evening will benefit the Screen Actors Guild Foundation, the non-profit organization dedicated to enhancing the lives of actors by providing programs that educate, inspire, and at times provide a safety net for, the professional actor. In response to the recent catastrophe that devastated New Orleans and other cities in the South, the Screen Actors Guild Foundation is donating a portion of the event's proceeds to benefit displaced SAG members and their families.

From Academy Award-winning filmmaker Ang Lee comes an epic American love story. Brokeback Mountain is based on the short story by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Proulx and adapted for the screen by the team of Pulitzer Prize-winning authors Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. Set against the weeping vistas of Wyoming and Texas, the film tells the story of two young men -- ranch-hand Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and rodeo cowboy Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) -- who meet in the summer of 1963, and unexpectedly forge a lifelong connection. Together and apart, with family and without, Ennis and Jack face the eternal questions of commitment and trust. Ultimately, the one constant in their lives is a force of nature - love. Brokeback Mountain also stars Linda Cardellini, Anna Faris, and Randy Quaid. The producers are Diana Ossana and James Schamus, and the director is Ang Lee.

Founded in 1985, the Screen Actors Guild Foundation is a humanitarian, educational and philanthropic 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization*. In addition to providing emergency assistance, scholarships and medical funding for SAG members, the SAG Foundation is dedicated to providing volunteer opportunities for professional actors to support their communities through the award-winning literacy program, BookPALS (Performing Artists for Literacy in Schools). This nation-wide literacy program helps educate over 100,000 elementary school children on a weekly basis. For more information about the SAG Foundation, visit their Web site at www.sagfoundation.org or contact Marcia Smith at (323) 549-6708.

The premiere will take place on Tuesday, November 29, 2005 at Mann's Westwood 1 Theatre (located at 10925 Lindbrook Drive, in Westwood). The cast and creative team of Brokeback Mountain will attend the 7:30 PM screening, as well as the exclusive post-screening reception at the nearby Napa Valley Grille.

Tickets and sponsorship packages begin at $250 per person. Please call Levy Pazanti & Associates at (310) 201-5033 for more information.

*All contributions to the Screen Actors Guild Foundation are tax-deductible to the full extent allowable by the law.

- posted by Ally 
- credits: American Chronicle
-

 November 13th  2005

DATE:
Tuesday, December 06, 2005

                  TIME:
                  From: 6:30 PM to 10:30 PM

                  LOCATION:
                  Loews Lincoln Square Theatre
                  1998 Broadway (at 68th Street)
                  New York, NY 10023

Buy tickets here

Join Focus Features and GLAAD for the New York Premiere of Brokeback Mountain on Tuesday, December 6, 2005.

Focus Features has generously donated a very limited number of tickets for the New York premiere screening and after-party to GLAAD. See the most eagerly anticipated movie of 2005 and then celebrate at the after-party!

From Academy Award-winning filmmaker Ang Lee comes an epic American love story, Brokeback Mountain, the winner of the Golden Lion Award for Best Picture at this year’s Venice International Film Festival. The film is based on the short story by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Proulx and adapted for the screen by the team of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. Set against the sweeping vistas of Wyoming and Texas, the film tells the story of two young men -- ranch-hand Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and rodeo cowboy Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) -- who meet in the summer of 1963, and unexpectedly forge a lifelong connection, one whose complications, joys, and tragedies provide a testament to the endurance and power of love.

A Focus Features and River Road Entertainment Presentation, Brokeback Mountain also stars Anne Hathaway and Michelle Williams. The film is produced by Diana Ossana and James Schamus, and directed by Ang Lee. Focus Features releases Brokeback Mountain in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco on December 9th; and in additional cities on December 16th.

To view the trailer for the film, please visit: http://www.focusfeatures.com

This event will sell out quickly, so please purchase your tickets immediately. Because of the limited amount of tickets available, there is a cap of 2 tickets per person. Tickets are available on a first-come, first–served basis. Media Circle complimentary tickets cannot be used for this event. More tickets may be available for the screening only in the coming weeks. If the event has already sold out when you go to purchase tickets, please sign up on the wait list to have the first chance to get tickets to the screening only. The after-party is at 118 10th Avenue @ 17th Street. Additional location information will be included in your confirmation email.

This event is produced and managed by Focus Features; GLAAD bears no responsibility for seating or any other details involved with the screening or party. Although celebrity attendance is expected, it is not guaranteed.

