Brokeback, WTF is this writer talking about?

[Rod Hagen]

"angles wrong"?

20 years later, is it time to quit 'Brokeback Mountain'?

WWW.NPR.ORG

---

Back in 2005, Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal captured lust shading into love, and love decaying into heartbreak. The movie got a lot of things right — but...

 

[Andy768]

I didn't understand that either! The only sex scene was the first encounter, and that was doggy -- hard to "angle" that wrong as long as one is behind the one on his hands and knees...? If anything, it wasn't enough hawk tuah to be believably sufficient for lubrication.

Edited September 8 by Andy768

[+ azdr0710]

maybe there's a deeper meaning he's trying to only hint at and hoping the reader will get it..........or maybe not.....if not, I also don't get his concern 

[+ MikeThomas]

I couldn’t finish reading the article.  Typical NPR garbage.  We’re all queer now… can’t say Gay.  

[+ nycman]

Huh?

I have no idea what I just read, nor do I care.

[TonyDown]

He was convinced Ang Lee, Larry McMurtry and Dianna Osanna were going to blow it?   Why would an NPR critic want to admit that?  Not too clever.

The sex scene was adequate.  It got the point across.  What does Glen Weldon want?  I mean really.  SMH.

Do young people really claim Brokeback Mountain is "straight" Hollywood's attempt to tell a "gay story"?   Or are they just too lazy to imagine the lives of closeted ranch hands, and their families, 50+ years ago.

I don't need young people or Glen Weldon to agree what a great movie Brokeback Mountain is.  But how sad, jaded and narrow minded they are, to complain about such remarkable cinema 

 

 

 

Edited September 9 by TonyDown

[TonyDown]

On 9/8/2025 at 4:36 AM, MikeThomas said:

I couldn’t finish reading the article.  Typical NPR garbage.  We’re all queer now… can’t say Gay.  

Weldon reminds me of critics that crucified Marvelous Mrs. Maisel for not portraying Susie Myerson living her true dyke self. 

That story takes place around the same era as Brokeback Mountain, when gays and lesbians were rounded up when the police felt like it,

and when comedian Lenny Bruce was thrown in jail for saying anything bordering on vulgar during his act, as portrayed in Maisel.

I was able to love the character Susie Myerson without the script shining the brightest light on it and honking a horn: LESBIAN HERE.   

Maybe young people aren't into poignant, subtle stories.  They're dividing time between the TV and their phone.  No time to think.

 

 

For me, one benefit of actually thinking while watching Brokeback Mountain is how I might notice new things each time I watch.

Example, we were led to believe from his drunk singing around the campfire that Jack's parents were ultra religious Pentecostal, and therefore not an easy thing for Jack to deal with as a gay young man. 

Yet when Ennis visited the ranch where we see a cross on the kitchen wall, Jack's mom nearly treated Ennis like a son, inviting him to have coffee and a piece of cherry cake, and to be sure and come back.  Perhaps not the kind of reception one might predict.

If young people and Glenn Weldon don't have time for nuance, too bad for them.

 

One might guess what a fan I am.  I own the 2 disc collector's edition.  

 

 

 

Edited September 10 by TonyDown

[Andy768]

15 hours ago, Vegas_Millennial said:

The author of this opinion is a girl who claims to know what she's talking about because she has gay friends.  An expert forensic sodomite that makes her not.

??? Is Glen Weldon trans? I must be missing something - why are you referring to him as a girl?

[+ Vegas_Millennial]

7 hours ago, Andy768 said:

??? Is Glen Weldon trans? I must be missing something - why are you referring to him as a girl?

Oops, I misread the article.  It's the author of the original short story Brokeback Mountain which is a woman who consulted her gay male friends, not the author of the article.

[Rod Hagen]

14 hours ago, TonyDown said:

Yet when Ennis visited the ranch where we see a cross on the kitchen wall, Jack's mom nearly treated Ennis like a son, inviting him to have coffee and a piece of cherry cake, and to be sure and come back.  Perhaps not the kind of reception one might predict.

 

 

 

Yes.  How often does a movie actually handle a scene better than the book?  Not often.  I don't have it at hand, but my recollection is that In the short story Jack's mom is at most not especially rude to Ennis.  In the movie, as you pointed out, she's actually warm*.  It's a bit of an uplift, something the story could use at that point.

