I Wanna Be A Cowboy

Brokeback Mountain, the latest by Ang Lee, recently won the top prize at the Venice film festival beating out George Clooney's film Good Night, and Good Luck about Edward Murrow, intrepid reporter of the past, played by David Strathairn, and Joseph McCarthy, staunch anti-communist, who lead a witch-hunt. Many in Hollywood came under blacklist because they were accused of being communists. Playwright, Arthur Miller, wrote about the Salem with trials in his play, The Crucible, which was really about McCarthy.

There was some apprehension that Brokeback Mountain wouldn't fare too well. After all, it didn't even make the cut at Cannes. Even so, Ang Lee has historically had problems getting his films into Cannes. For some reason, they don't embrace him.

I've heard of this film ever since they cast it about a year ago. At the time, there were those that didn't like the idea of Heath Ledger in the role. He was seen as a pretty boy, with the acting chops of Keanu Reeves. With quirky roles such as Donnie Darko, Jake Gyllenhaal (will I ever get his name right>), was perceived as the better actor.

In fact, Ledger's looks have probably dictated some of the initial roles he's had. The Patriot and A Knight's Tale weren't exactly thespian roles. Although he acted in Monster's Ball, it was a film that most people heard about more than they saw. The two leads, Billy Bob Thornton, and Halle Berry, rightfully took top billing.

To me, the revelation for Ledger was The Brothers Grimm. Even though his characterization was, IMO, wrong for the story (at one hand, an academic, and on the other, believing in fantasy and spirits---sort of Mulder and Scully as the same person), it was nevertheless the kind of acting that Keanu could never do. Ledger's mannerisms as a bookish type, exasperated at his more popular brother (Damon), was not a role that you'd expect of him, much as Colin's Farrell role as a meek baker in A Home At the End of the World.

To this end, I've read Mike D'Angelo's reviews of Brokeback Mountain, and while he rated it a 66, excellent, by his standards. (Mike rates on a 0 to 100 scale. I have yet to see a 100, although he rated Gus Van Sant's Elephant a zero. He uses the entire range of scores. 50 is decent, but flawed. 60 is pretty good. 70 is great. 80 is outstanding. 90 is unbelievable. On his scale, above a 60 is pretty good, what most critics would give a 3 stars or so). Although he doesn't care for the kind of movie it is, he says that it's as well done as that movie can be made. And impressively, he's ready to rate Ledger as actor of the year for his performance.

With a director like Ang Lee, you don't expect him to take too many chances. True, the Hulk wasn't unabashed superhero movie (no, I haven't seen---just read reviews) as Spiderman. This is what happens when you get someone who isn't an avid comic book fan, but who wants emphasize what he thinks is important (say, the drama between Banner and his father).
But films like The Wedding Banquet and Crouching Tiger try to appeal to emotions. Ang isn't nearly the indie director that fellow countryman Tsai Ming-Liang (director of What Time Is It There? and The River) is.

There are directors that are considered more prominent than Ang Lee from Taiwan. Hou hsiao-hsien, who tends to direct films that are opaque to follow (mostly trying to keep the Chinese names straight), even if excellently framed and composed, or Edward Yang, who like, say, Wong Kar-wai, realizes Taiwan's place in the Asian economy (with characters speaking in Taiwanese, Mandarin, Japanese, and English). Yang is interested in life in Taiwan in an increasingly global economy, and the search for meaning with one foot in the past, and one in the future, between tradition and Westernization (or Japanization).

Ang Lee is concerned with simple storytelling. He's not as intrigued by stories of what it means to be human in the 21st century, a topic of vast intrigue to Jonathan Rosenbaum. He is interested in emotional repression and complexity. Crouching Tiger is as much about a love that isn't fulfilled out of respect, and in the end, what a meaningless sacrifice to hold to such honor.

The Ice Storm is about the new sexual politics of the 70s, and the loss of morals, in the pursuit of fun, and its essential hollowness.

Brokeback Mountain was originally slated to be directed by Gus Van Sant. Unless Van Sant was prepared to go back to films like Finding Forrester, a serviceable directorial job, that could have been done by practically anyone, his version would have perhaps been more austere, less emotional, at least, if you base it on his recent efforts with Elephant, Gerry, and Last Days.

What has everyone concerned, which is really what has the gay community concerned, is how explicit the sex scenes are. On the one hand, there are those who feel Steven Spielberg should be flogged for his sanitizaation of The Color Purple for understating the lesbian relationship between Celie (Whoopi) and Shug (played by Margaret Avery). Had he left those scenes in--Spielberg never seems that comfortable with sex scenes, he'd probably have pushed the film from Oscar consideration. But given the Oscar shutout, Spielberg could have made a more honest film to the source.

Reports are that there are some sex scenes in the film, though probably a bit tamer than one might expect. Presumably this means hot and steamy, but in creative angles the emphasize eyes, sweat, and little genitalia.

This represents a step forward towards more adult-themed roles for the Gyllenhaal clan. Maggie Gyllenhaal recently did her best Annette Bening in Happy Endings where she corrupted son and father (Tom Arnold) in the search of, what, wealth? Security?

Jake shows up next in the war film Jarhead, from the award-winning director of American Beauty (now, who was that? Ah, Sam Mendes). Mendes also directed the Tom Hanks-Paul Newman film, Road to Perdition. He's a visual stylist of the first order. Trailers make it seem like he's doing his best Kubrick, at least, vis a vis with Full Metal Jacket. That's scheduled to be released in November, so it may be Gyllenhaal will compete with himself come Oscar time.

Ah, the Oscars. Are they even worth it? OK, compete with himself for some acting awards that aren't the Oscars.