{"id":128676,"date":"2020-12-08T15:16:52","date_gmt":"2020-12-08T12:16:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/landscape-as-metaphor-in-ang-lees-brokeback-mountain\/"},"modified":"2020-12-08T15:16:52","modified_gmt":"2020-12-08T12:16:52","slug":"landscape-as-metaphor-in-ang-lees-brokeback-mountain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/landscape-as-metaphor-in-ang-lees-brokeback-mountain\/","title":{"rendered":"#Landscape as Metaphor in Ang Lee&#8217;s &#8216;Brokeback Mountain&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;<strong>#Landscape as Metaphor in Ang Lee&#8217;s &#8216;Brokeback Mountain&#8217;<\/strong>&#8221;<\/p>\n<div>\n<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\">\n                <\/aside>\n<p><!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 3.7.8--><strong><i>Brokeback Mountain <\/i><\/strong><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is not a landscape film. Rather, it\u2019s a film that begins in the great outdoors, specifically the beautiful, idyllic mountains of Wyoming, but does everything it can to warn the viewer that it is <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">not<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, in fact, your typical romantic, grandiose landscape film. Instead of being shot as a classical landscape, these western acres are presented as the anti-landscape.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And, perhaps that\u2019s what <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Brokeback Mountain <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">is: the anti-landscape film. When we see the area surrounding our protagonists, young cowboys Jack Twist (<strong>Jake Gyllenhaal<\/strong>) and Ennis del Mar (<strong>Heath Ledger<\/strong>), we only see parts of it. A cluster of sheep, a campfire, a rippling lake. But we never get that sweeping establishing shot that we might have been expecting. And this limited, constricted viewpoint ultimately sets the tone for the remainder of the film.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Throughout the 2005 drama<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">,<\/span> director <span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Ang Lee<\/strong><\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and his DP, <strong>Rodrigo Prieto<\/strong>, use a device that is unconventional when it comes to landscape photography: the long lens. When setting a story in and around a landscape, filmmakers predominantly extend the scenery to the very edge of their frame. Take, for instance, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lawrence of Arabia<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (1962), or <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Revenant<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (2015). Both films use extremely wide lenses to include as much landscape information as possible. But, as far as cinematography goes, <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Brokeback Mountain<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2019s camera does something subversive and different.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The function of a long lens is that it compresses the space within a shot. One could indeed achieve the exact same-distanced shot with a shorter lens that is situated closer to its subject, but that would provide a very different outcome.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Brokeback Mountain <\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">opens with Jack and Ennis meeting when they are hired to take care of Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming for a summer in the early 1960s. On the mountain, the two begin an illicit romantic relationship. The remainder of the film follows their sparse and unsatisfying meetings over the course of two decades, as they navigate starting their own families, hiding their true feelings, and battling the rampant homophobia of the American West.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Distance defines Jack and Ennis\u2019 relationship \u2014 physical and emotional. After their summer on Brokeback, Jack moves to Texas, and Ennis remains in Wyoming. When they do see each other, they have to drive for hours and put their lives on pause. The two also find it virtually impossible to connect emotionally. Ennis is too afraid of people finding out who he really is to indulge in the possibility of Jack being more than just a once-in-a-while fling. Meanwhile, Jack continually yearns for a day where Ennis can admit his true feelings and they can figure out a way to be together. But that day never comes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-360269\" src=\"https:\/\/filmschoolrejects.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Brokeback-Mountain-2.jpg\" alt=\"Brokeback Mountain\" width=\"800\" height=\"432\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmschoolrejects.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Brokeback-Mountain-2.jpg 800w, https:\/\/filmschoolrejects.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Brokeback-Mountain-2-768x415.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\"\/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Similar to the ethos of Jack and Ennis\u2019 entire relationship, the long lens is about distance. When the camera <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>ears to be close to a subject, it is actually far from it. The subject seems like it is in reach, but in reality, it is inaccessible. This parallel to Jack and Ennis\u2019 relationship is foreshadowed during their time on the mountain, particularly in a shot where Ennis sits naked in the background while Jack is in focus in the foreground. The tension is palpable, and the lens makes the two look like they are situated near one another. But, with the knowledge of lens mechanics, in retrospect, they are far apart.