| | |  | Science Fiction & Fantasy | Home » » Brokeback Mountain (Two-Disc Collector's Edition) | | | | | | | Description: | | Winner of three Academy Awards®, including Best Director, the movie that became a cultural phenomenon is now available in a remarkable 2-Disc Collector's Edition. Relive the sweeping epic that explores the lives of two young men (Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal), a ranch hand and a rodeo cowboy, who meet in the summer of 1963 and unexpectedly forge a lifelong connection. With all-new bonus features, never-before-seen footage and highly collectible postcards, this definitive set magnifies the emotion, drama and power of one of cinema's most groundbreaking films. Starring: Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway, Linda Cardellini, Randy Quaid, Scott Michael Campbell, Anna Faris, David Harbour Directed by: Ang Lee | | | Product Details: | | | Actors:
| Jake Gyllenhaal, Heath Ledger, Michelle Williams, Randy Quaid, Valerie Planche | | Director:
| Ang Lee | | Format:
| AC-3, Collector's Edition, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, Dubbed, DVD, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC | | Language:
| English | | Subtitle:
| English, Spanish, French | | Number of Discs:
| 2 | | Studio:
| Focus Features | | Run Time:
| 134 minutes | | DVD Release Date:
| March 13, 2011 | | Average Customer Rating:
|  based on 755 reviews |
| | | | Customer Reviews: | |
Average Customer Review:
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56 of 61 found the following review helpful:
 Moving and life-changingDec 22, 2006
By Nicole Bradshaw
"Nicole Bradshaw"
Brokeback Mountain is the tale of two cowboys, Ennis and Jack, who ranch sheep together one summer in the 1960's. One cold night, the two men huddle together in a tent to keep warm, and an explosive physical relationship erupts. They both agree that the night was a "one-shot deal," but somehow the two men keep finding one another again, throughout the summer. After the ranching gig ends, both men nonchalantly tell each other goodbye, but the separation is painful for both. Cut to four years later - the men have gone their separate ways, married, had kids. But when they happen to see each other again, old feelings almost violently assert themselves, leading to a 20-year relationship that is by turns passionate, furtive, and tortured.
First of all, performances by Heath Ledger (Ennis) and Jake Gyllenhaal (Jack) are unbelievable. I cannot adequately describe the performance work in this film. Ledger, who I'd only seen in fairly superficial roles - teen movies, not-so-great romantic comedies - totally transforms himself for this role. Tight-lipped, sun-baked, and shamed, his Ennis provides the tension in the film that powers the plot through to its final, saddening conclusion. Gyllenhaal plays Jack, the more honest, self-accepting of the two men, with an emotion that is strong enough to be real but restrained enough to epitomize the tough guy image of a Western. Both lend a haunting quality to the various ways in which Ennis and Jack try to live their lives, denied of the one thing they truly want.
At the end of the day, Brokeback Mountain is a love story, the tale of two people who love each other but can't be together. This is not untrod territory in Hollywood. However, hanging this familiar storyline on a less-than-mainstream social topic for the movies - homosexuality - proves to be very powerful. The intensity of the two men's feelings for one another, and the delayed gratification that is the bedrock of their relationship, bring their experience into sharp focus for the viewer. Beautiful scenes of mountainous countryside and a strong, simple acoustic guitar accompaniment add to the poignancy. I just cannot recommend it highly enough. It will haunt you. It will make you think. It will move you.
Fair warning - there is one brief sex scene between the two primary characters. If you don't warm to that idea, I recommend getting the film on DVD and fast-forwarding through that part. It is not worth missing the movie over.
54 of 59 found the following review helpful:
Not just a "gay cowboy" movieMay 14, 2006
By Ana
The last thing I expected to find on a Monday night was a small, indie movie theatre sold out of tickets to see what has been termed the "gay cowboy movie". Yet, when I went to see Brokeback Mountain last night, I found myself one of the last moviegoers to find a seat in a theatre overflowing with people from all walks of life.
Upon first hearing of this movie, I considered it laughable to have an entire film set around two cowboys falling in love, for it seemed, at best, to be a chick-flick with a political agenda. However, my predication's were quickly discarded. This film is much undeserving of it's "gay cowboy" stereotype, as it cannot convey the emotional aspect which will inevitably overcome the most callous of moviegoers. For what this movie provides is a heart wrenching tale of two thoroughly complex men, struggling with societal pressures and their desire to be themselves.
