"Brokeback Mountain" a Review

"what inspired Annie maybe since this is after all a woman’s vision not a man’s"  Farrell

"the scary menace of the guy culture"  Farrell

I haven't seen this movie yet, but now I am sure I will make the effort.  A lot of women don't understand men any better than men understand women.   Over the decades I have heard women say the most amazing things about men.  I had a secretary once who thought that any indication of affection between men must mean that they were gay.  Another woman colleague thought  that the lack of physical modesty in American soldiers meant that they were participants in a "homosexualizing" culture.

The man in the foreground in the picture is an American.  The one in the back is a Montagnard of the Malayo-Polynesian group.  I was introduced to one such who looked me in the eye and said, "You die, me die." I never felt like I wanted to kiss him, but.....

This might be a better movie without the "three minutes" of thrashing about.  It might then actually say something real about men and their feelings for each other.  I'll let you know after I see it.

Pat Lang

Download brokeback_mountain.doc

Alan Farrell

Comments

[bygraves]

I have not seen this movie. What bothers me is that this movie and well alot of other things have been used by others to devide people into camps. I actually began to hate our dear flag after 9/11 because one party made such a point to wrap themselves in it. I began to feel a little put off when people wished me a Merry Christmas...This is wrong..It turns people off to politics not on to it.

[RJJ]

Annie Proulx is worth reading.

[RJJ]

Annie Proulx writes about people in a landscape - social, cultural AND physical. Nobody writes about the red-blue interface/divide better than she.

She delivers what Frank Norris might have, had he lived long enough; or Sinclair Lewis might have, had he not become famous too soon; or what Hamlin Garland might have, had he not been a perfect hack-jackass-cum-twit.

I can't think of an American writer I like better - possibly Stephen Crane.

[W. Patrick Lang]

RJJ

Who is an Ameican writer whom you like who is dead? pl

[RJJ]

an meaning one (1)? Can't do it.

after Crane, Norris and Lewis ...

William Dean Howells, Walter van Tilberg Clark, Willa Cather, Davis Grubb, Erskine Caldwell, Hemingway when he limits himself to hunting and fishing, Melville, OH! John Dos Passos!!!

Evan S. Connell, tho still with us, is the other number one (Chinese usage) favorite.

Hmm. All are northern, midwestern, and western writers. Possibly because to those of us who grew up in a world without gentry much of the South is as alien, mysterious, and exotic as the Orient -- or France.

[sfm]

Sorry, the posted review doesn't cut it with me. Having grown up in the West, there's a lot more truth in Brokeback Mountain, as well as a glimpse at the culture (or lack of it) and Proulx and this movie have nailed it. Here's a fairer review:

http://www.spiked-online.com/articles/0000000CAFlE/htm

[sfm]

let's try again with the bbmt. url:

http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/0000000CAF1E.htm

[wcw]

I love the USA trilogy, but later Dos Passos does nothing for me.

As for Southern writers, try http://xroads.virginia.edu/~DRBR/goodman.html

[RJJ]

I loved A Good Man is Hard to Find. It persuaded me to read more of her. Other stuff, not so much. AGMIHTF is southern YOB culture - not much different from the Appalachian variety.

[marta]

If you like Proulx' writing, you might enjoy Pete Dexter.

Ouch. I just went to Wiki to get a list of his books and came across this blurb. Explains alot about the authenticity of some of his darker characters.

"A former newspaper reporter, Dexter was a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News and the Sacramento Bee. He began writing fiction after a life-changing 1981 incident in which 30 drunken Philadelphians, armed with baseball bats and upset by a recent column, beat the writer severly. The injuries, added to those he had suffered in traffic accidents and as an amateur boxer, left Dexter partially disabled and required years of corrective surgeries."

[Erwin]

SFM, You're welcome to your opinion, but the posted review not only is more cogent and considers the film from more aspects than the SpikedOnline one, it is also better written. What, for example, can this mean: "Brokeback Mountain ... is also uniquely able to say something about West [sic]in a way perhaps only a gay love story can." ?
Only a gay love story like BBM is able to say something about the West in the way a gay love story (of which BBM is the unique exemplar to date) can say it? BBM is the only filmed gay love story able to speak of the West in the style of a filmed gay love story? True either way, no doubt, but surely it's also true that only a veterinary love story can say something about the West in the way a veterinary love story can ... And only a love story about taxidermists... etc, etc. Personally, I prefer reviews to make linear, intelligible, points, not circular, nonsensical ones.

[wtofd]

Since we're taking a break from the ME, let me recommend Pete Dexter's Deadwood. Well written and hilarious. And McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Not so hilarious but brilliant.

[sfm]

There have been so many reviews written about BBM, that we're begging the question here. The review I mentioned from Spiked on-line chose to consider the movie from the perspective of those who have lived in the rural West and know its limitations and that is what the reviewer focused on. I currently live in the rural West and thought the comments were entirely appropriate. The other reviewer sniped at Annie Proulx, Larry McMurtry, with condescending folksy writing. Ugh.

[remas]

so, unlike so many of you strange (but wonderful still) people, I HAVE actually seen the flick, and, like you all as well, it is Wonderful. Really, really wonderful. It ripped my heart right up in the theatre and i am a very particular type if you feel like taking me seriously, i don't just tear up over anyting, or buy into just any piece of flashy/sappy/catchy media, whether it's tv, radio or film. this movie was quality, i'm very proud of the director and the actors for giving us all something worth seeing. of course it's going to stir things socially and in crap media, but as humans with open minds, i think there is a great deal of honesty and learning to be gained from this film. I hope we can all look beyond the stupid conversations, and i hate to put it that way, but i see a lot of them, and have had plenty too.. anyways onward with truth!

[remas]

also my apologies for changing the topic so abruptly, as well as not reading or commenting on the review for which this page was created. good luck to you all