“Brokeback Mountain” shedding Finest Image to “Crash” on the 78th Academy Awards in 2006 is commonly cited as probably the most egregious Oscar snubs of all time. 20 years later, “Brokeback Mountain” co-writer and producer Diana Ossana nonetheless remembers the sting of shedding and the second she realized the prize would evade her.
Chatting with the New York Instances for the movie‘s twentieth anniversary, Ossana, who co-wrote the script with Larry McMurtry, mentioned she noticed entrenched homophobia in direction of Ang Lee’s movie from a few of Hollywood’s elite. She recalled attending a celebration at “Crash” director Paul Haggis’ home and being excited to fulfill Clint Eastwood, who had loved his personal Oscars sweep the earlier 12 months for “Million Greenback Child,” solely to be informed that the Western icon hadn’t watched her cowboy film.
“Paul began strolling me over and he goes, ‘Diana, I’ve to inform you, he hasn’t seen your film.’ And it was like someone kicked me within the abdomen,” Ossana mentioned. “That’s once I knew we’d not win Finest Image. Individuals need to deny [that homophobia was a factor in the Oscar race], however what else might it have been? We’d received all the pieces up till then.”
Ossana went on to elucidate that the movie’s rollout gave her a singular perch from which to view America’s evolving perspective on homosexual rights in 2005. Whereas watching the film in theaters, she was capable of observe the occasional discomfort folks felt in direction of homosexual intercourse scenes, even because the movie’s storytelling largely overpowered these biases and captivated audiences.
“The theaters had been all packed as a result of everyone was so interested in this film,” she mentioned. “And when the intercourse scene between the boys got here on, you’d see some folks obtained up and left, however not very many. On the finish of the movie no one would go away. They might simply sit there nailed to their seats till the lights got here on, and there can be folks crying.”
Anybody who missed the prospect to see “Brokeback Mountain” on the large display screen in 2005 now has a possibility to witness it for themselves, because the movie is at present enjoying in theaters courtesy of a twentieth anniversary re-release from Focus Options.