The story told in this film is of two men, who meet while working one summer herding sheep on top of, what else, but Brokeback Moutnain. Ennis Del Marr (played by Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) find themselves with idle time and only each other to fill it. They spend days riding around on horses and nights sitting around a campfire, talking and drinking whisky. Ennis rarely speaks, and when he does, his words are simple. Jack, on the other hand, is more outgoing in nature. At this time, his spirit seems playful, yet experienced, making for a sharp contrast with that of Ennis. In a surprising turn, for both the viewers and the characters themselves, Jack and Ennis find themselves filled with a primal urges which fuels their first sexual encounter which is void of seduction. They next morning,they both assert that they are not "queer", yet continue with the relationship, never speaking of their bond, perhaps because they knew no words to define it. When it comes time for them to part, you can see anguish on both character's faces, believing that they will never see the other again. Both characters marry andestablish families before they meet again. When they find each other four years after their work on Brokeback Mountain, they are instantly drawn together again and establish a relationship where they meet a few times a year, for fishing trips where no fish is ever caught. Their story spans 20 years, culminating in a hauntingly tragic ending.
Credit must given to the actors in this film, who truly gave the meaning to each and every character. Much attention should be paid to Heath Ledger, an actor with potential who could never seem to break away from the teen demographic for which his prior films have been marketed. His portrayal of Ennis Del Marr is heartbreaking. With few words, he was able to reveal a array of emotions. With just one look, he could communicate more then words could ever describe. His performance is the reason I cannot get this film out of my mind, a full day since I was present in the theatre. Ledger has found the small intricacies which make this character come to life. The low, rasping voice which seems to come from it's disuse, as well as the slight hunch which hides Ledger's height and conveys his characters venerability. A simple shot of Ledger's soulful eyes can tell the viewers all they need to know about his emotional duress, and will surely leave every onlooker teary-eyed. The way in which he clings to a shirt of Jack's, still upon it's hanger was able to say all that Ennis could not express with words, and was one of the most poignant scenes in the film. In supporting roles, Michelle Williams (as Alma), Anne Hathaway (as Lureen), and Jake Gyllenhaal all do incredible jobs as well, each bringing an intense believability to the roles in which they portrayed. The melancholy nature with which this film concludes, does so, in part because of the exquisite changes each actor brings to their character.
It has been a day since I experianced this movie, yet I can still feel it's ramifications churning in the pit of my stomach. The heartache felt by Ennis Del Marr has yet to leave my being, as my mind reels. This film brings to life a story which will not quickly leave me, one which was so realistic in manner I feel almost as if I had experianced it all myself. Do not be quick to write this movie off as just one of "gay cowboys," or a movie with a political agenda. This is a movie with heart, compassion and lose. This is a movie not to be forgotten
74 of 83 found the following review helpful:
If only I should come to feel a love like that...Mar 30, 2006
By J. Lee
This review might contain spoilers.
This movie is brilliant. The first time I saw Brokeback Mountain, I left the movie theater in a dazed state, trying to digest what I just had seen. Wondering through some crowded streets of NYC on a cold, windy winter night, I never felt more alone. I hurried home. Many movies have left me excited, intrigued and sad. But none have left me as emotionally devastated as Brokeback has. It's as if the movie insinuated itself around my very soul and wrapped its grief around my unsuspecting heart - leaving it heartbroken ever since. The beauty of this movie is that it makes the characters seem so real, so live and their pain so raw, that the sorrow that permeates the story - hinted at first in the display of the most beautiful desolated sceneries, together with a melancholic music score, sneaks in your head, and unknowingly but quite forcefully takes hold of your body and soul and never seems to let them go.
A few weeks later, after countless sleepless nights, unable to shake myself off this stupor, I saw BBM again. This time I left feeling better because it became clear to me that what I had just witnessed was one of the most beautiful love stories ever told. It doesn't matter for me that it happened to be between 2 men. Because there is something so refreshing, so innocent, so lovely about how the story unfolds, that it literally turned this quite jaded, a bit cynical New Yorker, inside out. But I gather that this movie is not meant for everyone. Considering the state of our world today, how we are brought up to fend for ourselves and how we are taught to never let our guards down, we shield our fragile selves from any hint of perceived emotional threats. And we shut down. But I guarantee 100% that if only you could keep the cynicism at bay for the length of this movie, it will transform you. Like I mention before, this movie really makes you hurt, a heartbreaking SOB of a love story that just kills you, but it can be life changing.
Both Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger are phenomenal. Period. This movie wouldn't work if either one of them didn't give his heart and soul completely. What a remarkable screen performance these two give - a performance dug directly from the heart. Amazing. Some criticize that the characters don't develop enough rapport before that first scene in the tent. Nonsense. Haven't you ever heard of something called instant chemistry? And both Heath L. and Jake G. deliver throughout the movie. I bow my head to these guys. Of course the movie wouldn't work either without the great, touching performances from Michelle Williams, Anne Hathaway and Roberta Maxwell.
