Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal star in Brokeback Mountain |
To call Brokeback Mountain “the gay cowboy movie” is a bit of a misnomer, seeing as the phrase calls up any number of images, from bedazzled chaps to the cast of Queer Eye outfitting a rodeo rider.
Instead, director Ang Lee's film is a poignant, heartbreaking and startlingly romantic exploration of the years-long relationship between two rugged young ranch hands, the taciturn and closed-off Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and the open-hearted, longing Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) as they struggle to both indulge and disguise the intense feelings they share in a more repressive American West.
Brokeback Mountain is also one of the best-reviewed films of 2005, and a clear front-runner in the annual Hollywood awards derby, having already garnered seven Golden Globe nominations, four Independent Spirit Award nominations, and an assortment of critics’ awards. And as the film slowly opens across the country in wide release, Hollywood.com has the inside story from the filmmaker and his leading men, from Lee’s contemplative take on the material to Gyllenhaal’s verbose exploration of his craft to Ledger’s closer-to-the-vest comments.
Jake Gyllenhaal
"I think you walk out of this film feeling kind of devastated in a lot of ways, but also feeling like a real sense of benevolence. And I think the process of making the film produced that, too. I mean, yes, [director Ang Lee] manipulated us. Yes, in a way, he very gently abused us, but I walked out of this experience going, 'There is a real kind of benevolence.'..." [Full Interview]
Heath Ledger
"I was never really a fan of American Westerns. I never played cowboy or things like that as a kid. I guess it takes an outsider to see what it's like for a cowboy, or a character that is outside of himself." [Full Interview]
Ang Lee
"...Heath strikes me as a good anchor man to carry that Western movie: brooding, non-verbal, energetic, violent--a lot of those melancholy mysterious characteristics of the West. And then I had to find a counterpart, and that's Jake. He carries the romantic scenes: knowingly bright, positive, almost not cowboy-like. Although the story's purely Western when you read it, as a movie the genre flows into a romantic love story..." [Full Interview]