All ticket sales are non-refundable and tax deductible to the fullest extent of the law. GLAAD’s tax ID number is: 13-3384027.

- posted by Ally 
- credits: GLAAD
-

 November 13th  2005

Forbidden Territory
In Ang Lee's devastating film 'Brokeback Mountain,' Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger buck Hollywood convention.
By Sean Smith
Newsweek

Nov. 21, 2005 issue - Two weeks ago, Ang Lee showed his new film to an audience in Los Angeles, and afterward he stuck around to answer questions from the crowd. Director Q&As are pretty common in the movie industry, and Lee—who won an Oscar for "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and has directed such acclaimed films as "The Ice Storm" and "Sense and Sensibility"—has done more than his share. But something strange happened this time—the same thing that happens almost every time Lee screens "Brokeback Mountain." "People don't have many questions," he says. "Most of the time, they just stand up and tell me how they feel." When they're still crying, he already knows.

Based on the short story by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Proulx ("The Shipping News"), "Brokeback" is the tale of Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal), two ranch hands who, in the summer of 1963, are hired to herd sheep on Wyoming's Brokeback Mountain. There, separated from the rest of the world, their laconic friendship develops, almost by accident, into a sexual relationship. As the summer ends, the two men are forced to separate, and they discover that their feelings for each other are stronger than they imagined. Jack dreams of buying a ranch together. Ennis thinks they'll be killed if anyone suspects their relationship. And so they marry women and have children, and for 20 years live apart, seeing each other only on rare camping trips, trying to hold on to the innocence and beauty of that first summer on the mountain. Inevitably, the longing and frustration, the years of repression, lead to a devastating conclusion.

Proulx's story caused a sensation when it appeared in The New Yorker eight years ago. Its raw masculinity, spare dialogue and lonely imagery subverted the myth of the American cowboy and obliterated gay stereotypes. It also felt like a sledgehammer to the chest. "This is a deep, permanent human condition, this need to be loved and to love," says Proulx from her home in Wyoming. "While I was working on this story, I was occasionally close to tears. I felt guilty that their lives were so difficult, yet there was nothing I could do about it. It couldn't end any other way."

The film, written by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, is a near-perfect adaptation of Proulx's work. It has already earned the top prize at the Venice Film Festival and is almost certain to be an Oscar contender. More than that, though, "Brokeback" feels like a landmark film. No American film before has portrayed love between two men as something this pure and sacred. As such, it has the potential to change the national conversation and to challenge people's ideas about the value and validity of same-sex relationships. In the meantime, it's already upended decades of Hollywood conventional wisdom.

The day Jake Gyllenhaal was cast in "Brokeback," the chatter around the industry was not about what a wise choice he'd made. "It's the most stupid move he could make," said one top producer over lunch that afternoon. "It'll alienate his teen-girl fan base and could kill his career. What a waste." It's always been considered risky, if not career suicide, for actors with A-list aspirations to play gay roles. Tom Hanks's performance in "Philadelphia" helped a little, but even Hanks didn't kiss another man on screen. Gyllenhaal and Ledger don't dodge it. The kissing and the sex scenes are fierce and full-blooded. But if the actors were taking a risk, they sure don't seem to think so. "I never thought twice about it," Ledger insists. "For one thing, I never felt like I had anything at stake, and I think if you make decisions based on society's opinions, you're going to make boring choices. What terrified me was self-doubt. I knew that if I was going to do justice to this character, to this story and to this form of love, I was really going to have to mature as an actor, and as a person."

There's no doubt he rose to the challenge. It is, without question, his most powerful performance ever. Far from killing Ledger's career, which was in trouble after a string of failures, the movie has reignited it. Gyllenhaal isn't exactly hurting for work either. "They were like the beta-testing guys," says James Schamus, co-president of Focus Features, who has produced all of Lee's films and is releasing "Brokeback." "They've had to go through the endless questions about 'So, what was it like to kiss a guy?'"

