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榮獲威尼斯最高榮譽金獅獎
《?虎藏龍》李安導演真情力作

《斷背山》
Brokeback Mountain

2月 共赴斷背山

李安導演:「每個人心裡都有一個斷背山，只是你沒有上去過。
往往當你嘗到愛情的滋味時，已經錯過了，這是最讓我悵然的。」

故事大綱：

一段深厚卻脆弱的愛情

《斷背山》故事發生在1963年荒僻的懷俄明州，兩個年輕的牧場牛仔艾尼斯．戴．瑪(希夫萊得格飾)以及傑克．崔斯特(積克茲寧賀飾)的愛情故事。

艾尼斯及傑克因工作而認識，當時他倆受僱於一個牧場場主，需要到斷背山上看顧羊群免受野狼或惡劣的天氣所吞噬。一個夏天的相處竟燃起了意想不到的愛火。

夏天結束時，牧羊的工作亦告結束，斷背山的情緣理應劃上句號，但分離並沒有阻隔二人的感情。然而，當時社會不但歧視同性戀更會暴力相待，為了保守秘密，兩人只好各自結婚生子。艾尼斯迎娶了愛曼(米雪威廉絲飾)，其後更生了兩個女兒；搬到德州的傑克則與蘿蓮(安妮夏菲維飾)結婚生子，婚後傑克為蘿蓮父親工作。兩人各自努力維繫家庭的和諧，埋藏心底秘密。

直至4年後，傑克與艾尼斯於懷俄明州重遇，一段埋藏的愛火重燃。為了逃避世俗眼光，兩人相約每年一度在斷背山碰頭，二人的關係才得以維繫了二十年。

傑克在一次意外中死亡，二人的關係被迫劃上句號。艾尼斯得知傑克的死訊後，特地到傑克家去探望，他到傑克的房間憑弔，在衣櫃的一角，艾尼斯發現了一件染血的襯衫，那是他們在斷背山時，相互糾纏時傑克受傷弄髒的襯衫。襯衫背後的故事成了傑克一生最大的秘密，更讓人悵然若失的是，在這件襯衫底下，還有艾尼斯的襯衫，小說如此寫道﹕「這一對襯衫就像兩層皮膚，一層在另一層之中。」艾尼斯最後只能從遺物中得悉傑克對他的愛有多深厚。

「歐亨利短篇小說」、「全國雜誌小說獎」得獎小說改編

《斷背山》改編自安妮．普洛兒(Annie Proulx)的同名短篇小說，描述六十年代美國荒涼的懷俄明州一對年輕男子的同性情誼故事，為美國近代短篇小說傑作之一。《斷背山》最先於1997年10月發表在《紐約客》雜誌上，後收進她的短篇小說集《Close Range: Wyoming stories》，《斷背山》更獲1998年「歐亨利短篇小說」和「全國雜誌小說獎」。安妮．普洛兒的作品以探索邊緣社群、關注人文、批判社會為主題。

小說把那種刻骨銘心的同志情誼，做了非常深刻的描寫。在懷俄明州，1998年就有一名懷俄明大學的同性戀學生因誤闖酒吧，而被群毆致死的慘劇。到了1998年尚且如此，60年代的懷俄明的情況可想而知。小說的主人翁在那個歧視同志的世界苟存，生活上充滿隱瞞而且支離破碎，雖然如此，但兩人因為對愛的追求而始終維繫情感，這種堅定正是小說及改編的電影受到矚目的原因。

製作認真 重現60年代西部面貌
李安導演笑言這是繼《飲食男女》後資金最少的電影，雖然如此，為了演繹故事中動人的愛情，大家在有限的資金下努力做到最好。

劇組於拍攝前做了大量資料搜集，分別到懷俄明州及德州作實地考察，搜集及重組當時街道及建築面貌。對於牛仔(美國傳統文化男子漢的代表)文化包括他們的心理狀況等作了深入的研究；其中傑克及艾尼斯於求職時遇上的一場戲，兩人並沒有對話，這是劇組有鑑於牛仔不善於用言語表達而特別設計的，兩位男主角戲中的動作姿態都經過一番設計。

演員們為了投入角色，特地到德州及懷俄明州等西部地區進行觀摩。兩位男主角開拍前更特地到西部進行牛仔訓練，學習騎馬、牧羊甚至木工等，以熟習牛仔的生活。積克原本不會騎馬，經過一輪訓練後，連真正的牛仔都不禁大讚積克天份高，輕輕指導一下便能學會。

由於戲中角色橫跨二十年，為了表現年齡及心態上的變化，演員們得接受聲學的訓練。他們將二十年分成三個階段，聲音亦分成三部分(音一、音二、音三)，以表達不同階段及年齡上的變化。

聲音的變化由年輕到中年，隨著年齡的增長，角色們說話時語調會變得深沉及緩慢，觀眾可能對銀幕上歲月的變化感到理所當然，但拍攝時卻不是順序拍攝，演員們在一日的拍攝中可能要演譯三個不同的年紀及心態，不停換聲演譯，其實難度甚高。

其中安妮夏菲維角色除了聲調的變化外，外表亦有明顯的變化。當她的婚姻變質，感情生活越來越苦的同時，她的化妝亦越來越濃，頭髮的顏色亦越來越金及淺。蘿蓮每次出現時髮色都會呈現些微的變化，劇組對這麼細微的改變亦會作出認真的記錄。

