Brokeback Mountain

Brokeback Mountain

2005

Director: Ann Lee

Writer: Annie Prouix, Larry McMurtry, and Diana Ossana

134 Minutes

“I can’t quit you.”

The story of two cowboys and their summer on Brokeback Mountain was dubbed the “gay-cowboy” movie for over a decade. In reality, it was a film of forbidden love and lost opportunities.

It’s a story about being true to yourself.

When Jack Twist (Jack Gyllenhaal) meets Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger), they began a secret relationship lasting over twenty years. Between marriages, divorces, children, and work, they visit each other sporadically on Brokeback Mountain.

They only have each other, though kept at a distance by Ennis.

In the scene above, the two characters have completed their summer on Brokeback and have gone their separate ways. Once Jack pulls away in his pickup, Ennis finds himself walking alone. He tucks into a back alley and collapses.

He dry heaves, punches the wall, and painfully leans against the cold building.

That’s what makes this movie so powerful is that it’s not just two gay men having sex, but it’s two gay men hating themselves for it. Their struggle is not to have a relationship, but to emotionally deal with their own homosexuality.

It’s a struggle for both men.

And while Jack would have loved to move to Mexico, devoted himself to Eddie, and lived out the remaining days in a loving relationship, it was Ennis who could never commit. Ennis, from his childhood experience of seeing the death of another homosexual cowboy, could never accept true love until it was too late.

Lost opportunities.

At the end of the film, Ennis finally does accept how important Jack was with a metaphorically moment with two shirts wrapped within each other, from their first meeting on Brokeback Mountain.

When it was all said and done, Brokeback Mountain took home three Academy Awards, including one for best writing.

It was an film that turned off most of the American audiences because of the subject matter, but the few that went to theaters to see it were pleasantly surprised by the message.

A message of love.