Yes, they get asked about the sex a lot. "I'm amazed, really," Gyllenhaal says, laughing. "Everybody is soooo interested in it." And their conversations with journalists have given them fresh insight into straight-male psychology. After seeing the movie, Gyllenhaal says, male reporters will enter a room to interview him and almost always follow the same routine. "They come in and they're all, like, 'I just want you to know I'm straight'," he says, and laughs. If they've been moved by the film, he says, they often rationalize it by saying things like "Well, it's really more of a friendship." No, it isn't. "It's a love story," Gyllenhaal says. "They're two men having sex. There's nothing hidden there." Ledger has a theory about why the movie makes some men uncomfortable. "I suspect it's a fear that they are going to enjoy it," he says. "They don't understand that you are not going to become sexually attracted to men by recognizing the beauty of a love story between two men."

That discomfort would seem to make the movie difficult to market. When the trailer plays in theaters where there are a lot of young men in the audience, it's often met with snickers or outright laughter. How do you get those guys to see the movie? You don't. "If you have a problem with the subject matter, that's your problem, not mine," Schamus says. "It would be great if you got over your problem, but I'm not sitting here trying to figure out how to help you with it." In an early meeting, Schamus told Lee that, from a marketing standpoint, they were making this film for one core audience. "Yes, of course," Lee said. "The gay audience." No, Schamus said. "Women."

When it came time to design the poster for the film, Schamus didn't research posters of famous Westerns for ideas. He looked at the posters of the 50 most romantic movies ever made. "If you look at our poster," he says, "you can see traces of our inspiration, 'Titanic'." Still, questions remain about whether the film will play in rural America, and whether it can make a profit if only women and gay men go to see it. But Schamus says that by selling off the international distribution rights, Focus has already broken even on the film. "Literally, if your mom and my mom go to the theater, we're in profit," he says, laughing.

And it's likely that more than our mothers will buy tickets. The constant stream of positive word of mouth is turning it into a must-see for film lovers. More encouraging to the filmmakers, however, is that it's often having a profound effect on people—even the most seemingly cynical. At the Toronto Film Festival, Lee and the cast faced off against a room of reporters who had just seen the film. One blogger raised his hand and stood up. He didn't have a question, he said. He wanted to apologize. "For the last year on my Web site I've been calling this 'the gay-cowboy movie'," he said. "I just want you to know that I'm not going to be calling it that anymore."

- posted by Ally 
- credits: MSNBC
-

 November 13th  2005

HOLLYWOOD — If this acting thing doesn’t work out for Jake Gyllenhaal, which is highly unlikely, he could always be a spokesman for Travel Alberta.

Gyllenhaal, who’s riding high on the box-office and critical success of his war movie Jarhead, stars opposite Heath Ledger in Ang Lee’s Brokeback Mountain.

It’s the story of two Wyoming cowboys in the ’70s who must conceal their love for one another.

The drama, which opens in Calgary on Dec. 23, was shot in Alberta last year, and Gyllenhaal still has vivid memories of the time he spent in the province.

“Heath and I came to Calgary early to rehearse with Ang. The first place he took us was a campground (near Fort Macleod),” recalls Gyllenhaal.

“There was a trailer for me, one for Heath, another for Ang and a fourth for (producer) Michael Houseman.

“We were living in the trailers and it was spectacularly beautiful country, but it was also really lonely.

“It really began to affect Heath and I, but that’s exactly what Ang wanted.

“He wanted us to experience the loneliness our characters felt.

“Just looking at the Alberta landscapes as Ang filmed them, you get a real sense that it’s being so lonely that brings them together.

“Straight or gay, everyone understands the concept of loneliness and how it makes you search out someone to help fill that void for you.”

After two weeks outside Fort Macleod, Lee moved Gyllenhaal and Ledger to Canyon Creek and Sheep Mountain.

“We rehearsed our scenes in these really remote mountain locations when there was still snow on the ground,” says Gyllenhaal.

“I had just got my dog before we did the movie. He was running and jumping through the snow, just loving it.”

Gyllenhaal says “the amazing thing is when we returned to actually film in these locations all the snow had gone. It looked entirely different.”

The actor says these locations were “so remote that we rode our horses up a trail each day.”

Several Alberta towns were used for the film including Cowley, Carsland and Rockyford.

“Cowley is the windiest place I’ve ever been to in my life. The wind never stopped blowing. People told us it’s the windiest place in the province and maybe one of the windiest places in the world. I can vouch for that.”

Gyllenhaal recalls driving from his apartment in Calgary to Rockyford near Drumheller as “the straightest road I’ve ever driven on. There wasn’t even a bend in the road.

“Alberta has remarkable country and remarkable people. Everyone was so good to us from the crew to the people in the towns. You really had the sense everyone wanted us there and that they embraced the story we were trying to tell.”

