Newsweek has a glowing pre-release story about
Ang Lee's gay love movie "Brokeback Mountain," starring Jake
Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger. Writes Sean Smith:
"Brokeback" feels like a landmark film. No American film before has portrayed love between two men as something this pure and sacred. As such, it has the potential to change the national conversation and to challenge people's ideas about the value and validity of same-sex relationships.
Yet he also quotes James Schamus, co-president of Focus
Features, which is releasing "Brokeback":
"When the trailer plays in theaters where there are a lot of young men in the audience, it's often met with snickers or outright laughter. How do you get those guys to see the movie? You don't."
Instead, along with gays, the marketing is being directed at women.
Sight unseen, the buzz is that the film represents a significant step for mainstream American movies. Yet so, too, were earlier films such as the independently produced "Longtime Companion" and (in my view less convincingly, but with big studiio backing) "Philadelphia." Many, however, will simply dismiss "Brokeback" as Hollywood again thumbing its nose at conventional values. So I don't expect it to significantly alter the cultural/political landscape.
Still, it may very well alter the lives of some who see it, and
that is no small thing.