後話
李安導演:「《斷背山》為一個偉大的美國愛情故事，既獨特又易明。每個人都有追求愛的渴望、都有鮮為人知的秘密，只要你相信愛，你必會為《斷背山》動容。」

李安指出﹕「每次《斷背山》放映後的問答環節，觀眾很多時候都會告訴我他們的感受，這情況有別於一般問答環節。」觀眾的反應最能反映電影的好與壞。戲中飾演傑克的積克茲寧賀表演出色，有傳他的明星女友姬絲汀鄧絲看罷此片後，感動得躲入洗手間內哭泣起來！

這部電影並不單單是兩個人的愛情故事，更是他們的妻子、子女、社區的故事。

享譽國際--導演李安
李安導演畢業於紐約大學電影製作系研究所。1991年與中影合作《推手》獲金馬獎最佳電影等八項提名；後於1993年憑《喜宴》獲柏林影展最高榮譽金熊獎；1994年的《飲食男女》獲選為康城影展導演雙週開幕作品、亞太影展最佳劇情片和最佳剪輯獎。

1995年他應邀為哥倫比亞電影公司執導《理智與感情》，憑此片獲得柏林影展最佳影片，並獲提名金球獎最佳導演，奪金球獎最佳影片(戲劇)、最佳劇本，又入圍奧斯卡七項大獎包括最佳影片、最佳女主角等，終奪最佳改編劇本。1997的《冰風暴》獲得康城影展最佳劇本獎。其後於2001年以《臥虎藏龍》橫掃世界各影展獎項，包括榮獲金球獎最佳導演和最佳外語片，更獲十項奧斯卡提名包括最佳影片、最佳導演、最佳剪接、最佳服?、最佳電影主題曲等，成功摘下四個奧斯卡獎項--最佳外語片、最佳攝影、最佳美術指導、最佳原著音樂，同時創下美國最賣座外語片記錄，共收一億二千八百萬美元，誠華語電影之光，亦為華語電影成功進軍國際典範。

《斷背山》於第62屆威尼斯電影節獲得最高榮譽「金獅獎」，《斷背山》亦有份角逐今屆獨立精神大獎的最佳電影及導演等4項提名。李安導演的作品叫好叫座，今次《斷背山》由兩位最令人期待的新星主演，絕對能震撼你心。其他作品包括《變形俠醫》等。

希夫萊得格飾演艾尼斯．戴．瑪
希夫為澳洲演員，10歲已參演多個劇場製作，其後參演多部大熱電視劇演出，包括《Home and Away》等。1997年，希夫因為拍攝《Roar》而得到美國發展的機會，憑著與年輕女演員茱莉亞史黛絲(Julia Stiles)合演電影《戀愛新世紀》而開始為人所熟悉，其後於《孤軍雄心》飾演米路吉遜的兒子，表演令人讚賞。

希夫作為新貴演員，片約不斷，《孤軍雄心》後，擔綱演出了《狂野武士》，前途無限，及後更與好戲之人比利卜科頓及金像影后荷爾芭莉合演《孽愛傷痕》。近作包括夥拍麥迪文出演的《格林兄弟幻險記》。希夫憑電影《Two Hands》獲澳洲電影學院「最佳男主角」提名。

今次希夫在《斷背山》飾演內向深沉的艾尼斯，角色因為童年的不快回憶而變得不輕易表露情感，以及不能表達自己的情緒。希夫在與導演會面前已答應出演艾尼斯一角，因為角色極具挑戰性。

積克茲寧賀飾演傑克．崔斯特
積克為荷里活最讓人期待及被評為最有潛質男演員之一。積克11歲開始演戲，參演作品受人讚賞。2001年，積克憑《死亡幻覺》獲提名獨立精神大獎的最佳男演員。參演作品包括《明日之後》、《飛一般夢想》及《The Good Girl》等。

近作包括《情來算盡愛》，與奧斯卡金像影后桂莉芙柏德露及安東尼鶴健士合演，夥拍2位金像演技派，積克的演出依然毫不遜色。其俊朗的外形更擄獲不少少女芳心，為不少性感名人榜的常客。最近，積克獲得「荷李活電影大獎」最突破演出男星獎，表現受到肯定。

積克為傑克一角帶來震撼性演譯，把角色的複雜情緒及內心掙扎演得絲絲入扣。《斷背山》的演出令人期待。

安妮夏菲維飾演蘿蓮
安妮曾參演多部喜劇，包括大受歡迎的《走佬俏公主》及《走佬俏公主2:及時嫁到》。安妮一改戲路，從喜劇小公主轉為演譯波折重重的少婦。其出色的演技及努力更得到李安導演的讚賞:「安妮的表演出色而且熟練。」

米雪威廉絲飾演愛曼
米雪曾參演美國受歡迎劇集《Dawson's Creek》，更憑《The Station Agent》獲得Screen Actors Guild Award提名。角色愛曼是個以家庭為中心的女人，一生只為相夫教子，可是當她發現生活並非如她所願，更要為丈夫的保守秘密而掙扎。米雪演活了這個苦命的女人。

《斷背山》演職員表
FOCUS FEATURES 暨 RIVER ROAD ENTERTAINMENT呈獻
李安作品
《格林兄弟幻險記》希夫萊德格 《明日之後》積克茲寧賀
"斷背山"
《狗狗震》蓮達卡黛蓮妮 《迷失東京》安娜花莉絲
《走路俏公主》安妮夏菲維 《迷失天使城》米雪威廉絲
《天煞-地球反擊戰》金球得主 ?迪葛特
選角︰《驚天奪寶》艾菲哥夫曼,CSA
服裝︰《變形俠醫》瑪烈徹艾倫
音樂總監︰《珍珠港》姬菲妮遜
音樂︰《同行殺機》古斯達沃山度拉拿
剪接︰《浮生若舞》傑拉甸柏朗尼 《尼蒙利斯之連環不幸事件》戴倫提切諾,ACE
美術︰茱迪碧嘉
攝影指導︰《亞歷山大帝》羅德里高彼艾圖
聯合監製︰《娛人先生》史葛費格遜
執行監製︰威廉保勒 拉利麥梅特利 米高哥斯迪根 《紐約風雲》米高侯斯曼
監製︰戴安娜奧辛納 《臥虎藏龍》占士薛莫斯
改編自安妮普露原著故事
編劇︰拉利麥梅特利 戴安娜奧辛納
導演︰《臥虎藏龍》李安