Brokeback Mountain won the prestigious Golden Lion for Lee at this year’s Venice Film Festival. Gyllenhaal recalls what a powerful experience the screening proved to be.

“My sister (actress Maggie Gyllenhaal) was sitting in the row behind Ang, Heath and I. When I turned around all I could see in her face were two swollen eyes. She’d been crying that hard.

“When the lights came up after the screening in Venice you could sense just how deeply the film had affected people.

“The same was true at the screening at the Toronto Film Festival.”

- posted by Ally 
- credits: CalgarySun.Com
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 November 6th  2005

Jake Gyllenhaal has quietly been storming the cinemas this fall season to become Hollywood's new sensitive leading man. He's got the swagger of Jimmy Stewart, and the body of Adonis, but don't let these baby blue eyes fool you. He has three of the most high profile dramas this holiday season (Proof,Jarhead and Brokeback Mountain), and he's just about gone to hell and back for his newest Gulf War film Jarhead directed by the exquisite Sam Mendes (American Beauty). His quiet demeanor and brooding good looks would definitely make women swoon, but it's really his charming personality that gets everyone hot and bothered (and no less whispering Oscar is in his future). He talks to The Cinema Source about the trials and tribulations of making a war movie, how he got into shape, and just what he really thinks of his naked... ambitions.

Jarhead is based on a book by Tony Swofford about a guy who enters the marines with little hope or ambition about the process and realizes that he actually really loves it. The soldiers are trained with killing on their minds and fingers on the triggers. Think Full Metal Jacket, but in Desert Storm. In the process, Swofford really figures out marines are a no longer needed tool of the military. Technology has taken over and the skills of a sniper seem outdated when you could just bomb a building. The film costars Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx and Chris Cooper.

In the film Gyllenhaal plays the main character of the Swofford in the book. He explained that the real Swofford wasn't a part of the process, except for being the author of the novel. "Tony didn't come to set once, and he came to like two rehearsals, I didn't see him until like a month ago when we did a photo shoot together." Although, this didn't exactly ease Gyllenhaal's nervousness about Swofford's approval over the translation from book to film. "I was nervous during, after, and even before the picture was locked. I was just trying to talk to him about it, because it must be an odd thing for him [to see an actor playing you on screen]. It was cool to sit next to him [during the screening] because he was sweaty and nervous. I could see him shifting in his chair a lot and I was thinking, 'Oh must not like it.'"

No less, Swoff gave his blessing overall based on the people involved and what their intent in making the film was. "[Tony] said the people who were making the film he really respected, and I think getting involved with it would have been too much for him really. He let the creative thing happen with the people making the movie. The reason why Tony is special is this isn't the only book he is gonna write, and it's not the only magnificent book he is gonna write. He recognizes the process of everyone involved, and they recognize his." Although at the end of the day, this is still his book and his ideas on the Gulf War. "The movie shows realities that we have been told about, but we had never had an emotional connection to characters involved in it. This is Tony Swofford, and this is his book, and these are his experiences."

Although the author was nothing compared to Mendes, who decided that it was best to separate the film from the novel in the filming of Jarhead. "I made a very conscious decision not to be in contact with [Tony] during it. Sam said during the read through before the rehearsal process, 'This is the time you put down the book now and never refer to it again. I don't want people coming up to me and being like oh this is what happened in the book.' What is happening that day is happening that day and that's that." Mendes was very open to the cast's ideas and wasn't a typical take all control director. He created a comfortable environment where people could open up and interact rather than just sticking to the words on the page. "He surrounded you with a sense of nothing you could was wrong and everything was very in the moment. That's how the movie here was shot. A director sets the tone of how it goes. You're free to be who you are. He made me really feel confident in every choice you make."

"I have worked with 2 really extraordinary filmmakers (Ang Lee on Mountain and Mendes). Both of them made sets that were intimate on their own and we didn't know if they were gonna succeed or not. If they were gonna be good movies or not, but it's a great feeling."

Gyllenhaal realized fast that for most war films there is so much physical and mental training involved. War films are often easy to research because you can communicate with those who have actually experienced it. Spielberg had his cast on Saving Private Ryan go through a real military boot camp to understand what it was like to be an actual soldier. Gyllenhaal was already in military mode when he signed up for the picture. He circuited trained by running, swimming and lifting weights to prepare. "Physically I worked out for months before getting into that mind set and thinking about boot camp. We would run drills. I wanted to be physically there and ready."

