Brokeback Mountain

Brokeback Mountain is the story of Ennis del Mar and Jack Twist, two ranch hands who come together when they're working as sheepherder and camp tender.

Both Ennis and Jack had been raised on small, poor ranches in opposite corners of Montana.

At first, the attraction is casual. But something deeper happens to them that summer on Brokeback Mountain.

They don't talk about the sex. Not until much later. Except for the one time Ennis said, "I'm not no queer," and Jack quickly replied with, "Me neither. A one-shot thing. Nobody's business but ours."

When the job is over they go their separate ways. They both marry and have children because that's what cowboys do. Ennis has two girls, Jack has a baby boy.

They have no more contact until June of the fourth summer since Brokeback Mountain. Ennis gets a general delivery letter from Jack. He says he's coming through, that he'd stop and buy him a beer. He says to let him know.

Ennis writes back, you bet, and gives him his address.

They now know this is not a "one-shot thing." Jack wants  them to buy a little ranch and live there together. Ennis says they can't, that he's stuck with what he's got. And he says he doesn't want to be like "them guys you see around sometimes."

He then tells Jack about something that happened when he was a child. He said there were two old guys who ranched together. Ennis says when he was about nine, one of them was found dead in an irrigation ditch. He'd been beaten to death with a tire iron.

When Ennis explains how bad the man looked, Jack asks if he saw that.

Ennis says his dad made sure that he did, that he took him and his brother to see it. He says his dad laughed about it. He says, "Hell, for all I know, he done the job."

Available from Amazon

This award-winning short story by Annie Proulx was made into a film in 2005 and won numerous awards.

It was nominated for a total of eight, including Best Picture, Best Actor (Heath Ledger as Ennis), and Best Supporting Actor (Jake Gyllenhaal as Jack).

DVD Available from Amazon

Such a sad story. Ennis and Jack meet in the sixties. A dangerous time for same-sex relationships. Ennis was not wrong about what could likely happen.

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