This was a wonderful work from Ang Lee. To portray this movie in such a delicate, sensitive way merits all ovations it gets. During an interview, Ang Lee said that when casting, he decided to go after young and innocent. That choice has really paid off here because in a way that's why the movie works: because to find love when one is so young, so innocent, that is the purest kind of love. When tragedy hits later on the movie, and somehow we kind of expect that from the start, the only thing that remains out of this now flawed, resentful relationship is a sense of love. But Jack and Ennis' souls have been irremediably broken.
Alas, this is the price these doomed individuals pay for living a life denied and full of lies. The soul dies first before physical death occurs. We see it happen in Jack's case, his soul dying, so touchingly captured in his mournful, dead blank eyes at their last fateful meeting when he watches Ennis' truck speed away. He bitterly tells Ennis: "We could've had a good life together...but YOU didn't want it...so Brokeback is all we got" finally letting all his resentment spill out on their most unsatisfactory relationship. To which Ennis replies, accusingly, angrily: "It's because of you Jack...that I'm like this...I'm nothing...I'm nowhere" before collapsing to the ground as if the weight of this impossible affair suddenly becomes too heavy a burden for him to carry. Jack rushes back to comfort him, and they hug mightily, desperately clinging to one another for they know that they have reached some crossroads in their hearts - their relationship hanging by a thread, they cannot help but watch it slip away.
To his part, Ennis fares no better. When we last see him, alone in that empty, desolated trailer, surveying those shirts that he now tenderly guards, he swears love to a man that no longer exists but in his dreams and memories - a late cry of acknowledgment for what he always had felt but never dared to verbally express during those long 20 years. And like the emptiness of his trailer, Ennis' soul, so long tormented about a crime he saw as a child and so terrified by the notion that the love of his life was another man, cries in despair for a love forever lost, and it is now destined to wither away in solitary confinement.
Thus, the tragedy and paradox of Brokeback Mountain: Love can help save a man from destroying a life that could have been but a man cannot save himself if love is left buried and hidden in the deepest corner of the human heart. Something has to give. So Jack and Ennis: if only I should come to feel a love like that, God help me, but I for one will not hold back. Thank you for showing me the reason why.
63 of 70 found the following review helpful:
Brokeback MountainJan 03, 2007
By Mimi Testen
"Lover of Movies!!"
This is one of the most beautiful and heart-breaking love stories I have ever watched. It haunted my mind for days after seeing it - really touching and not to be missed.
68 of 76 found the following review helpful:
Outstanding and unforgettableMar 31, 2006
By Vato-Curandero
Before reviewing Brokeback Mountain, I must dismiss some of the absurd and ridiculous statements circulating about the movie. First, this film does NOT contain a bunch of gay sex scenes! This film is NOT anti-family values (what the hell are "family values," anyway?), and this movie does not promote the "gay agenda!"
I am heterosexual. I am not gay, none of my friends are gay (at least that I know of), and I have no gay family members that I know of either. One should not have to make this disclaimer, but anti-gay activists are accusing those who like this movie of having an agenda. Having said that, I thought Brokeback Mountain was fantastic. This might possibly be the best film I've seen in the theaters so far in 2006, and after watching the film, I spent weeks on end thinking about the content of the film. Great movies have a way of making viewers do that.
Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhall first meet in Wyoming in 1963 when both are in their early 20s looking for summer work. They end up finding employment with a local sheep herder, and in the process, find out a thing or two about themselves. The two develop feelings for one another, but under the anti-gay socialization each has been raised with, quickly attempt to suppress these emotions.
At the end of the summer, each man returns to his hometown to pursue his respective life. Ledger gets married and has two daughters, while Gyllenhall returns to Texas and meets a cowgirl at a tavern. They get married and have a son.
However, Ledger and Gyllenhall end up meeting up again several years later. Emotions are rekindled, leading to complications in their relationships with their respective families and each other.
This movie shows the mental anguish and emotional turmoil that results from being forced to live a double life at the hands of society. The film actually made me rethink and reconsider a lot of the stereotypes that I held towarards homosexuals, and Brokeback Mountain is an important and timely film.
Everyone I know who saw this film in the theater thinks it is phenomenal. There is great acting, and the cinematography is breathtaking: herds of sheep flocking about the screen, the mountains and lakes of the Rocky Mountains, and the rugged terrain and cornfields of Texas. At the end of the day, Brokeback Mountain is as much or even more a Western film (not a "gay film" that its bashers would have us believe) than anything else. The plot is fantastic, and the movie is an overall success. Watch it.
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