Gyllenhaal learned a lot in the process of making a film with this much emotional depth and truth. "I don't think there is one person who isn't antiwar. A film of any kind can be interpreted how you want it. The message is more about the men fighting these wars are separate from the administration that makes those choices. It became really clear to me while doing it. I have such an overwhelming admiration for what they do."

It's no secret that when you decide to go into a profession like acting, there are some consequences with such a glamorous job. For instance, your private life is never really private. If you have US Weekly or In Touch having paparazzi follow you around, it can get a bit stressful. For the boring, or so he claims, Gyllenhaal honesty is the best policy. "There are things I like to keep to myself, and there are things I don't mind sharing with people. I don't mind sharing the reality of this movie because it changed my life. We bickered just as much as we celebrated. There isn't anything to hide. There are things that just aren't that interesting to people that I like to keep to myself." His clothes are another thing. We are going to be seeing a whole lot more nakedness from the nubile actor, especially in his new gay cowboy love story Brokeback Mountain co-starring Heath Ledger. "All the training paid off and I feel confident in my body and having no clothes on. Think of that more figurative than literally." Although don't get too excited. Rumor has it that in a nude cliff diving scene from Brokeback, Ledger did the full monty, while Gyllenhaal had a body double come in.

Next on the horizon is a new David Fincher thriller called Zodiac. The script is based on the infamous unsolved Zodiac serial killer case from San Francisco. The film co-stars Mark Ruffalo and has been shooting over the past fall. The movie has added fans interest because instead of just shooting somewhere in Los Angeles, Fincher is actually recreating and filming the real places this film is supposed to be based on. "What's great about those stories is the structure's already there. You think 'How could people have walked by [past crime scenes] not knowing what happened here at all?'"

Quite a far ways away from his days as "Bubble Boy", Gyllenhaal is all grown up now. Fame hasn't quite changed the shy and endearing actor. He has quite the lineup of films being released to a theater near you and he's trying his best not let it get to his head. Don't forget, this is the same actor was once slightly chubby in the film City Slickers. Although in Jarhead, all those things fall to the waist side when you see Gyllenhaal turn in one of his bravest performances and you understand what our military are actually fighting overseas for.

- posted by Ally 
- credits: TheCinemaSource.Com
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 November 4th  2005

Artsy actor Jake Gyllenhaal takes a big step with the new movie JARHEAD. Gyllenhaal stars as Anthony Swofford (author of the book JARHEAD), a young marine descending into insanity during his time in Desert Storm. This is an important role in Gyllenhaal’s career and so far it looks like he just might be a contender in next year's Oscars. Here is what he had to say about his role in JARHEAD.

Sam Mendes commented that he thought you transformed from a boy to a man while making this movie. What was the journey like for you, and did you see yourself feeling the same way?

By the time I was cast, I was sure that he wanted me to play the part. And in wanting me to play the part I think he accepted that he wanted me for me and for the things I had inside me. He saw that there were things inside that other directors hadn’t seen before and he wanted to push. And with that he allowed me the freedom to do what I wanted and it wouldn’t be wrong. He allowed me to go to a place, where I could be stable enough to know that any decision I made was OK.

And to me, that’s part of what being a man is. Knowing that the choices you make, you have a good enough conscience behind you, that everything will be alright. He kept away from pretending to be something I wasn’t or things I thought I should be. Also the physical aspect played a large role in becoming a man. I pushed my body like I had never pushed it before. And there was also the fact that I was surrounded by people who I really admired and respected like Jamie Foxx and Peter Sarsgaard, and of course our military advisors. I looked up to these people. I tried to emulate at times the things they did, and it was all just a process of growing up.

In making this film, what kind of respect did you gain for the military?

I started off with a judgment, as most people do who haven’t had any experience in anything, but have a point of view of it. I think I always connected the military with the administration, that people didn’t have a choice. But now I see that there definitely is a choice involved and it’s a pretty extraordinary place. And the things I learned from just being around people involved in the military, I can’t imagine what really happens in it. So I definitely have developed a profound respect for the marines and for what they go through.

What do you think “Jarhead” and “ Broke Back Mountain ” have done for your career and do you see yourself as being a possible Oscar contender next year?

