Brokeback Mountain 's release in 2005 was a big deal, on multiple levels.

The film, directed by Ang Lee , was epic in story and scope, traversing 20 years in the lives of ranch hands Ennis Del Mar and Jack Twist. The pair fall in love in the summer of 1963 while looking after sheep in Wyoming and, though they ostensibly go about their respective lives—both marrying and having children—their hearts never manage to quit each other.

And the film itself, adapted from a 1997 short story by Annie Proulx , followed an uncertain path to theaters, the casting of Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal not exactly considered a slam dunk and the very idea of a gay cowboy movie—as it was often dubbed—portrayed as a gamble for everyone involved.

While he had "no hesitation" making it, Lee tol

See Full Page