[Vickie_M]

Heath Ledger, Jake Gyllenhaal, Michelle Williams and Anne Hathaway are on Oprah this Friday. Check your local listings.

[Michael Reuben]

Quote:

Focus has wisely fueled any and all controversy in a very strong marketing and awards campaign. Yes, the film is riding the zeitgeist and controversy wave, but there are forces in the background pushing.

I know a lot of people on the Focus team and they are to be commended for a great campaign.

That's interesting, especially in light of a feature in today's (1/27/06) Wall Street Journal about the film's marketing, which stresses the lengths to which Focus went to appeal to a general audience:

Quote:

One of the most difficult challenges for Hollywood marketers is how to "cross over" a film that normally would appeal only to a narrow audience. A story about two ranch hands who fall in love, "Brokeback" would seem to appeal mostly to a gay and art-movie audience. Getting pigeonholed by a potentially divisive label can ruin a marketing campaign and doom a movie at the box office. It happened to the 1999 critically acclaimed drama "Boys Don't Cry," which won Hilary Swank an Oscar for Best Actress for her role as a Nebraskan girl who lived as a boy. Dogged by its image as a movie about a teenage transgender tragedy, it made only $11.5 million at the U.S. box office and never won a mainstream audience.

At the outset, Focus executives wanted to keep "Brokeback" from becoming a target in the culture wars, which could have overtaken their marketing message -- that it's a romance, not a "gay cowboy movie." Focus did market the film to the gay community but hasn't used it to push the cause of gay rights. "We will never turn the release of the film into a political circus act -- ever," says David Brooks, the studio's president of marketing.

Full text here for those with access; if you have a hard copy, it's page W6 of the "Weekend Journal". A lot more details, including how Focus selected the neighborhoods in New York City where the film would first open.

M.

[Quentin]

That's interesting, especially in light of a feature in today's (1/27/06) Wall Street Journal about the film's marketing, which stresses the lengths to which Focus went to appeal to a general audience:

Of course they have! You can't have success unless you appeal to a crossover audience. USA Today printed that the film was the "#1 Date movie in America."

But, there is a distinct difference in what that article is talking about and what I have stated they did. They absolutely avoided the initial labelling of "gay cowboy movie". Of course they did! That would have killed their B.O. I didn't say they positioned the film with an opinion or a message, I didn't say they focused on the gay aspect, and I didn't say they tried anything but appeal to the general audience. I said they rode the wave of the controversy and zeitgeist. They use it distinctly to their advantage, and keep the controversy brewing...why? So that people keep talking about it and they will not 'burn out' as many Oscar campaigns can and do.

What the studio did was brilliant, actually. They knew they'd get the arthouse and gay movie-going audience anyway, by word of mouth. That audience was almost automatic, given the subject matter of the film.

Re-positioning the film as a romance, in order to appeal to more mainstream audiences (especially movie-going women, who might not have "bought" the film so readily if the label of being a "gay cowboy" movie had stuck) seems like the key to bigger box office numbers. And of course all the awards it's garnered make that campaign look much more successful in hindsight, too.

They're kind of "having their cake and eating it too", as far as appeal.

[Mikel_Cooperman]

The commercials go out of the their way to show all the male/female characters hugging and not one image of the men embracing so I would say it is definitely misleading advertising.

[Ray H]

I finally got around to seeing this. Good movie, but I had trouble making out the last line of the movie. Does anyone remember it?

Spoiler:

It's when Ennis is looking at Jack's outfit in his closet.

[Kevin Hewell]

He said "Jack, I swear."

Which makes a little more sense if you've read the short story. It's basically the closest he can come to admitting his love because he's so emotionally withdrawn with everyone in his life.

Plus,

Spoiler:

If you notice there are two shirts there, one his and the other is Jack's from that first summer. Jack had stolen that shirt to have something to remind him of Ennis. You could still see the dried blood on them from when they punched each other.

[Ray H]

But what does he swear?

[ScottR]

I think it's another way of saying "you're something else" or "i love you."

[Henry Gale]

Quote:

He said "Jack, I swear."

Here is my interpretation of the last moments.
I think I'll have to read the book.

Spoiler:

Unlike Jack, Ennis has always been a one-man man.
He is now living a monastic life, doing penance for not sharing the life together that Jack wanted.
The great symbols of their relationship, the bloodied shirts, hang in a makeshift treasure chest. When Ennis discovered those shirts in Jack’s room he hugged them and inhaled them.
Ennis’ daughter has just visited and announced her coming commitment to her love. Ennis initiates a brief ceremony with toasts to the young couples life together. Daughter departs but forgets her sweater. Ennis hugs the sweater, breathes it in and stores it in the same space as the shirts.
Carrying on the ceremonial mood he makes a posthumous promise to Jack, “Jack, I swear.”

[Mikel_Cooperman]

I thought it was pretty obvious what, "I swear" meant. Heath nailed the line and it really does mean a lot.