Brokeback Mountain

An Ang Lee Film

A Focus Features Release

Production Notes

Brokeback Mountain

Synopsis

From Academy Award-winning filmmaker Ang Lee comes an epic American love story, Brokeback Mountain, the winner of the Golden Lion Award for Best Picture at this year's Venice International Film Festival. The film is based on the short story by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Proulx and adapted for the screen by the team of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana. Set against the sweeping vistas of Wyoming and Texas, the film tells the story of two young men -- a ranch-hand and a rodeo cowboy -- who meet in the summer of 1963, and unexpectedly forge a lifelong connection, one whose complications, joys, and tragedies provide a testament to the endurance and power of love.

Early one morning in Signal, Wyoming, Ennis Del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake Gyllenhaal) meet while lining up for employment with local rancher Joe Aguirre (Randy Quaid). The world which Ennis and Jack have been born into is at once changing rapidly and yet scarcely evolving. Both young men seem certain of their set places in the heartland - obtaining steady work, marrying, and raising a family - and yet hunger for something beyond what they can articulate. When Aguirre dispatches them to work as sheepherders up on the majestic Brokeback Mountain, they gravitate towards camaraderie and then a deeper intimacy.

At summer's end, the two must come down from Brokeback and part ways. Remaining in Wyoming, Ennis weds his sweetheart Alma (Michelle Williams), with whom he will have two daughters as he ekes out a living. Jack, in Texas, catches the eye of rodeo queen Lureen Newsome (Anne Hathaway). Their courtship and marriage result in a son, as well as jobs in her father's business.

Four years pass. One day, Alma brings Ennis a postcard from Jack, who is en route to visit Wyoming. Ennis waits expectantly for his friend, and when Jack at last arrives, in just one moment it is clear that the passage of time has only strengthened the men's attachment. In the years that follow, Ennis and Jack struggle to keep their secret bond alive. They meet up several times annually. Even when they are apart, they face the eternal questions of fidelity, commitment, and trust. Ultimately, the one constant in their lives is a force of nature - love.

Brokeback Mountain

Ang Lee: To me, Brokeback Mountain is uniquely, and universally, a great American love story.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Annie Proulx's short story "Brokeback Mountain" was first published in The New Yorker in 1997. It won a National Magazine Award, among other accolades. The story was subsequently published in Ms. Proulx's 1999 collection Close Range: Wyoming Stories. The screenplay adaptation was written by the team of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana.

Diana Ossana: In October 1997, I was in Texas staying with Larry McMurtry and some friends, one of whom had given me The New Yorker with Annie Proulx's short story. Two-thirds of the way through reading the story, I began to sob, and I sobbed all the way to the end. I was floored. Emotionally exhausted, I went to sleep, got up the next morning and read it again because I wanted to see if it affected me as much in broad daylight as it did in the middle of the night. Its effect on me was even more profound. I took the magazine downstairs and asked Larry to read the story.

Larry McMurtry: In 1997, Diana brought The New Yorker downstairs and asked that I read Annie's story. I don't read fiction much anymore, so I was reluctant. But in her tenacious way, she asked that I humor her and read it. After I was finished reading it, the first thing I thought was that I wished I had written it. It was a story that had been sitting there for years, waiting to be told, and Annie finally wrote it. It is one of the finest short stories I've read. The place, the landscape, the men and the way they speak are drawn precisely and convincingly.

Diana Ossana: He read it and said it was the best short story ever published in The New Yorker. "Well, do you think it would make a screenplay," I asked. And he replied, "I think it might." And I said, "Why don't we write Annie a letter?" And he said, "Okay."

Larry McMurtry: We wrote Annie a short letter, asking her to option the story to us so that we could adapt it for a screenplay. She responded within a week, and we launched into writing. So by the end of 1997, we had a screenplay.

Diana Ossana: We immediately optioned her short story with our own money. That's the only time Larry and I have spent our own money on an option. We wrote the screenplay in less than three months, and have been attached to the project ever since. That was how this all started. We tried for nearly seven years to get it into production. Various directors came on board at different times, and several actors wanted to be in the film, but no actors would commit. Then Focus, Ang and James became fully involved in late 2003. And now here we are.

Tim Cyr: When I read the short story, I could identify with the traits and feelings that the characters had, especially coming from a background of ranching - where everything out there is looked upon as being different if it's not traditional.

Shane Madden: Being raised on a farm, yeah, you had to hide it. It hurt to try and hide it. There were times I used to bang my head against a wall. [I read the story, and] I was losing it after the first six pages. It hit me deep inside.

Judy Becker: The short story made me cry, and the script made me cry too. Brokeback Mountain is a love story, and it's also about whether or not you have the inner strength to fulfill your life.

Randy Quaid: In 1997, I was in a gym, on a treadmill, and I was looking for something to read. I saw a copy of The New Yorker, opened it up, and started reading this story. I was just so taken with it that I swiped the magazine, took it home, and finished the story. I think what impacted me the most was the fact that we're all alone in this world, and we all have that same human need for love - to find somebody that fulfills us.