There's a lot of talk about things like that when you work with a director like Ang Lee or a director like Sam Mendes, because they are inevitably two Oscar winning directors. When you work with Jamie Foxx, or Chris cooper, it’s inevitable that people are going to attach things like that to the project. For me I feel that all I have is the process. It’s hard for me to realize that sometimes, but regardless of the result of any of these movies, Sam Mendes and Ang Lee have ultimately changed my life forever. I’m so happy with the early responses of these movies, but to me the processes of both movies have changed my life and that’s what I take away with me.

Could you talk about the day you lost your tooth?

The day I lost my tooth was a very interesting day. It was a point at which I realized that I would actually do anything, including chipping off my tooth for Sam Mendes. That’s permanent! The scene is when I’m threatening Fergus with a gun and I turn it on myself, and I asked Brian to not hold the rifle so tight. The scene is so long that I forgot I had asked him, and it just went “BAM” into my mouth and I remember I looked down and I saw my tooth had come out. I actually had it in my hand and I thought I could stop this scene or keep going, and I should probably keep going.

Why did you not meet with the real Tony Swofford very much before shooting? Was it time related or did you not want to really imitate him?

It had nothing to do with time. I went back and forth in my head about do I want to meet the person I’m playing or not. Bill had written the character as Swoff in the script, not Anthony Swofford specifically. I realized then this was a story about someone in a period of time, it wasn’t specifically about Tony, but it was Tony who had the courage to bring the story out. I was terrified to meet him because I would realize that I was nothing like him. When we met, I couldn’t say a word, I was so scared. I told Tony when he came that I wanted to present the closest thing to me as I could and I didn’t want to wear a mask or imitate somebody. That’s hopefully what Tony wanted too.

Do you think it's fair to say that boredom is as great a threat as enemy bullets or bombs in this film?

I think a soldier’s mind is as great of an enemy in the field as enemy bullets or bombs. I think that’s what the movie is about. When you use these techniques and you teach someone and you harness an instinct in them, and then they can’t use it, I think the mind is confused by that and then when the boredom sets in you go a little crazy. When you are given the time to think, the mind can be very dangerous.

- posted by Ally 
- credits: JoBlo.Com
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 November 2nd  2005

War is the workplace in 'Jarhead'
By Scott Bowles, USA TODAYTue Nov 1, 9:40 AM ET

Sam Mendes has spent his Hollywood career looking at how men approach their work. The director examined the suburban drone in 1999's American Beauty. In 2002's Road to Perdition, he turned Tom Hanks into a hit man who is indifferent to the job.

In Jarhead, which opens Friday, Mendes again takes a look at the workplace. But this time, the stakes are higher. And employees, Mendes points out, are dying.

"I don't know that people realize we're really at war," Mendes says. "Or what that does to a soldier."

Jarhead explores that, often in painstaking detail. But the film is less about war than it is about the warrior. And it's that approach, says William Broyles Jr., who co-wrote the screenplay with Jarhead author Anthony Swofford, that may help the movie avoid the pitfalls of selling a wartime movie during a time of war.

"This is a love letter to the guys in the field," says Broyles, a former Marine who wrote 1995's Apollo 13 and 2000's Cast Away. "To the grunt, the political context is irrelevant. They're not worried about politics. They've simply got a job to do. And this movie is concerned with how they do that job."

Mendes explores that job by approaching his movie's combat in a distinctly un-Hollywood way.

Though it is seen through the eyes of eager Desert Storm soldiers, there are virtually no battle scenes in Jarhead. The movie takes no stand for or against the conflict. Some soldiers want out of the military. Others are desperate to stay.

"I don't want to tell people what to think about war," says Mendes, who was born in Britain and educated at Cambridge. "I just want them to think about it."

Though Jarhead avoids any references to the current war, the film's timing and parallels are obvious - and intentional. In one scene, after the surrender of Iraq, a soldier proclaims, "We'll never be back here."

"Obviously, there's a good bit of irony to that scene," Mendes says. "A lot of what began in that first war (in 1991) can be extrapolated to what we're seeing today. I think those remain issues we should be talking about, even arguing about."

Too close to reality?

But are audiences in the mood for debate? Jarhead marks Hollywood's latest attempt to tackle war in the Middle East.

