XDA

I had lunch Friday with a group of guy lawyers all ex-Deputy District Attorneys for the Second Judicial District of Colorado. Our lunch conversation covered a host of items--crime, movies, scripture and politics. They were amazed that I had seen Brokeback Mountain and vowed never to see it, even after I told them the gay sex lasted a mere 30 seconds and you got to see a lot of Anne Hathaway's large, natural breasts. Two of them scoffed at my theory that the Heath Ledger character might not be gay. They illustrated their position with a story of their prosecution of what another ex-DDA had called just another homosexual murder. During his interrogation by police, the murderer kept referring to the victim as a faggot. The detective, knowing the victim was the murderer's lover, was puzzled and asked, "But aren't you a faggot too?" The murderer replied, "Well, I have sex with other men, if that's what you mean."

The ex-DDAs said that was their definition of what it took to be gay, having sex with a member of the same sex. (It's certainly not a bad general rule). So Heath Ledger was gay in Brokeback Mountain. I asked if all the guys in prison having sex were gay. Yes, they answered. What about a woman who has sex with another woman, did that make the women automatically gay? Well, that was different.

I find their position inconsistent.

Oh, and pacing in a movie is a measure of the effectiveness of editing; I needn't go off on a tangent about Eisenstein, montage and French New Wave theory, which is pretty much out of favor lately anyway. When a movie is well paced, the scenes last only as long as they need to. You're neither looking at your watch nor dismissing as trite what just happened on screen. The emotional impact of the action on the screen hits you full on just before the scene ends. The opening scenes of Lord of War are well paced, the last 30 minutes of Lord of the Rings (Return of the King) are not.