*20 years ago discussing this with a friend, I pointed out how more meaningful was the wordless exchange between Ennis and Mom when he shows her the shirt and she nods, compared to the short story wherein he steals it.  My friend postulated something I never would have thought of, in the movie, in a way, she sent him up there to find it.  Beautiful.

[BSR]

7 hours ago, Rod Hagen said:

Yes.  How often does a movie actually handle a scene better than the book?  Not often.  I don't have it at hand, but my recollection is that In the short story Jack's mom is at most not especially rude to Ennis.  In the movie, as you pointed out, she's actually warm*.  It's a bit of an uplift, something the story could use at that point.

*20 years ago discussing this with a friend, I pointed out how more meaningful was the wordless exchange between Ennis and Mom when he shows her the shirt and she nods, compared to the short story wherein he steals it.  My friend postulated something I never would have thought of, in the movie, in a way, she sent him up there to find it.  Beautiful.

I saw Brokeback Mountain 3 times in the theater, mostly because of the film’s richness of detail.  I like your friend’s theory.  I didn’t think of it either, but it makes perfect sense.  The mother must have seen the shirt hanging in Jack’s closet all those years and noticed that he never wore it.  Likely she never understood the keepsake’s significance, until Ennis’s visit.

As for your original post, the article made absolutely no sense to me, nor to anyone else in this thread apparently.

Edited Wednesday at 10:56 PM by BSR
Rewording awkward grammar

[+ MikeThomas]

The shirt scene... there wasn't a dry eye in the theatre!

[TonyDown]

5 hours ago, Rod Hagen said:

Yes.  How often does a movie actually handle a scene better than the book?  Not often.  I don't have it at hand, but my recollection is that In the short story Jack's mom is at most not especially rude to Ennis.  In the movie, as you pointed out, she's actually warm*.  It's a bit of an uplift, something the story could use at that point.

*20 years ago discussing this with a friend, I pointed out how more meaningful was the wordless exchange between Ennis and Mom when he shows her the shirt and she nods, compared to the short story wherein he steals it.  My friend postulated something I never would have thought of, in the movie, in a way, she sent him up there to find it.  Beautiful.

I love that idea your friend suggested!

That was perfect, how Jack's mom had the paper bag ready.❤️

Edited Wednesday at 08:49 PM by TonyDown

[maninsoma]

I'll admit that I never thought much of Brokeback Mountain.  It sounds like the author of this piece isn't a young guy but rather probably at least in his 50s.  I'm in my 60s.  I don't think it's a generational thing.  Then again, I tend to think that most mainstream Hollywood films are junk since everything does tend to get tidied up too much in order to secure funding and get distributed.

[jeezifonly]

Distance from a piece of artwork can heighten its beauty,  as well as reveal flaws. Probably depending on the original reaction the viewer experienced. 

For me, raised in 1960's midwest, it hurt my heart when released, and a rewatch hurts it now. Never read the story, but the film's depiction of Mrs Twist quietly displaying (and  probably against her husband's wishes) to a stranger, some knowing compassion on behalf of her dead son still turns the knife just a little more.

[TonyDown]

7 hours ago, maninsoma said:

I'll admit that I never thought much of Brokeback Mountain.  It sounds like the author of this piece isn't a young guy but rather probably at least in his 50s.  I'm in my 60s.  I don't think it's a generational thing.  Then again, I tend to think that most mainstream Hollywood films are junk since everything does tend to get tidied up too much in order to secure funding and get distributed.

The short story and the screenplay were widely praised.

It's fair to say the screenplay exists because of how Dianna Ossana, who is now in her 70s, reacted to the short story, Brokeback Mountain, written back in the 1990s by Annie Proulx, who is now in her 90s.  Jack and Ennis were inspired by young cowboys Proulx observed at a tavern near her ranch in Wyoming.   She admits falling in love with the two characters that she created.  

I belonged to a Brokeback Mountain chat group for years.  Ossana contributed from time to time, confirming interesting details about the film.

Her writing partner Larry McMurtry died not that long ago.

 

Edited 5 hours ago by TonyDown