Annie Proulx is a fabulous writer, and her classic love story always stayed with me. When I read it, I thought it'd be perfect for Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana to write [the screenplay adaptation]. [Later,] I heard they were.

Diana Ossana: I think the thing that startled me the most was the emotions the story made me feel. It affected me as a woman, and I felt it would surely affect anyone else, no matter what their sexual preference. The feelings are universal - love, loss, pain, regret. Through the centuries, people haven't changed in their wants and needs and desires.

Annie trusted Larry and me very much. Larry and I have written two novels, and many more screenplays and teleplays, together. The West is rich in character, experience and the history of our country, and we like that. We talk about what we're writing quite a bit before we start. The process is pretty straightforward. We discuss things a lot; we argue, but the arguments usually result in good things.

We're really very different from one another. That's clear just by the way we write; he's on a manual typewriter and I'm on a computer. He seems more interested in the women characters than the men, and seems to feel that I have more intuitiveness about the men than he does. He's strong in dialogue - that's clear from his books - and character. I feel that my strengths are the inner life of the characters, and how to convey that through the dialogue. I have a real strong sense of what's going on with them inside, always.

James Schamus: Larry and Diana's screenplay took a spare, brief, and intense short story and managed to maintain its purity while vastly increasing its scope - not an easy task.

Michael Costigan: In Hollywood, Larry and Diana's script was known as one of the great unproduced screenplays. I had read the story, which was incredibly moving. I too thought, "How do you do this [as a movie]? How do you depict this?" The script broke me in half when I read it the first time. I gave it to my wife, who had the same reaction. I think people were afraid of it; these emotions run really deep. Each person who would read the script was deeply affected. The hope was to make the movie and have people be impacted and affected by these characters and by their story, the way all of us were by just reading the script. It's a movie that had to be done well, or not at all.

Diana Ossana: As powerful as the story and script were, with good parts for actors, I knew that it would take actors who were smart and brave to commit to this and go places emotionally that they'd never gone before - and a director who would understand this, and who would be willing to make this challenging movie on a modest budget.

I never really lost faith, but I didn't think it would take seven years. I think I was more frustrated by the fact that people wouldn't truly commit. They'd read it, they'd love it, they'd waver or anguish about it - and then something that paid more money or whatever would come along, and they'd just let it go. And then I'd simply press on, contacting more directors and actors, sending it to people to read and to consider. It was a long, hard, rocky road to get to this point. James Schamus read the script and expressed interest in helping get it made while he was still with Good Machine, trying repeatedly to get a studio to give it the go-ahead, but none of them would.

Ang Lee: If a project is not scary and sensitive, then it's probably less interesting to me. After Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, we were on our way to make our next project, and James Schamus mentioned to me that he just came upon this interesting material. I read the short story, which I wasn't aware of when it was first published. I had tears in my eyes at the end, and it

stayed with me. I [then] read Larry and Diana's screenplay, and it was a very faithful and great adaptation.

James Schamus: In many ways, it's a truly grand, old-fashioned movie about two heroes, fighting against all odds to preserve their love. We always approached Brokeback Mountain as nothing less than an epic American story.

Ang Lee: Two years later, I asked James, "What happened with Brokeback Mountain? Did it get made yet?" He said, "We haven't been able to make that movie." Lucky for me. I said, "You know, it's stuck with me over the years. I can't get it out of my mind."

James Schamus: I tried for years, as an independent producer, to make the film, but could never get any studio to give us the green light. Then, one day, I woke up and thought, "Hey, isn't it David [Linde]'s and my job to get movies greenlit here at Focus?" Then I knew I was in trouble!

Ang Lee: James got the rights, and I started thinking about making the movie right away. Before I knew I could physically do it, I jumped on. I just knew, in the bottom of my heart, if I let it go, I would regret it for the rest of my life.

Legendary writers who are very much alive and still working - that's a lot of pressure. In the back of my head was, "This will not please them; this will; that will…" Structurally, this was very challenging; it's an epic short story. But, as a filmmaker, you're creating a special enclosed space and time - your own world.

James Schamus: One of the great things Ang brings to the story is the humanity and attention devoted to every character. This isn't just a story about our leads; it's about their wives, their children, their communities.

Ang Lee: I decided to take a risk and go with a younger cast. It's a 20-year story, and you cannot recreate youth that easily. I decided to go with [actors in their] younger 20s. The young have innocence and freshness, and believe in what they're doing. They make the effort, and you don't over-instruct them. Nothing's more rewarding for a filmmaker than when young actors listen and [then] come [up] with great results.

Jake Gyllenhaal: I met with a [different] director about the movie years ago. At the time, I was a teen, so it wasn't a realistic prospect. I was immediately drawn to Brokeback Mountain because love stories haven't been told this way in a long time. Movies I've seen in recent years have avoided the struggles and the trials that it takes to actually be in love and keep that going. When I heard that Ang Lee was going to make it, I thought, "I have to do this movie."

Diana Ossana: Larry and I were very impressed with Jake's versatile and intuitive work in The Good Girl and Donnie Darko.

Ang Lee: I already knew him as a great young actor. I met Jake in New York, and he said, "I want to be in this movie so badly." He was totally motivated.

Anne Hathaway: An actor friend of mine said, "Read this script." I did, and it was a heartbreaking and very real love story. I thought, "I've got to be a part of this."

I went to a bookstore and found Close Range. I read "Brokeback Mountain" first and then went back and read the rest of the stories. Annie Proulx revealed a part of American history to me that I didn't know existed.

