by How could a meeting with Clint Eastwood convince the screenwriter of the “Secret of Brokeback Moutain” that the film would not win the Oscar for the best film?
In January 2006, the secret of Brokeback Mountain, directed by Ang Lee with Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in the main roles, released on French screens. The story takes place in 1963, and tells the love story between two young cowboys isolated in the mountains in order to monitor a herd of sheep.
What does Clint Eastwood do in there?
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By its quality, its emotion and its subject, the film is named eight Oscars, of which best director, best film, best actor for Heath Ledger, Best Supporting Role actor for Jake GyllenhaalBest Role Second Actress for Michelle Williams and best suitable scenario. And the scriptwriter Diana Ossana, co-author of this screenplay with Larry McMurtry, immediately knew that the supreme prize was going to escape them, simply by crossing Clint Eastwood.
At the microphone of New York Times (via Deadline) She says that the day of the ceremony, the director Paul Haggis presents the interpreter of Inspector Harry: “Paul begins to take me to him and warn me: 'Diana, I must admit … He did not see your film'. And it was as if I had been hit in the stomach. Because from that moment, I knew that we would not win [l’Oscar du] Best film. “
“People are in denial on this subject”
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It should be remembered that at the time, Brokeback Mountain won everything in its path: 4 BAFTA, 3 Critics Choice Awards, 4 Awards satellite, 4 Golden Globes – and systematically, the price of the best film. He also won the prestigious gold lion at the Venice Festival. It was therefore said to be favorite and in 2006, he lost to collision (by Paul Haggis, precisely) a brilliant thriller with Sandra Bullock and Don Cheadle but largely forgotten these days.
For Ossana, if the film was not rewarded at the Oscars, it is largely due to homophobia which then reigned in Hollywood: “People are in denial on this subject, but for what other reason could he have lost? We had won everything until then.”
Hollywood frightened by the subject of the film?
Deadline recalls that at the time, aging actors like Tony Curtis or Ernest Borgnine had publicly expressed that they would not vote for the film because of its subject, Curtis even invoking that “John Wayne would turn into his grave”.
Ang Lee, director of Brokeback Mountain, has very recently declared on this subject: “I am really grateful and have no bitterness. I never thought about it. Maybe just a second, when Jack Nicholson opened the envelope, and then it disappeared. (…) I represented the film. So many people worked on it, I wanted him to win. So it takes a few seconds for it to pass. But how many people have the opportunity to live this?
Brokeback Mountain will leave with the Oscar for best music for Gustavo Santaollala, that of the best scenario for McMurtry and Ossana and that of the best director for Ang Lee, who then becomes the first Asian to have won this award.
