Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain

Most people only know of Brokeback Mountain as the movie directed by Ang Lee, but it’s way more than that. It originally was a short story published in The New Yorker in 1997 written by Annie Proulx. The short story about 2 cowboys, Ennis and Jack, who worked together one summer and became lovers got the attention of screen writers Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana right away. They wrote a screenplay with Proulx’s approval, and pitched it to some producers. Filming began in 2004, and the movie was released in 2005. The film went on to gain critical acclaim, and became an instant classic. The Brokeback Mountain journey from short story to film took several years to make, and through those years there were several changes and additions to the story

Proulx believes that human behavior and activity is determined by where they live on earth. The story takes place in the Midwest, Wyoming. This is an area where being a cowboy is a way of life, farms, livestock, and it’s predominately a conservative state. Ennis and Jack are living in the time and place where homosexuality is unacceptable. So when they’re up in Brokeback Mountain where their relationship is formed it’s secluded from that traditional white male masculinity. Lee uses his camera lens to capture the massive mountains. Although mountains are viewed as large on screen, Lee more than likely used a wide angle lens to really amplify the mountains making them look bigger than life. For example, around the 13-minute mark we see Ennis look in the distance at Jack as a small spec on this huge mountain, also when Ennis picks up the food from Basque we see this grand mountain in the background. These mountains are almost like a blockade from the outside world that they live in outside from one another. Living in the Midwest and how conservative they are these mountains affect their behavior profusely; it increases this desire for one another because they aren’t able to show their love for each other except when they’re in those mountains, and they are constantly trying to go back to that place. By using a wide angle lens we are able to see how magnificent these mountains really are, and how it effects these