Brokeback Mountain. 2005. USA. Directed by Ang Lee. Screenplay by Larry McMurtry, Diana Ossana, based on the short story by Annie Proulx. With Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway. 35mm. 134 min.
The cowboy has been a potent model of American manhood for straight and queer audiences, from James Fennimore Cooper’s classic Leatherstocking Tales (1827–40) to the Marlboro Man and the Village People. Both serious scholars of gender and comedians alike had explored the homosexual implications of the cowboy lifestyle before Brokeback Mountain successfully dramatized the subject for mainstream audiences in 2005. (For some historical perspective, look for Lenny Bruce’s milestone 1971 animated short Thank You Mask Man YouTube.)
Adapted by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana from a short story by Annie Proulx, Brokeback follows the troubled, 20-year love story of two cowhands (Gyllenhaal and Ledger) who struggle against their true natures to live as heterosexuals. Earning more than 70 international awards—and predictable backlash from the conservative media—it has since been hailed as a landmark of LGBQT cinema, entered the National Film Registry, and inspired an opera in 2014 and a play currently running in London. Coincidentally, Spanish filmmaker Pedro Almodόvar, who turned down the opportunity to direct the film before Ang Lee, premiered Strange Way of Life, his “answer to Brokeback Mountain,” at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2023.