Brokeback Mountain review
Brokeback Mountain is frequently stereotyped as the “gay cowboy movie.” After viewing the film and reading the articles about genre analysis, I have concluded that the movie entails so much more than this commonly thought of the idea. It was such a successful movie because it not only embodied the Western genre, but it was the perfect intersection between the Romance, Drama, and Western genres.
One of the characteristics of the Western genre, according to Pramaggiore and Wallis, is that it has defined “visual conventions.” Some of these conventions include “six-shooters, horses
and whiskey glasses” as props; “cowboy hats, jangly spurs and dusty workwear” as costumes of the characters and the “arid desert of the American Southwest” as the location of the film. Brokeback Mountain includes all of these visual conventions, which is one of the reasons why it is classified as a Western film. Another common characteristic of Western films is that the “remote Western landscape represents unbridled freedom.” In Brokeback Mountain, the Western landscape represents freedom because it is the only place where Ennis and Jack can genuinely be themselves. They are only thrilled when they are in the isolated Western landscape.
Brokeback Mountain is also classified as a Romance because of the epic love story between the two main characters. Although these characters never end up running away with each other, the sincere devotion and affection that they have for each other is inspiring to viewers. Film critics have compared Ennis and Jack to not only Tristan and Isolde in Titanic but also to the characters of Romeo and Juliet. Classifying the film as a Romance not only makes it “timeless,” but also makes it universally relatable.
Finally, Brokeback Mountain can be classified as a drama. An apparent conflict in the film is the battle between homosexuality and masculinity. Ennis is scared to let others know that he is gay because of the social consequences. When he was younger, he saw a man get beaten to death because he was a homosexual, and it is implied, during the movie, that he thinks something like this would happen to him if he lets others know of his true self. To conceal his true self, Ennis acts very manlily throughout the entire film by barely expressing any emotion and talking minimally. Another reason that Brokeback Mountain is considered a drama is that it ends in a tragedy. Naturally, viewers hope for the two main characters, Jack and Ennis, to end up together after they have spent twenty years escaping to Brokeback Mountain to spend time with each other. But, when Jack dies young, suddenly, it is upsetting, shocking, and dramatic to the audience.
Since Brokeback Mountain manages to encompass three different genres into one film is one of the reasons why it was esteemed to be such a great success. Each of the different genres allows the viewers to feel separate emotions, which enable the movie to be relatable for generations to come.