The 20th Anniversary of “Brokeback Mountain”
Scott Holleran recalls the debut and release of Focus Features historic gay-themed movie
It’s been 20 years since Brokeback Mountain was released in movie theaters. My reporting on this is one of my proudest achievements in writing about movies.
Recently, I was invited by Turner Classic Movies to pitch new books about film by yours truly. I wrote a proposal. TCM book publishing principals reviewed—and rejected—the proposal. I’m hoping TCM reconsiders.
Nevertheless, I know my ideas for books about movies are relevant today and can make money. My approach to writing about the movies—with depth, sincerity and objectivity—begins in earnest with my 2005 review of Brokeback Mountain.
As I’ve reported since the movie was released in theaters, I accepted an invitation to watch the film in advance of release at a studio screening room. I knew the movie was controversial. Keeping myself unaffected by what others thought and wrote, to the extent possible in Hollywood—because I knew the movie would be emotionally loaded for me as a movie journalist and gay man—I sought to remain objective.
After watching Brokeback Mountain for the first time, I requested a second screening. Mine was a rare request, which the studio granted. The first screening’s jaded audience of critics and journalists distracted me—audible comments and reactions before and during the screening exhibited cruelty and sneering, snickering prejudice, i.e., homophobia (that’s the word)—because sex matters. Being castigated for sexuality can be jarring and become embedded and burnished.
I wanted to be conscious of the film’s impact so it didn’t affect my judgment. I wrote the review in a single writing. I remember finishing the review, sitting back after printing and reading the hard copy, which was my practice at the time, and thinking: This is good; this is what I mean to say. This captures the essence of the film and my thoughts on it. Writing the review marks a milestone in my film writing because the tone, cadence and mood matches the tone, cadence and mood of the movie. This became my conscious practice.
People, particularly gay people, often tell me they think Brokeback Mountain is sad or melancholy. Though it’s tragic and captures the confusion, anger, shame, pain and suffering, Brokeback Mountain also depicts the passion, intensity and joy of being gay. Fundamentally, it conveys the sense of possessing or harboring sexual secrecy—forbidden love and desire—which I theorize almost everyone harbors.
Brokeback Mountain goes to the core of this. I’d read Annie Proulx’s short story during a flight and found it moving. Ang Lee’s movie version bests the story thanks to Heath Ledger and others, such as Michelle Williams. From the moment my review was posted online—mine’s one of the site’s most widely read articles judging by traffic and time spent on the page—I sought to write each subsequent movie review in a way which reflects the movie’s essence.
If a film’s harsh, I’ll match the harshness; if the movie’s light, frivolous and joyful, I strive to keep the tone in my review. It’s a way of aligning the review to the work of art—the motion picture—through integrated forethought and afterthought; writing the review both for the reader who has never seen the film and the reader who’s seen the movie. This became my style. As a byproduct, each review can become a gesture of respect for the film and filmmaker, cast, crew and studio.
Recently, I was invited to produce, choreograph, dance and act in my credited movie debut for a short movie. I accepted the invitation. Filming the movie, inspired by one of my short stories, is one of my most rewarding achievements. Appearing as leading male actor and dancer on screen for the first time deepens my appreciation for making movies. As a producer, choreographer, dancer and actor—and as a writer, author and storyteller as well as a reporter, critic and reviewer of movies—I’ve come to know a wholeness about making the movie.
This integrated wholeness comes 20 years after Brokeback Mountain. The movie, the music, the depicted men, the mountains that shield and foreclose the cowboys in their intimacy, suppression and concealment, the mood—this movie still captures a certain sensibility which is unique to being queer. I use the word not in the modern political sense—a warped, misguided term—but in its original meaning as unusual, odd; denoting one who’s strange and does not belong; the one who is different.
