Brokeback Mountain, like Sam Mendes' best-picture Oscar winner American Beauty, challenges its audience to embrace luminous filmmaking beauty even while spelunking through dark emotions.
Brokeback Mountain (2005)
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Reviews Counted:225
Fresh:194
Rotten:31
Average Rating:8.1/10
Consensus: A beautifully epic Western, Brokeback Mountain's gay love story is embued with heartbreaking universality, helped by the moving performances of Ledger and Gyllenhaal.
Runtime: 2 hrs 15 mins
Genre: Dramas
Theatrical Release:Dec 9, 2005 Limited
Box Office: $82,970,165
Synopsis: 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 and adapted for the screen by the team of... 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 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 – a ranch-hand and a rodeo cowboy – 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. Early one morning in Signal, Wyoming, Ennis del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) meet while lining up for employment with local rancher Joe Aguirre (Randy Quaid). The world which Ennis and Jack have been born into is at once changing rapidly and yet scarcely evolving. Both young men seem certain of their set places in the heartland – obtaining steady work, marrying and raising a family – and yet hunger for something beyond what they can articulate. When Aguirre dispatches them to work as sheepherders up on the majestic Brokeback Mountain, they gravitate towards camaraderie and then a deeper intimacy. At summer's end, the two must come down from Brokeback and part ways. Remaining in Wyoming, Ennis weds his sweetheart Alma (Michelle Williams), with whom he will have two daughters as he ekes out a living. Jack, in Texas, catches the eye of a rodeo queen Lureen Newsome (Anne Hathaway). Their courtship and marriage result in a son, as well as jobs in her father's business. Four years pass. One day, Alma brings Ennis a postcard from Jack, who is en route to visit Wyoming. Ennis waits expectantly for his friend, and when Jack at last arrives, in just one moment 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. -- © Focus Features [More]
Starring: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway
Starring: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway, Randy Quaid, Linda Cardellini, Anna Faris, Valerie Planche
Director: Ang Lee
Director: Ang Lee
Screenwriter: Larry McMurtry, Diana Ossana
Producer: Diana Ossana, James Schamus
Composer: Gustavo Santaolalla
Studio: Focus Features
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Reviews for Brokeback Mountain
Brokeback Mountain is concerned with poignant storytelling and not once is this compromised by the glistening manlove.
Lee has made one of the most memorable - and undoubtedly the most important and relevant - love stories in movie history.
(The film's) edge is its same-sex controversy, but the cast is what keeps it sharp.
Brokeback Mountain is about as close to perfection as it's possible to come in modern Hollywood.
By seemingly renouncing overt politics, it makes a case for tolerance and understanding far more effectively than a film with a more direct agenda.
Like all great love stories, Ang Lee's is one of tragic romance, strongly acted by Heath Ledger as the most buttoned-up of cowboys, and Michelle Williams as his betrayed and enraged wife.
A film of extreme tenderness, with sympathy for all its deserving characters, including the wives and family members who suffer alongside the frustrated Jack and Ennis.
Despite my distress at the tedious pace, the performances are sharp and compelling
...about the sometimes tragic connections that might be made between two people who, because of circumstances or convention, have no right or opportunity to pursue intimacy with each other.
One of the all-time greatest love stories, its potent poignancy comes from universally relatable ideas like nagging love, lost dreams, a half-lived life and comfort in knowing incomplete joy is better than none at all.
Overall, the movie is a solid, entrancing love story, but all the Oscar buzz is nowhere near justified. It's an above-average film overpraised for its social significance.
Lingered with me for days, though more for its noteworthy performances and breathtaking cinematography than for its divisive same-sex subject matter.
...a courageous, transcendent film that may prove to be a landmark down the line in the Hollywood landscape.
Lee strips away all the pizzazz for something that is much more pure - a rough and tough emotional journey.
Latest News for Brokeback Mountain
November 13, 2009:
James Schamus talks Taking Woodstock - RT Interview
James Schamus might be a workaholic. If it's not enough that he's the head of Focus Features -- the independent imprint of Universal -- he's also an established producer and... More...
November 12, 2009:
Five Favourite Films with Ang Lee
The rule that no two Ang Lee movies are ever the same is confidently kept intact with the release of his latest, Taking Woodstock, a comedy about the true story behind the... More...
January 29, 2008:
No Country for Old Men Takes Top Honors at SAG Awards
Blessed with a waiver by its striking brethren in the Writers Guild, the Screen Actors Guild was able to turn Sunday's SAG Awards ceremony into one of the only "real" awards... More...
January 22, 2008:
Heath Ledger: 1979-2008
Heath Ledger, star of films including Brokeback Mountain, 10 Things I Hate About You, and the forthcoming The Dark Knight, was found dead this afternoon. He was 28. More...
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