Brokeback Mountain

Brokeback Mountain, romantic drama film, with elements of a western, that centers on a tragic love affair between two cowboys. A critical and commercial success when it was released in 2005, the movie was a watershed moment for queer cinema.

Plot

Brokeback Mountain is based on a short story of the same name by Annie Proulx that was published in The New Yorker on October 6, 1997. The movie is largely faithful to the short story’s plot: cowboys Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) are hired by foreman Joe Aguirre (Randy Quaid) to herd sheep during the summer of 1963 in Wyoming on the fictional Brokeback Mountain, where they come to greatly enjoy each other’s company. After drinking one night, the pair have sex, beginning a secret relationship that continues for two decades, during which time Ennis marries his hometown sweetheart, Alma Beers (Michelle Williams), and Jack weds Lureen Newsome (Anne Hathaway), a Texan cowgirl and the wealthy heir of a farming equipment business.

Ennis and Jack’s relationship continues through their infrequent trips (to fish, they tell their wives) in the mountains, away from prying eyes. Theirs is a doomed love, a tragically restricted connection characterized by passionate intimacy and all-consuming emotions, which often spark violence toward each other. In the face of intolerance and homophobia, Jack wishes to run away with his beloved, but Ennis refuses, tethered by love for his family and fear of the unknown. At the end of the story, Jack is murdered in a hate crime, and Ennis is left to grapple with the memories of what they had and the tragedy of what could have been.

Development and production

Screenwriter Diana Ossana read Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain” only days after its publication in 1997 and gave it to her writing partner Larry McMurtry, who “knew before I was even halfway through that it was a masterpiece,” as he told HuffPost in 2015. Ossana and McMurtry reached out to Proulx for permission to write a screenplay version, which the author gave, despite not seeing how the story could work as a film.

Finding a producer for the film proved to be a challenge. Only in 2001 did James Schamus, cofounder of the independent production company Good Machine (soon afterward absorbed into Focus Features), pick up the option for the film, despite considering the film high-risk. “Honestly,” he later told HuffPost, “it was a bit of a laughing stock. You know, ‘the gay cowboy movie.’ ”

The film was offered to multiple directors, including Pedro Almodóvar, Lee Daniels, and Gus Van Sant. On Schamus’s suggestion, director Ang Lee read the original short story and, as he later told Out magazine, “the story just refused to leave me.” Lee nevertheless passed on making the movie in favor of directing the superhero film Hulk (2003). After that, he found himself exhausted and reluctant to continue directing films, but on learning that Brokeback Mountain was still unmade, he signed on to the project.

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In casting the two main parts, Lee thought in terms of who would pair well together, rather than who could do justice to an individual role. He considered several combinations of actors but ultimately decided on Gyllenhaal to play Jack Twist and Ledger to play Ennis Del Mar. Lee’s decision to cast heterosexual actors to play LGBTQ+ characters became controversial in the years following the film’s release. For the other characters, Lee was equally particular; he immediately chose both Williams and Hathaway to play Alma Beers and Lureen Newsome, respectively, after their readings.

Principal photography took place almost entirely in southern Alberta, Canada, during the summer of 2004. Gyllenhaal, Hathaway, Ledger, and Williams spent the first month in trailers on a campground near the film site. The actors ate meals around a fire, went fishing, and engaged in other outdoor activities. Schamus later likened the atmosphere to a “summer camp…mixed with survivalist training” that allowed the cast to grow particularly close. Indeed, Ledger and Williams fell in love and began a yearslong relationship.

On-set reactions foreshadowed the film’s future importance. Some of the production’s gay crew members outed themselves to Ossana to share how meaningful her and McMurtry’s script was to them. The actors likewise felt that the movie was “a very big and important step—a statement about love, about the need for love, about the consequences of limiting people,” as Hathaway told Out in 2015.

Release, reception, and legacy

Brokeback Mountain began its theatrical run with a limited release to five cinemas in three cities on December 9, 2005. It received progressively wider distribution over the following months. By February 3, 2006, it was playing on more than 2,000 screens. Total domestic gross for the film ultimately reached $83 million.

Because of the film’s depiction of a romantic and sexual relationship between two men, Brokeback Mountain faced occasional problems with international distribution. The film was banned from theaters in The Bahamas and the United Arab Emirates. China also blocked its distribution. Nevertheless, the film made $95 million in international theaters, which meant a global take of $178 million. Brokeback Mountain was the highest-grossing film in Focus Features’ history (until Downton Abbey displaced it in 2019).

The picture was successful with critics as well. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave Brokeback Mountain four out of four stars. Philip French of The Guardian said it was “a major contribution to our understanding of the western genre.” Some social conservatives, while criticizing the movie for its “agenda” of encouraging empathy for gay men, noted that the movie was well-made.

Although most moviegoers saw Brokeback Mountain in 2006, the film debuted in December 2005, making it eligible for the 2006 awards season. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts honored Brokeback Mountain with four awards: best film, best direction, best adapted screenplay, and best supporting actor (Gyllenhaal). The Golden Globes likewise awarded the film with four wins, including best drama motion picture and best director. At the 78th Academy Awards, the film won best director, best adapted screenplay, and best original score. (Its loss to Crash for best picture remains controversial.)

LGBTQ+ stories have greatly increased in cinema since the film’s run. Nevertheless, Brokeback Mountain is still considered by many viewers to be the quintessential queer film—and one of the greatest films of all time. In 2018 it was one of 25 films chosen for preservation by the National Film Registry of the U.S. Library of Congress.