There's a line in the short story, and the screenplay: "If you can't fix it, you gotta stand it." Although the story is Ennis and Jack's, and they're the best example of it, that line really applies to all the characters in the movie; it's a human truth.

This screenplay shows that not having the freedom to be who you are doesn't just affect you; it affects the people that you let into your life. I didn't know this [at first], but "Ennis" means "island." Ennis is a man unto himself, and he keeps to himself the most of anybody in Brokeback Mountain - and that still affects people. He can't access his emotions and be with the person he loves most in the entire world.

Heath Ledger committed to play Ennis Del Mar for Ang Lee without having met or spoken with the director.

Heath Ledger: I trusted that story in Ang's hands. I loved the script because it was mature and strong, and such a pure and beautiful love story. I hadn't done a proper love story [prior], and I find there's not a lot of mystery left in stories between guys and girls; it's all been done or seen before.

James Schamus: Heath brings an astonishing combination of vulnerability and strength to the part of Ennis.

Larry McMurtry: In my youth, I would sometimes watch five or six movies a day. Now I don't watch movies much anymore, but when Diana asked that I watch the first twenty minutes of Monster's Ball to see Heath's performance, I said all right. That's the only performance of his I'd seen. After seeing him in that role, I felt certain that he had what it would take to play Ennis Del Mar - he was that powerful.

Diana Ossana: Larry and I had actually imagined Heath in the role for a long while. It's a serious gift having him play it.

Ang Lee: I feel very fortunate to have Heath in the movie. He's a natural. He has great coordination, he's very dedicated, and he does his preparation. He meticulously aims towards a certain target and firmly believes in what he's doing.

He and I talked about how Ennis doesn't speak much. Deep inside, he has a big fear from a childhood traumatic experience, and from his awakening to his own sexuality, which is not allowed to be expressed in the West. Ennis has to cover that up with his attitude and, sometimes, violence. He can get very violent, because of how scared he is. So he's a scared kid inside, playing a Western kind of cool. Heath not only had to carry his own character and the whole character of the West, but carry the movie - and he underplayed powerfully.

Michael Costigan: A lot of what Annie Proulx wrote has been captured in Larry and Diana's screenplay, and certainly by Ang, in terms of the landscape and how it plays subtly - and then not so subtly - into the story of Ennis and Jack. They are able to find each other in an idyllic place, Brokeback Mountain, that's very much outside of society. They then have to go back down into society, into the world. Their bond is so strong - yet absolutely fragile.

Randy Quaid: Two human beings make a connection, and realize that they affect each other in a way that no other human being affects them.

Ang Lee: Everyone has a yearning for love. Maybe you have that taste of it that you keep wanting [to get] back; maybe you never have that. It's a poignant story - "would have, should have, could have…"

Marit Allen: After reading the script, I was so haunted by it that I had to do it. The whole idea of love that never resolves itself - I think everybody has something like that in their lives. It was very important to me that people see this as a universal story. The screenplay is very true to the short story, with added depth to the central love story.

Michael Costigan: Because of the story, and then the screenplay, we got great actresses for the supporting parts. The female characters are sometimes right and sometimes wrong, which adds to the complexity of the story.

Michelle Williams: [My character,] Alma has been expanded upon [from the story], but faithfully translated and cared for. Diana was a great guide if you ever got a little lost, because she'd lived with these people for seven years and takes them very seriously - as seriously as if they were real. She was able to talk about them as if she'd met them.

Diana Ossana: Adapting Annie's story was extremely easy and yet extremely difficult. It was easy in the sense that we had the blueprint right there with her writing - of the story itself, of the characters, of the specific way they speak, of the specific place they were from, and the landscape that formed them. The difficult part was to stay true to all that while turning this into a feature-length film. First we scripted the entire short story, and then we imagined and proceeded to flesh out the female characters so they would have depth and a presence on-screen. We also continued to build upon the stories of Ennis and Jack, many times creating an entire scene based upon a single sentence in the story.

Jake Gyllenhaal: I was surprised at how similar the script and the story were, although Lureen's story was not as substantial as it is now.

Anne Hathaway: One day, I was playing a scene where Lureen is a bit older and slower and her voice has dropped a bit. Diana Ossana came up to me and said, "You know what? You're Kristal; you're the girl who works in Larry McMurtry's book store in Texas, and you're just her." To hear that I was anything that resembled a real person from Texas made me feel good, because I'm from New York.

Diana Ossana: Anne is quite a young lady. She's very well-mannered and refined. She went into character and just embraced Lureen. She had the accent down, she had the stance down, she had the gestures down. She looked like somebody straight out of Texas A&M University.

Ang Lee: She's an amazingly sophisticated actor for her age. [For Lureen,] everything's great when she's young, [but when] she turns bitter, her makeup starts to get thicker and her hair gets higher - and lighter, too. Each time she shows up, the hair is a different 'do and a different color, so we're charting the character accordingly.

Anne Hathaway: I loved [having] the blonde hair [for the later scenes]; I got so into it that I was Farrah Fawcett-ing all around the set. I couldn't get out of character when I was in the wig; I couldn't stop talking in the accent.

Joy Ellison was wonderful. We would do exercises where she broke down all of Lureen's dialogue into basic Texas syllables. We would say the lines together.

Jake Gyllenhaal: Joy set up three voices, three separate marks in the script, for Heath and I. Our voices change; they get progressively deeper.