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Indeed, with the distance that the long lens brings also comes compression. One cannot exist without the other. Throughout the film, Jack and Ennis become more and more compressed into their own stifling lifestyles, which are defined by the societal confines that keep them from one another in the first place. Jack marries Lureen (<strong>Anne Hathaway<\/strong>) and becomes ensnared in a family that emasculates him more and more as time progresses.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Lee presents this emasculation in subtle ways, as with a step-father who won\u2019t let him cut his own turkey on Thanksgiving, who also undermines Jack\u2019s parenting abilities by switching on the TV during dinner even when Jack asks him not to. Masculinity is implicit in the society of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Brokeback Mountain<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and one doesn\u2019t need to look hard to find it. When Jack and his step-father bicker about whether or not the TV should be on in front of Jack\u2019s son during Thanksgiving dinner, the step-father simply says, \u201cYou want your boy to be a man, don\u2019t you? Men watch football.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ennis is compressed into the world of toxic masculinity even more than Jack is. He punches a man on the Fourth of July for using foul language in front of his daughters and refuses to sleep with his wife, Alma (<strong>Michelle Williams<\/strong>), if she doesn\u2019t want any more children with him. This ultimately costs him his marriage and custody of his daughters, Jenny and Alma Jr.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">By the end of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Brokeback Mountain<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, Ennis\u2019 world has shrunk to about as small as it can get. The psychological confinements of masculinity have materialized into physical brevity. Ennis\u2019 world now exists solely in a claustrophobic mobile home. He has gone from the sprawling countryside of Brokeback Mountain to a kitchen, a toilet, and a bed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The final scene of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Brokeback Mountain<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> shows a conversation between Ennis and his now-adult daughter, Alma Jr. (<strong>Kate Mara<\/strong>). Alma tells her father that she is getting married. \u201cHe loves you?\u201d Ennis asks. She is able to love openly at nineteen, the age Ennis was when he met Jack. Because Alma\u2019s world is allowed to be bigger.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And then Alma is gone. Ennis\u2019 daughter \u2014 his last remaining loved one \u2014 has left his family to create her own. His world has shrunken even further. Ennis walks over to his closet and runs his hand along one of Jack\u2019s shirts from their time on Brokeback Mountain. He then straightens out a postcard of Brokeback Mountain and looks at it teary-eyed. The image on the postcard is shot with a wide lens and looks as one might expect the shots in the first quarter of the film to look. But, now that we\u2019ve gotten this image, it is on a mere postcard.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-360270\" src=\"https:\/\/filmschoolrejects.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Brokeback-Mountain-postcard.jpg\" alt=\"Brokeback Mountain Postcard\" width=\"800\" height=\"432\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmschoolrejects.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Brokeback-Mountain-postcard.jpg 800w, https:\/\/filmschoolrejects.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Brokeback-Mountain-postcard-768x415.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\"\/><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">And so, even the mountain that set the stage for the entire lives of our two protagonists has effortlessly diminished to a couple of inches. The postcard is how they once communicated, and now it is all Ennis has left as proof the relationship even happened at all. The image is flat and implicit that it isn\u2019t even \u201creal,\u201d just an image of a place someone might send to their kids from their vacation to the mountains.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When Ennis closes his closet door, he reveals the view from his window. Even Wyoming isn\u2019t what it used to be. Instead of sprawling mountains, the land is a flat, lifeless, industrialized cornfield. And Ennis\u2019s life isn\u2019t what it used to be. His once-freeing job as a cowboy has transformed into a mere ranch-hand, a demeaning, stifling lifestyle. His life is no longer a life, but rather a postcard of a life that once was; what could have been.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. 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Rather, it\u2019s a film that begins in the great outdoors, specifically the beautiful, idyllic mountains of Wyoming, but does everything it can to warn the viewer that it is not, in fact, your typical romantic, grandiose landscape film. Instead of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":128677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/filmschoolrejects.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/brokeback-mountain-landscape.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[83024,83025],"class_list":["post-128676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-mediaa","tag-ang-lee","tag-brokeback-mountain"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128676"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128676\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}