SAYING THANKS TO ANG LEE

Screenwriters & producers Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana saw Ang Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and realized that the film's themes involving repressed love dovetailed nicely with the central theme of Brokeback Mountain.  They took steps to contact Ang Lee regarding the project.  As Lee himself recalled in an interview:

I was introduced to the material by James Schamus [of Focus Features], and he said to take a look.  I got choked up when I read the short story, and I then I read the script; it sounded reasonable.  I went ahead and did The Hulk and didn’t even do (Brokeback Mountain), and it just stuck with me and refused to leave. And I felt bad about missing that, like Ennis missed his love (laughs).  Gay ranch hands in Wyoming: that’s very far away from me! (laughs)  Why does it wrench my guts?  I’ve got a lot of curiosity.  It haunted me, and I felt bad I missed it.  Fortunately enough, after The Hulk, still nobody could make it.  When I realized that, I jumped into it.  It was that simple.

Ang Lee made the decision to cast younger actors in the roles of Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, and have them play older throughout the course of the film.  Eventually he decided on Heath Ledger (also the favorite of writer / producers Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana) and Jake Gyllenhaal.  Interestingly - and insightfully - Lee says if he'd shot Brokeback Mountain during the era in which the story takes place, he'd have cast Paul Newman and Montgomery Clift in the roles.

Lee also placed added emphasis on the importance of Alma in the film, on her reaction to the knowledge her husband is having an affair with another man.  He added the second night in the tent scene to the film, to illustrate how the characters had committed to each other through tenderness and acceptance.  And he moved dialog which had originally appeared during the motel scene - following the first reunion of Ennis & Jack - to later in the film, providing the story with an additional emotional arc in the process (even if it was done over the vehement objections of storywriter Annie Proulx, who only relented when she viewed the final film months later and was overwhelmed by how well it had translated to the screen).

Making the first big-budget Hollywood film involving a gay romance was an enormous risk for Ang Lee, especially coming off a film like The Hulk, which took a critical drubbing and scored unimpressive box office.  He was so dispirited by the process of making that film and the reaction to it, he seriously considered quitting the business, only to be talked out of it by his father shortly before his father's death.  Ang could have played it safe, he could have looked for material which, while artistically valid, would have proved less controversial.  He didn't.  He followed his heart and let his instincts guide him, both in deciding to make this film and in how he went about making this film.

I saw Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal speak after a screening of Brokeback Mountain at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, back in mid-February.  An audience member asked them about what it was like working with Ang Lee, and they indicated that during the rehearsals he was very cooperative in working with the actors on their performances.  But once they hit the set, they were on their own, receiving little guidance or encouragement from Ang as he concentrated on his craft.  I've read elsewhere that they felt a little abandoned - and perhaps even a bit resentful - on the set, only realizing later this may well have been a tactic on Lee's part to make them feel more vulnerable, more uneasy as a way of fueling their performances.  That night at the Aero they said something very telling about Ang.  I'm paraphrasing, but they began talking about the quiet of Ang's mind, and how that characteristic impacted them and the film. You'd normally think of quiet as something gentle, but Heath and Jake said that the quiet of Ang's mind could also cut you like a dagger.

If Brokeback Mountain cut you with its stark, spare, lonely blade, if its story faithfully resonated with some part of your own, if its introspection fueled your own, let the director who orchestrated this undertaking know that. Let him know that this work has a meaning to you beyond the Hollywood hype machine, beyond the media manipulators and their manufactured controversies, beyond the box office and the awards.

Send him a postcard. Just a simple postcard, perhaps featuring a photograph of some local landscape or a favorite landmark, maybe your own Brokeback Mountain. You can usually find them at convenience stores along a highway, local bookstores, or at shops near your local tourist haunts. Some US post offices even have plain postcards, like the ones Ennis sent in the film, sporting the new 24-cent postcard rate. Simply write "Thank you" on the card – the same way Ennis wrote "You bet" on his reply to Jack – sign your name, then address it to Ang Lee care of his agency:

c/o CAA
9830 Wilshire Blvd.
Beverly Hills, CA 90212-1825

Ang Lee is a class act, as his acceptance speech at the Academy Awards this year made clear:

First of all, I want to thank two people who don't even exist. Or I should say, they do exist, because of the imagination of Annie Proulx and the artistry of Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. Their names are Ennis and Jack. And they taught all of us who made "Brokeback Mountain" so much about not just all the gay men and women whose love is denied by society, but just as important, the greatness of love itself.

Ang devoted some of the precious few seconds he had on stage toward thanking Ennis & Jack, helping to put this film into perspective.  Seems like the least we could do is offer him a note of thanks in return.

Saying Thanks To . . .
Heath & Jake   Ang Lee   Larry & Diana   Annie Proulx   The Variety Ad   On The Web  

Page Created: March 13, 2006
Last Modified: March 13, 2006