Joy Ellison: Ang and I spent a lot of time talking about the voices and the accents, because he was very concerned about the authenticity of this - as he is with everything. We divided the periods into three sequences, which was a challenge for the actors because shooting was out of sequence. They had to maintain continuity. We named the voices Voice One, Two, and Three. In one day, the actor might shoot a scene in Voice Three - the older, deeper, slower voice - and then the next scene might be Voice One, which had more vitality and was perhaps higher.

Diana Ossana: A true luxury would have been to shoot the movie in continuity, but we didn't have that luxury. This is a very specific story, with very specific dialogue. The way they spoke, the timbre of their voices, had to be realistic.

Joy Ellison: Ang's attention to detail is phenomenal. Every so often [during the shoot], he'd turn to me and say, "Joy, was that a little thick on the accent?" And he was usually dead-on. It's a rare privilege to find a director who's so careful and keen about the authenticity of something.

Diana Ossana: I'm obsessively detailed, and I liked seeing that in Ang as well. What made him so good for Brokeback Mountain was, if you look at his other movies - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and even The Ice Storm - take place over vast physical and emotional landscapes, but the stories are very intimate. They have a wide scope and a very narrow scope at the same time.

Larry McMurtry: As I said, I don't watch movies very much anymore, but Diana and I watched Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon together - I think it was her fourth time watching it, she tends to do that when she loves a film - and Ang's visuals of the great landscape of China, as well as his touch with the intimate stories of the characters, gave me confidence that he could do justice to the nuance, the details, and the subtleties of our screenplay.

James Schamus: Creatively, Ang's biggest challenge was always holding in balance the big, sweeping, and epic side of the story with the intense and intimate emotional journey that is at the core of the film. Luckily, with these writers behind him, he had fellow artists who have also mastered that balancing act.

Michael Costigan: The sensitivity that Ang shows to relationships in his movies brought us actors who were very excited to work with him and go to places that they hadn't been before.

Anne Hathaway: Working with him is pretty much as good as it gets. You pray that you give him what he wants, and then you know that if he says he has the shot, then he has the shot - and it's probably going to be some of the best work you've ever done.

Randy Quaid: Like all great directors, Ang is an actor's friend and he attracts all the best people - the best makeup, the best costumers…So you just want to do your best in that kind of environment. Once he's cast the part, he lets the actor go and create. If there's something that he wants to see that is not being given by the actor, then he'll discuss it and we'll try it differently. He's very accommodating. As an actor, I can learn something from him.

Heath Ledger: We all spent time with Ang talking about and rehearsing our characters' stories. His attention to detail is microscopic; he doesn't miss a beat. He's a wonderful filmmaker who always seems to know exactly what he wants. He slips into possession of the story he's telling with ease.

Anne Hathaway: He won't let things not be truthful in his films. He understands the importance of subtlety. This was interesting for me because my background is largely from comedy, where you can get away with not necessarily having the most honest moments on film. In this story, dealing with these big emotions, if we went over the top with them then we would lose exactly what we were trying to do.

Jake Gyllenhaal: This is the first time I've ever played a character spanning a long period of time. Ang said, it's not only the makeup and the wardrobe but

also the voice and the movement and the behavior - everything combined into one. He made me feel empowered.

Marit Allen: Ang Lee understands characters' emotions completely. Nothing escapes his notice, and he uses every piece of the frame to tell his story.

Michael Costigan: Ang felt that this was a story that he wanted to tell, about people who feel something so strongly but live in a time and place where they are not allowed to have those feelings - and, if they had them, could not articulate or express them. I think Ang also saw in it what you see in a lot of his films; people who are extensions of where they are from and where they live, and are products of their environment. To do what they want to do, to have what they want to have, they must break out of that environment or out of the elements in their lives that are convincing them that they shouldn't be doing those things or having those emotions.

James Schamus: Ang is both a revolutionary and a profound conservative - he is respectful of the past, of tradition, of people; while at the same time, his heroes and heroines, from Sense and Sensibility through Crouching Tiger, and now in Brokeback Mountain, are always those who somehow don't fit into society's categories and who always have to fight for their individual freedoms.

Ang Lee: To make a great romantic story, you need great obstacles. Ennis and Jack are in the American West, which has macho and traditional values. So, everything they feel, they have to keep private. It's precious, and something special that they cannot articulate. That's very dramatic for me.

Diana Ossana: When Ennis met Alma, there may have been a physical attraction, but also a sense that, "this is what I'm supposed to do - get married and have children." Ennis cares for Alma and loves her, but his love for her is not passion. It is nowhere near what he feels for Jack.

Alma is a girl from a lower-middle-class family with normal expectations. The two men in the story really don't have a context for understanding and articulating their feelings for each other. I also don't think Alma has any context for grasping Ennis's and Jack's relationship.

Michelle Williams: Initially, Alma has exactly what she wanted - what she's been raised to want all of her life; a family and a home, a husband and children. When she sees her husband and Jack together, she probably doesn't even know exactly how to identify it at first, 'cause it's so out of the realm of her consciousness, of her world. She's too afraid to speak [of] it, so she holds onto it and it boils and brews inside of her.

Diana Ossana: As Annie says in the story, "A slow erosion occurs." For Alma, it's a process. It becomes widening water between her and Ennis.

Jake Gyllenhaal: Between Jack and Lureen, I think there's real love - but it's real love without that sexual bond, which I think is somewhat [closer to] friendship. He probably makes a decision to go be with her because that's his

mask, going with what society says is the right thing to do. All this time, there's this aching to be with Ennis and to have a life with him.

