Author Topic: Happy First Anniversary 'Brokeback Mountain'  (Read 6027 times)

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: Happy First Anniversary 'Brokeback Mountain'
« Reply #10 on: September 06, 2006, 04:21:33 pm »
Thank you Casey and great to see your always enlightening posts here again!!
"chewing gum and duct tape"

moremojo

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Re: Happy First Anniversary 'Brokeback Mountain'
« Reply #11 on: September 06, 2006, 07:49:03 pm »
I'm a little late in chiming in, but thank you for that information and acknowledgement of this important milestone, Casey. Ya know, I always thought the film's garnering of the Venice festival's Golden Lion was worth a dozen Oscars. Glad to see you around these parts, by the way, Casey--you're a gem!

Scott
« Last Edit: February 15, 2008, 08:53:59 pm by moremojo »

Offline Brown Eyes

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Re: Happy First Anniversary 'Brokeback Mountain'
« Reply #12 on: September 06, 2006, 11:04:06 pm »
Hey there!  What a great reminder of a wonderful anniversary!  Casey, it's great to see you here at BetterMost too.  As the originator of some of the all-time classic imdb threads, it would be so great to see you around BetterMost more often.  So grab a cup of coffee and maybe even a piece of cherry cake if the urge strikes you.
 :)
cheers
Amanda
(amandazehnder, long ago back on imdb)
the world was asleep to our latent fuss - bowie

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Re: Happy First Anniversary 'Brokeback Mountain'
« Reply #13 on: December 09, 2009, 03:09:46 pm »
Some good information from Casey Cornelius in honor of the Fourth Anniversary of the movie debut.

It was one year ago this weekend, Friday, September 2 when it was first shown publicly at the Venice Film Festival.  The rapture and intense interest with which it was received was duly noted in several wire press releases and the beginning of the immense avalanche of praise, tributes, and accolades which the film was to receive was initiated.  It when on to win the coveted top prize of the Festival, the Golden Lion a few days later.  On September 10 it had its North American premiere at the Toronto Film Festival to an equal amount of acclaim.

The rest of us familiar with the short story, waiting in keen anticipation for the film's release had to wait until December 9, at least those lucky enough to live in New York, San Francisco and LA for the tri-cities limited release and December 16 in a few more centres, Toronto and Vancouver on the Canadian front.

I was one of those, least fortunate I felt, who had to wait for the film's release in Alberta on December 23, the glacial pace of the film's release creating in me an inverse untold amount of excitement as accolade upon accolade was heaped upon the film.

It's a little known fact that there was an intermediate showing in November in Calgary of all places.  Ang Lee, and several of the producers snuck into town on November 15 to screen the film for the local crew, extras, actors and production staff as a special gift and tribute to them, feeling they had given themselves totally to the film, championing its subject matter and immense innovative theme with their dedication, making it, Ang Lee declared fondly, his happiest and most rewarding experience ever working on a film. The screening was arranged, but, apparently, the presence of Ang Lee was left a secret.
 According to the newspaper reports when the final credits came up the gathered partisan audience broke into massive applause at his end title and especially, it was reported, at Heath Ledger's.  When Ang Lee himself walked into the room and was introduced as the lights came up the place erupted.  A love-in all around.
...
It's nostalgic and touching to read the following Associated Press account of the film's first screening, in all of its naivite with the writer obviously not quite knowing what to make of the film.  But the world would catch up ---  How far we've come since witnessing Brokeback's tiny baby steps ---

 Sep 2, 12:16 PM EDT
Kung Fu Oscar-Winner Tackles Other Genre
By FRANCES D'EMILIO
Associated Press Writer
VENICE, Italy (AP) -- Ang Lee, the Taiwanese-born director of mega-hit "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," has leaped into another genre, the American western, but his "Brokeback Mountain" is no classic cowboy tale.
His new film, with hot young male stars Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, has sweeping Western vistas, lonesome roads, lonesome men, bucking broncos, smoldering campfires and as many sheep as can fit on a screen. It also has explosive sex scenes between two men whose lives are changed, disturbed and entwined after being hired as sheep tenders for a summer in the Wyoming back country in the early 1960s.
Lee knows he was treading on delicate ground in two ways: making a Western outside the conventional formulas, and telling a romance outside social conventions...."My biggest enemy was the (cowboy) movie genre which was invented," said the director, who met with ranch hands and cowboys in preparing his work.
...
"I just knew that the theme of sexuality would be secondary and that the primary theme would be that of love...the real idea of love, not cliche. I knew Ang would protect us," said Gyllenhaal.
Ledger told APTN: "I was really lucky that my character was uncomfortable with it and knew it too. So I could use my own level of discomfort, because it was new and strange for me, and that worked for me."
Said Gyllenhaal in the APTN interview: "When it came time to doing it, it was, like, 'Are you ready?' 'Yeah, are you ready?' and then 'Jump.'"...
Asked about homophobia, producer James Schamus said the film was not made to be a political statement.
"We are using the codes and conventions of romance that are applied to straight people," Schamus said.
That "Brokeback" is about love between two men "makes it all the more romantic, if you're willing to take that fall," said Lee.
We did and we do!
"chewing gum and duct tape"