Me to Theater: Shush!

***[Attn: This post is about Brokeback Mountain. I don't think there are any plot spoilers in it. Really, I don't. But I'm just saying.]***

First, I should say that it was a very good movie. Ang Lee? Very talented. Heath Ledger was fantastic, the cinematography was beautiful, the music was lovely, a gentle, subtle guitar. Michelle Williams, a long way from Dawson's Creek, was perfect. Gay Cowboy Movie? No way. It was a tragic love story, plain and simple. It was no different at all from any other well-made tragic love story I've seen or read; two people in love, tragedy ensues, that's it. But for reasons which are completely obvious, it was branded the Gay Cowboy Movie, and hence it was distorted before they turned down the house lights.

What bothers me about the hype associated with the film is that the impression was created out of thin air, it seems, that this was some sort of gay pride declaration. And forgive me, and this may piss some people off, but why is that?

Where was the gay pride? I saw romantic love, platonic love, sexual passion, betrayal, deception, and a whole bucketfull of shame, but no gay pride. So, is the fact the movie was produced and released successfully a testament to some sort of cinematic or even cultural progress? Sure, in a way. Love is love? Yeah, that was there. But was that the 'message'? I didn't see any evidence that either Annie Proulx or Ang Lee meant for there to be. As my poetry teacher likes to say, "fax machines send 'messages.' Art does something more powerful." Art tells the truth. And I believe it denegrates the film as a piece of art by trying to assign it an agenda and matching appeal demographic. Kind of like that one college professor who goes on and one about how The Tempest is obviously an anti-imperialistic tract, and Shakespeare was making a point, etc. That always rubbed me the wrong way. It cheapens the art, and frankly, it kills my lit buzz.
From The New Yorker, via metacritic.com:

This slow and stoic movie, hailed as a gay Western, feels neither gay nor especially Western: it is a study of love under siege.

So I have to admit that I was disappointed by this film, not by anything I saw on the screen, but by what I saw around me in the theater. It was packed. People were giddy. Everyone was all strapped in, ready to be shocked or something. The audience screeched with laughter at the incredibly sad parts involving the female characters, even though a great deal of the film's tragedy derived from the fact that these men married women despite being gay. The audience screeched with laughter, in fact, almost all the way through, until the sadness got so thick it successfully shut them up. Once they shut up, and I could concentrate, I realized that this was one of the saddest movies I'd ever seen. But the male companion and I found ourselves wishing we could have seen it without the There Is A Message Here preamble, alone in the theater. Because really, despite having many of the ingredients which would go into a mass appeal movie, it really wasn't one. I was reminded by it of The Constant Gardener; there was a timeless quality to the love story that is the result of such great concentration and accuracy, it left no room for a 'message.' Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Proulx and Lee were making a statement. But I didn't get that fax. Male companion was pissed and wants to rent it so he can concentrate; he feels guilty for not being sad enough. Male companion has adorable issues. Either way, I think my 'point' is this: it was a good film because the love was just love, and it was pure and real, and the love and the tragedy weren't about sexual orientation. They were about humanity. But since it's about two men, it has to be this Big Thing. Ugh, I hate the Big Thing thing. Making the two male leads lovers doens't make a movie a "gay movie." It can also be a "love story." Can't it just be? I guess not.