HA-HA! As if...
I've been looking forward to this movie since its first announcement. No, not when Ang released Hulk. I'm talking all the way back when Gus Van Sant was attached and wanted Matt Damon and Ben Affleck to star. (This thought now scares me.) I believe it may have been 1998. Nothing happened with the film and eventually Van Sant and Damon and that other dude went on to other things. While promoting Hulk, Ang Lee announced this would be his next project. I had all but forgotten about it. It seemed exciting that this film would be made. I adore Ang Lee's films. Even I liked Hulk. It's criminally underrated. The Ice Storm and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon are about two of my favorite all time movies. I love films that take their time and completely absorb you, fully evocative. Rumors circulated about potential casting (fan picks were Viggo Mortensen and Brad Pitt). In January of 2004, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal were cast. As a Gyllenhaalic since 1999, this was terrific news. I believe I sent out a mass e-mail regarding the casting, as I had a tendency to do when I didn't have a blog. Ah, the pre-blog Darren days. I might as well have been churning my own butter and sewing my clothes. Yes, Gyllenhaal as a gay cowboy. If that's not news worth delighting in, I don't know what is. Heath Ledger - I was unsure of. He had demonstrated charisma in the dismal A Knight's Tale and the enjoyable 10 Things I Hate About You. But The Order sucked. So did Four Feathers. I thought he looked great in the movie, even though he looked very androgynous - a look I don't typically go for but somehow did for him. However, there was one shining ray of hope in his filmography: Monster's Ball. He's barely in the film for 10 minutes, but created such a lasting impression. At this point in time, I hadn't read the short story from which the film was based. I had no idea that his character Ennis Del Mar was practically his Monster's Ball character extended to feature length. The two leads were cast, and the movie would begin filming in the summer.Additional cast members came on board. I believe Anne Hathaway was next, then Michelle Williams. Not too sure about the exact order. Hathway, I love. Well, I loved her in one thing. I caught The Princess Diaries on TV one day when I was waiting for delivery men to deliver my big screen TV. It was truly delightful. She had genuine movie star qualities, a dark haired Julia Roberts. She actually got the part in the movie because she fell off her chair in the audition. Garry Marshall hired her right away. The princess would become a queen for Brokeback. A rodeo queen. Michelle Williams, unlike her Dawson's Creek costars, seemed to be trying to earn cred the old fashioned way: by demonstrating real talent. She carved out a small stack of indies. She kept working. It's sad that Dawson's Creek is her biggest exposure to the mainstream as it's easily her worst work. Not saying she is bad on it, just that when you compare it to her roles in Dick and The Station Agent, you start to realize just how much she was wasting on the teen soap. Hey, I'm a pretty big Dawson's Creek fan, mostly the first 2 seasons though. I also prefer Michelle as a brunette.
The rest of the cast was gradually filled out, and filming began. Most of the film's production was fairly quiet. Filmed in Calgary, Alberta Canada, on a budget of not much more than $12 or 13 million, everything was lowkey. Information and behind the scenes pictures were few and far between. At least from where I could see. It came to my attention that Gustavao Santaolalla would be doing the music for the film. I was thrilled about this. I loved his work on 21 Grams and had listened to many samples of his other work. I just adore his rough but passionate music, heavily using guitar. Filming ended in August. There was one last thing for me to do that would hopefully make me more excited for the film.
December 25th, 2004, while waiting for my parents to return home from my aunt's house, I read Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx. My first thought after reading it was that it would make a really great movie. Hearing the various chatter about the script being the best in the biz for nearly a decade was fully confirmed. The story was heartbreaking, intimate yet epic. If you know me, you know I don't really "cry." Okay, so a few episodes of Gilmore Girls have had me in tears, almost. I'm girly like that at times. But I love when I'm into something and I'm being totally impacted by it that I just feel strapped in my seat. Completely breathless. Only a few works have done that. I think it's an emotion much better than crying. Proulx's writing just had this flow, this original quality to it. It was very direct. As is my understanding, it's not for everyone. I barely read, sadly. I should do it more.
Over the past year, I've read the story almost half a dozen times. It gets better with each reading. I plan on reading it again before seeing the film on Sunday night, and I'm rewatching one of my favorite films, The Last Picture Show. The screening I'm going to will be featuring the screenwriters of the movie Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. Last Picture is one of the McMurtry's most famed works. He cowrote the screenplay with Peter Bogdanovich. Ang Lee has stated he based Brokeback Mountain on the westerns of McMurtry such as Picture Show and Hud. They aren't westerns in the typical regard, rather depict life of western towns which don't change much even if the rest of the world can't stop evolving. If the film plays like a cross between Last Picture Show and the short story, I can't imaging it not being perfect.
The most I want from the film is for it to be the short story on the screen. I'd like to think of Proulx's words while seeing Lee's films. I'd like to read the story again and see Ang's film while reading Proulx's words. The film will flesh out small details without distracting from the big picture. The two will be able to go hand in hand, complete as one. As is my understanding, they do. We shall see.
As you can hopefully see, I'm looking forward to this movie, my most anticipated movie ever, more for these reasons then some of the obvious ones. Yes, it is "that gay cowboy movie." But once you hear the story, I'd doubt you say that. While the story wouldn't be at all the same if they weren't gay or cowboys, by the end, it hardly matters. I could really care less about the sex scenes and if they are shocking or not. They are there, and therefore the film is faithful to the short story. I can't tell you how in line to perfection this film is for me. Here are some of my favorite moments from the short story:
+Alma's confrontation with Ennis - though it does contain the one part of the story I don't like: "Jack Nasty." Eww. That's in the movie, apparently. If Michelle Williams can deliver that line without making me cringe, give her the Oscar now.
+the embrace by the fire
+the shirts
Remember the scene of Meryl Streep clutching the car door handle in The Bridges of Madison County - one of the few movie romances that can almost make me cry. That scene has nothing on the shirts. Just wait. In fact, The Bridges of Madison County is a pretty good comparison for this entire film and its literary basings, I suppose. But whatever. My favorite lines from the short story are the last couple of paragraphs, which I won't spoil. I just thought I'd share that.
Anywho, I'm off till Monday when I'll share my thoughts with my friends and the blogging world on the film.
Maybe I should watch an Ang Lee movie...
should I go with the one that people consider slow?
or the one about the people battling societal repression?
:-)
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