The MacGuffins happily select, with the 411th pick in the 16th round, for entry in the
Western category
:
Brokeback Mountain
I wish I knew how to quit you.
I kind of goofed my way into this pick. I must've watched 5 or 6 yet-unpicked westerns in the past couple months, trying to find something I really enjoyed and would feel good adding to my squad. One in particular really grabbed me, but it was only semi-eligible, and I didn't want to have to defend its eligibility. I absolutely loved another movie I won't name in case it gets picked, and was ready to select it here, until I was browsing my draft notes last night and noticed I had jotted down
Brokeback Mountain under the Award Winners category as a possible selection. I thought- "I wonder if that is listed under Western on IMDB," and sure enough, it is! I would've taken it much earlier had I noticed that before (it didn't show up on any of the "best of" westerns lists I researched, and I just never put 2 and 2 together), so I'm thrilled to add it to the MacGuffins in the 16th round.
I don't know if this movie will ever get the credit it truly deserves amongst average moviegoers because of the context, which is really sad. People will always regard it as a landmark film (the two lead actors in gay roles that are romantically intertwined, in the setting of a traditional western), but the emotional impact of the movie is tremendous, and I believe it's one of the best stories of forbidden love and personal heartache ever made into a movie.
Ang Lee's direction is careful and meticulous- you can really feel the emotional turmoil Ennis and Jack (and their families) suffer through because they've found true love but cannot make it work. And while most will argue that Heath Ledger's performance in
The Dark Knight is his best, I will defend his work here as equally as good, but on a completely different level. While his Joker is facial tics and nervy charisma, his Ennis is the entire spectrum of human emotion conveyed ever so subtly beneath a weathered, old-school exterior. Almost as if his pain is so deep, he has succumbed to it and has nothing left to say. A brilliant bit of subdued acting, and as good as the best work of luminaries like Sean Penn, Jack Nicholson, and Robert DeNiro.
I am reading a few reviews from Metacritic about the movie as I write this, and I don't know if I've ever read a better one-sentence summation than this one from Ella Taylor of LA Weekly:
Quote:
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Brokeback Mountain is at once the gayest and the least gay Hollywood film I've seen, which is another way of saying that Lee has a knack for culling universality from the most specific identities.
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That's exactly how I felt after seeing this. Homosexual or not, love and heartbreak are universal human emotions, and this film portrays the relationship between Ennis and Jack in such an open and honest fashion that I really don't know how somebody could see this film and not feel their pain. I'm not at all ashamed to say I think
Brokeback Mountain is a modern classic, and am happy to add it to my roster!