Anne Hathaway: When Lureen and Jack meet, they are young, and excited about being with each other. But as the story progresses, they have less and less in common. Lureen is in a marriage with Jack that is based on a certain kind of love, but not passion; it doesn't go as deep as the connection he has with Ennis. I was interested in exploring what that would do to a person, how that would turn them. When she's younger, Lureen is sassy; I decided that she leads with her belt buckle. Later, she becomes bitter. I think that, as she gets older, she knows that Jack is keeping something from her.

Jake Gyllenhaal: Oh, I think she knows; she probably has an idea of it - that something's going on.

Shane Madden: Same thing that I've gone through; I fell in love with somebody, cared for a guy and we hid it from everybody. Society told me not to do it. Met a girl. Started dating the girl. Fell in love with her. Wasn't happy because I wasn't me.

Jake Gyllenhaal: The question of identity, whether it's sexual or whatever, is what makes this movie so powerful. My own struggle with who I am, and who I am to other people, and what masks I put on, is hopefully interlaced with this character.

Ang Lee: We all have secrets. But we are societal animals, and we need to live with other people and have to fit in. You could easily say that Ennis and Jack live in a lie, but they had to. I don't think they knew any other ways to survive as human beings. It's not like they had other choices.

Jake Gyllenhaal: Heath and I trusted each other enough to take risks. It was wonderful creating an intimacy with him. He made me feel comfortable; he made me want to be present, and that's the best thing you can ask for from someone you're acting with.

Heath Ledger: It was great working with Jake. He was a very brave and talented actor to work with.

James Schamus: The wonder of the boys' performances is how they relate and grow off each other as the film progresses. We see them age over the course of two decades, and watch the weight of their experience accumulate sometimes in the most quiet, intimate ways as their relationship changes.

Anne Hathaway: Heath and Jake are taking the weight of a lot of people on their shoulders; they're enacting a story that people should hear. They totally put themselves aside and became the characters.

Michelle Williams: My hat is off to both of them; Heath was totally supportive, selfless, and helpful [in our scenes together].

Randy Quaid: Brokeback Mountain is a courageous choice for both of these actors. They're at a critical phase of their careers, establishing themselves. It's a real credit to them, not only as actors but as people, to take on these roles.

Heath Ledger: I had fear going into it, but that was all the more reason to do it; it was exhilarating when I committed to [the movie].

Diana Ossana: This may sound like a common adjective, but they're truly wonderful. And they've really gone the extra mile.

Joy Ellison: Michelle Williams and I took a trip through Wyoming and Montana. We went to some biker bars, and I taped people all the way. This is [now] decades later [than the movie's periods], so accents are a little watered-down, but you can still get an essence. When an actor hears a tape of a rhythm from a native speaker, we can pick out sounds and work on them individually.

Michelle was born in Montana and left at an early age, but she still has that background and so she has a good sense of the rhythms and quality of the speech. Like a lot of trained actors, she let go of her regionalisms to be more flexible in other things they're doing, so this was bringing her back.

Diana Ossana: Landscape - the place where they grow up - is what forms people; they can move away and live in other places, but they're always drawn back - at least emotionally - to the place where they're from.

Michelle Williams: I suppose Montana is in my bones, though when I told my mother that we were working on our accents 'cause we're [playing characters] from Wyoming, she said, "What are you talking about? We don't have accents." It was an interesting accent to work on and pin down, because it's not as typical as a Southern accent. You haven't heard it a lot in film. The danger was to overdo it.

I met Joy in Billings, Montana and we drove down to Riverton, Wyoming. I soaked up the atmosphere and looked at people and places. It was so wonderful to be on a project where they allowed you to do that. I've never come across that [before]; "Yeah, sure, take a rental car, follow whatever path you want for a couple of days, get what you can, and come back to us." It was great.

Diana Ossana: Michelle's a powerful presence, and she's very moving as Alma. I have been impressed with her ever since Dawson's Creek; I thought she brought a weight to that show that it otherwise didn't have. Because of what Michelle brought to Brokeback Mountain, I think we get a true appreciation for Alma and her dilemma and loss.

Heath Ledger: Michelle's ability to dive deep within her soul never ceased to amaze me. She's a brilliant actress.

Ang Lee: It's a very sad situation, and Michelle is very genuine about [portraying] it; she should rip your heart [out]. I like making dramas about

conflict, through which you examine humanity - the complexities in human relationships - and see where we're at. Dramatically, this was like a gold mine to me.

I went down to Texas to visit Larry, who's like the authoritative father figure in that world. I had the privilege to be toured by him to all of [the real-life] The Last Picture Show places. We went to the ranch where he grew up. I took photos, and he talked to me about the West. He's very generous about sharing his experiences - and his books, for art department research.

He also gave a list of places to visit in Wyoming. So I went all over Wyoming, [where] Annie Proulx [also] spent some time with me. Doing the research, and being there in Wyoming, really helped a city person like myself.

Marit Allen: Ang wanted to reflect the reality of the story, the places, the people and their economic situations. Ang, [cinematographer] Rodrigo Prieto and myself all studied Richard Avedon's book Photographs of the American West. He took photographs in the 1960s, and revisited [the subjects] twenty years later. There was a photograph in the Avedon book that we took as the template for Alma. Michelle Williams understood it, and embraced it immediately.

Ang Lee: Rodrigo is a great DP. He's very quick. I love his work from Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's movies; also from Alejandro's crew, I took [composer] Gustavo [Santaolalla]. The movie is poignant and stark, so we needed sparse music here and there, and his fits perfectly. Each time we could not afford a song, he would write us one.

Michael Costigan: Judy Becker connected with the story and wanted to depict it in a way that felt true.

