Through the Queer Longing Glass of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN from Catherine Grant.
Films accumulate meaning through, at times, very subtle moves. From one colour to another. From one shape to another. The latter is the case with Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005).
While much of the film's affective meaning is conjured through quite obvious (but no less moving for that) figurations of absence and presence, such as Ennis's discovery of the (now 'empty') bloodied shirts in Jack's closet, and their (still 'empty') reappearance in Ennis's own closet at the end of the film, there is also some mourning and memory-work carried out through considerably less conspicuous, visual shape-shifting and graphic matching.Film Studies For Free's author was doing a little bit of teaching on Brokeback Mountain last week. It was windy up there, but this pedagogical outing inspired the above little video essay as well as the below list of links to online, and openly accessible studies of Ang Lee's 2005 film and Annie Proulx's short story as well as of the 'gay cowboy film' more generally. Yee ha!
This very short video essay traces the long journey from Jack's desirous looking at Ennis through round glass (as he shaves his later-to-be-bruised cheek) in the early and middle parts of the film, to Ennis's touching association with squarer, straighter vistas, at the end of the film, an un/looking through 'longing glass' in which Jack can only be figured invisibly, metaphorically, through his absence. [Catherine Grant, 'Through the Queer Longing Glass of Brokeback Mountain']
- Harry M. Benshoff, 'Brokering Brokeback Mountain — a local reception study', Jump Cut, Issue 50, Spring 2008
- Michael Bronski, 'From The Celluloid Closet to Brokeback Mountain: The Changing Nature of Queer Film Criticism', Cineaste, 2008
- Matt Connolly, 'Brokeback Mountain, Milk, and the Queer Prestige Film', Reverse Shot, Issue 24, 2009
- Daniel Garrett, 'You Don’t Know What Love Is', Film International, January 2011
- William Glass, ''"Americans Don't Want Cowboys to Be Gay:" "Brokeback Mountain" and the Oscars', Interalia: A Journal of Queer Studies, 2, 2007
- Le Han and Lushan Shi, 'The "Brokeback Mountain"of Chinese Media: A Case Study of Chinese Media Construction of Nationalism on Reporting of 78th Academy Award[s]', Paper presented at the annual meeting of the NCA 93rd Annual Convention, Chicago, IL, Nov 15, 2007
- William R. Handley, 'Introduction: The Pasts and Futures of a Story and a Film', in William R. Handley (ed.), The Brokeback Book: From Story to Cultural Phenomenon (Lincoln :University of Nebraska Press, 2011)
- Andrew Holleran, 'The Magic Mountain', The Gay and Lesbian review, Volume 13, Issue 2: History Questions, 2006
- Mark John Isola, 'Disciplining Desire: the Fluid Textuality of Annie Proulx’s Brokeback Mountain', Nordic Journal of English Studies, 7.1, 2008
- James R. Keller and Anne Goodwyn Jones, 'Brokeback Mountain: Masculinity and Manhood', Studies in Popular Culture, 30.2 Spring 2008
- Barbara Koziak, 'Shepherding Romance: Reviving the Politics of Romantic Love in Brokeback Mountain', Genders Online, Issue 50, 2009
- Christian Lassen, '"In the dark camp," Or: Straight with a (Pastoral) Twist. American Western Masculinity in Brokeback Mountain', Gender Forum, Issue 16, 2006
- Christopher Le Coney and Zoe Trodd, 'John Wayne and the Queer Frontier: Deconstructions of the Classic Cowboy Narrative during the Vietnam War', Americana: The Journal of American Popular Culture, 5.1, Spring 2006
- Scott McKinnon, 'Taking the Word ‘Out’ West: Movie Reception and Gay Spaces', Participations, Volume 7, Issue 2, November 2010
- George Raitt, 'Hidden Differences: New meanings in adaptations of literature to the screen', Double Dialogues, Issue 12, Winter 2010: Interior Worlds: Hidden Stories
- Christopher Sharrett, 'Death of the Strong, Silent Type: The Achievement of Brokeback Mountain', Film International, 7.1, 2009
- Craig Snyder, 'Fear and loathing on Brokeback Mountain', Jump Cut, Issue 53, Summer 2011
- Irini Stamatopoulos, 'Ang Lee’s Cowboys', Offscreen Journal, Volume 11, Issue 2, February 28, 2007
- Ian Scott Todd, 'Outside/In: Abjection, Space, and Landscape in Brokeback Mountain', Scope13, February 2009
- Michael Stewart, 'Transience and Imperfect Tense: Brokeback Mountain as Melodrama', Scope, Issue 12, October 2008
- Steven Stowell, 'A Gay Love Story?', The Oxonian Review of Books, 5.2, Spring 2006
- Tommy TSE Ho-lun, Narcissism in Male Sexuality: Lan Yu, Crystal Boys and Brokeback Mountain, MPhil Thesis, University of Hong Kong, 2006
3 comments:
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J.R. Thanks so much. There aren't too many comments left at this blog, it's true, although I do always get feedback by email and via FSFF's Twitter and Facebook feeds, So many thanks for leaving your appreciative comment at the foot ofone of my favourite entries. FSFF is my pleasure but your recognition means a lot. Thanks for taking the time to convey it.
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