It hasn't been easy terrain for filmmakers. The FX television show Over There, Steven Bochco's series based on the current Iraq war, is expected to be canceled because of poor ratings. The documentary Gunner Palace, which followed American soldiers on patrol in fallen Baghdad and enjoyed some of the strongest reviews of the year, took in slightly more than $607,000.

Some scholars wonder whether 24-hour news coverage of the conflict has left audiences weary.

"The Iraq war has entered an uncertain phase of undetermined length," says Kevin Hagopian, a film historian and professor at Penn State University. "No matter how supportive these dramas may be toward the American troops ... these dramas simply remind Americans of all political stripes that we're in a military quagmire."

But will even those who believe progress is being made in Iraq turn out for the movie?

Mendes became intrigued about doing a Gulf War film after reading Swofford's book, which was published just before President Bush's push into Iraq in 2003. The book, about Swofford's experiences as a Marine sniper, was an immediate best seller.

"Everything about that war seemed so far away," says Mendes, 40. "The media never really was allowed in. All you'd see were these tiny little bombs like they were hitting toy towns. There was no sense that this was actually a war, that there was a human toll."

And viewed through the prism of 9/11, Mendes says, the 1991 war suddenly became more relevant.

"I don't think anyone realized how important that war was," Mendes says. "It's pertinent because I think we still don't know what is happening to soldiers on the ground in the desert.

"I'm interested in those personal stories, not taking a political stand."

A bit of heaven and hell

Indeed, the men of Jarhead's platoon run the political gamut. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Swofford, a third-generation enlistee who quickly comes to regret his decision to join the military.

Mendes considered several other stars for the role, including Tobey Maguire and Leonardo DiCaprio, before choosing Gyllenhaal, who has become an early Oscar contender for his portrayal.

"I thought I was a long shot, but this was a role I was going to fight for," says Gyllenhaal, who has had a busy fall with acclaimed performances in this film, Proof and Brokeback Mountain, due Dec. 9.

Gyllenhaal, 24, says he wasn't so much interested in a shoot-em'-up war film as he was Swofford's personal journey from civilian to soldier - and to manhood.

"I love the idea of how these young guys are struggling with becoming something larger in the middle of this extraordinary world," Gyllenhaal says. "Some of the guys feel like they've just reached heaven. Some feel like they just walked into hell."

Though the movie works hard to give the spectrum of the soldier experience, don't expect to find Jarhead playing in any military recruitment offices. Though the film hired a crew of former Marines as advisers, the military lent no official assistance on the film.

Soldiers in the film are trained to kill. Some are violent racists. Others are outraged at what they see as inept and timid leadership. Most go stir crazy in the desert, driven to near hysteria by heat and boredom.

For Mendes and the stars of the film, divorcing their personal politics from the film proved more important than they initially thought.

"Everyone has their own opinion about what this country is doing," says Peter Sarsgaard, who plays Troy, a Marine who finds his true calling in the military. "Personally, I wish we hadn't gone to Iraq."

But Sarsgaard, whose father was in the Air Force and whose uncle died in Vietnam, says the actors did what soldiers in the field have to do.

"You have to tell yourself, 'To hell with politics. There's a job we have to get done,' " he says. "In that sense, I don't think it's like any war movie I've seen. There's no agenda except to show the family they create and the personal journeys these guys are going through."

Swofford says he never expected those journeys to become the fodder of a best seller or a big-budget film when he returned home to Oregon from Desert Storm.

In both the book and film, Swofford paints a portrait of men primed for battle and left feeling cheated when the ground assault lasts only four days.

"I was a guy, sitting alone in a room in Portland, just wanting to tell people what it's like to be in a war, even if it lasts just four days," Swofford says. "Especially if it lasts just four days."

Jarheads - the nickname for Marines because the high collar on their dress blue uniform makes a Marine's head look as if it were sticking out of a Mason jar - are changed the moment they are trained for war, Swofford says.

"You really are marked," he says. "You're changed for life. And I don't think a lot of war stories and movies tell that. They're more interested in battles and soldiers getting their legs blown off or getting blinded by fire. I'm more interested in the personal side of it."

Mendes says he believes audiences will be, too. "I don't think people are battle-fatigued. If anything, they've tuned out to what's happening.

"I don't know that many people realize what a war does, on the personal scale. Hopefully, this will get people thinking. That's the best thing a film can do.

- posted by Ally 
- credits: Yahoo! News
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 November 2nd  2005