This is what it feels like to be the freethinker who is gay, such as a gay cowboy or individualist. Perhaps this is what it feels like to be you, too, regardless of sexuality, particularly if you’ve been accused of being gay—man or woman, you know who you are—or you’re aware of and attuned to sexual secrecy or forbidden love. Whether it’s lost love, true love, the loved one whom you let escape—or pushed away—Brokeback Mountain captures what it feels like to live after he’s gone and ghosted and yet his presence lingers in your thoughts, body and soul. Whether an affair—one night, one season, a lifetime—the way his hand feels in yours, the way his lips feel on yours—the way he looks at you and you feel vulnerable, born for the first time in your life—this is love. This is rare. This is life. Watch Brokeback Mountain and this is what you’ll sense.
There’s a trace of hope in this remote story of a remote man pushing away the one he loves, the one he can and ought to protect, cherish and love—even exalt—every day had he been ready, had he made himself ready, had readying been possible. This is the meaning of Brokeback Mountain as precautionary tale. Heath Ledger’s Ennis Del Mar has a daughter. The daughter comes to know and show her father as in a mirror.
In retrospect, I treated Brokeback Mountain with the seriousness it deserves. I reviewed the film and again when it debuted on DVD. I’ve continued to mark its place in film history. I interviewed the businessman who created the marketing that made this the most successful gay-themed motion picture at the time. I’m proud of the interview, which was neither easy to get nor conduct. I covered the movie in my weekly column at the time as well. I listened to and wrote about the musical score, as evocative and haunting as the film, too. All of this at a time few wanted to admit they were curious and wanted to learn, discover and know.
Brokeback Mountain reminds me of We the Living. Ennis Del Mar combines elements of Kira Argounova’s lovers Andrei Taganov and Leo Kovalensky and perhaps the individualist reading this. The character Jack Swift, prejudged, targeted and brutalized for being gay, lived with purity, gaiety and lightness in love with life—embodying more honesty, integrity and courage than most: Jack’s a man born too soon.
This is to be taken seriously. Jack Swift enriches and brightens the world—it’s he who dares to enter the arena of romantic love and go tell it on the mountain, as I wrote 20 years ago; to make himself brave, courageous and vulnerable, to pledge, vow and love the one he holds in highest esteem in an act of ultimate loyalty to his own life.
Read and review my original Brokeback Mountain writings in these movie articles:
Judge for yourself. Watch the movie. Reach your own conclusion. My writing about Brokeback Mountain includes an interview I conducted in 2006 with actor Sam Elliott, which became controversial when it resurfaced in recent years. As a series, I think my writing challenges the sexual status quo. Being gay is love that dares not speak its name, as Oscar Wilde, jailed for being gay, argued when writing about crime and punishment and as I wrote on the centenary of Rock Hudson’s birth. This is 2025’s lesson of Brokeback Mountain: speak up when you speak of sex—and, when and if you do, speak easy and with love.
Tell the one you love of your love. Be selfish. Do not live in fear. Are these ideas you consider virtuous and admirable? If so, Brokeback Mountain’s your kind of movie. If you agree with these statements yet find the film repulsive, you’re likely not as evolved, rational or objective as you might suppose. If you agree with these statements and reject Brokeback Mountain for its tragedy, you’re also likely not as evolved, rational or objective as you might suppose. Adapted from Annie Proulx’s short story by Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry, Brokeback Mountain forecasts as it forewarns.
Ennis Del Mar, becoming vulnerable to his beloved daughter, who summons the courage to see her father as he is—as against as she wishes him to be—achieves a breakthrough in his expression of grief, remorse and sexuality. By the end, he’s better—he’s emancipated—he’s evolved—he’s on the trail to being his best. The point’s not merely that past is prologue—it’s that you can choose to live, learn and begin again. But only if you go by reason, acknowledge facts and align yourself with reality.
On this point, I recently interviewed a gay American citizen about his confrontation with an elected government official who sought to shame him for his sexuality. Read the interview with Ely Murray-Quick, prejudged and hassled by Congresswoman Nancy Mace primarily based upon his appearance, in the first of several new assignments for Boston-based The Gay & Lesbian Review here.
Want to listen to the author read this aloud? Let him know at scottholleran@substack.com