Judy Becker: Right from the start, Ang made it clear that he wanted Brokeback Mountain to be in a realistic setting, in order for the audience to believe in the characters. But you have to imagine a way to create reality on film in a way that's different from real life. In general, I try to let the sets be a naturalistic background to the actors. That's one of the ways in which you have to try to transform what reality is into something that becomes the reality of the movie.

It's annoying to me when I see a "period movie," and there's a Life Magazine with John Kennedy on the cover - "Here we are, it's 1962." When I started working on this film and hired my crew, I told them that I wanted to find subtle ways to show the year or the period that we're in.

When I met with Ang the first time, we talked about making the color palette slightly de-saturated and somewhat subdued for most of the movie. Brokeback Mountain represents a freedom that Ennis and Jack don't feel in their towns.

Diana Ossana: Brokeback Mountain is Ennis and Jack's magical place. It's where they fell in love. They never go back there, which may be unconscious

on their parts; it's their idyll, and they don't want to spoil it. It's like Jack says, "All we got's Brokeback Mountain."

Ang Lee: The dramatic core is finding Brokeback Mountain. It is elusive and romantic. It is something that you keep wanting to go back to - but probably never will. For Ennis and Jack, it was their taste of love.

Judy Becker: Ang and I, and Rodrigo, talked about how the towns would be a strong contrast to the mountains - colorless and cluttered. We didn't have the resources to build a huge amount of the sets. The biggest challenge was finding the right locations. During prep, when we found an apartment and a diner that I could transform into the places that I had envisioned in my head and discussed with Ang, that was a great feeling.

I did an enormous amount of research, both into the periods and the locales. The 1967 supermarket sequence, for example, was a very specific process; researching what products were available, what the labels looked like, what the advertising looked like, what the supermarket looked like.

I looked at imagery of small towns. One thing that struck me, which Ang and I discussed early on, was that although the movie takes place mostly in the 1960s and 1970s, the towns still looked like they could be in earlier decades. We went to Wyoming and Texas to do some research and, even now, so much detail and architecture is left over from pre-World War II. Change happened very, very slowly in small towns in the West.

Jake Gyllenhaal: There's a metaphor of the whole West, how the West was changing at the time from the Old West to the New West. Ang likes to say that Jack represents the New West, and Ennis represents the Old West. They're two people, two landscapes.

Judy Becker: We found documentary references for the [1960s] campsites. Those haven't changed very much; they look pretty much the same today as they did 40 years ago. Then, with the later [1970s/1980s] campsites, we wanted to show the social and economic changes for the characters. Jack becomes fairly wealthy during the course of the movie; we wanted to show that he enjoys spending the money, almost trying to impress Ennis with it.

Joy Ellison: People often think Wyoming and Texas accents are the same, but they're really quite different. But "get" becomes "git" in both. The Wyoming one has more of a rhythm, and it's much more subtle; you put phrases together and sometimes make a bit of a strange pause where you normally might not. You never say "-ing"; you say "walkin'" and "talkin'" and "thinkin'" and "drinkin'." The Texas one has stronger sounds and stronger uses of the vowels. This movie had a beautiful script, written very accurately, I might add.

Randy Quaid: Over the years, I've done a lot of Westerns and been around my share of ranches and farms.

Diana Ossana: Larry and I had Randy in a miniseries some years back, Streets of Laredo. Here, he's perfect as Joe Aguirre; he brings a realistic presence for that time and place and an undercurrent of threat.

Randy Quaid: Aguirre is a cards-close-to-the-vest type; he looks at Ennis and Jack as expendable.

I'm from Texas, so I had [to do] a Wyoming accent for this. They do tend to phrase their sentences in a more terse, shortened manner of speaking than Texans do.

Michael Costigan: Marit Allen has worked with Ang [before], and had a great time finding what these people would have been wearing and how they would look in Wyoming and Texas then.

Diana Ossana: When Marit showed me photographs of Heath and Jake in wardrobe, they looked so real, so much like the characters we had envisioned, that I had to go outside and compose myself. I was that moved.

Marit Allen: I always work with the actors; we find things together. We used earth tones almost entirely for Ennis. Heath was deeply involved with his character. He worked with his clothes, using everything he wears to convey Ennis' repression - the jackets, done up; the cowboy hats, to hide behind. Between him and Jake, the hats became an integral part of what they were doing.

Ang Lee: Cowboys are so shy; they don't know what to do with their hands. They don't talk that much; you can't dig anything out of them.

In the first scene, when Ennis and Jack arrive looking for a job, there's no dialogue. We staged how they positioned themselves, and used the space - how comfortable they are with each other in the distance.

Joy Ellison: Their mouths would be [closed more], which worked well for the characters and the whole feeling, because the bigger picture is an idea of people who can't communicate. They are in a period of time where, there may be a sexual revolution going on in the country but in that particular part of the country, it's a much more conservative, bottled-up, and uncommunicative society. It would be very difficult for people to be open and communicative about these things. Ang was particularly careful about all of it.

Ang Lee: That bottled-up feeling - Larry had written me about the nonverbal culture in the West. I'd done [a movie about] a verbal culture with Sense and Sensibility. In some ways, this was harder, because, if they are not verbalizing their feelings and being level in their communication, then how do you express their feelings in cinema? You have the Western elements; the landscape, the sky, the animals - whom they're nurturing, actually.

Diana Ossana: Ennis and Jack are very poor country boys. Because of the difficulty of where they've grown up, it's always about survival for them; not

just financially, but physically, with the snow and the wind and the rain and the harsh landscape.

Brokeback Mountain is very removed from the rest of the world and from the rest of life. It's private up there, there's no intrusion, and they feel comfortable. When they come back down off of Brokeback and they're back in their small towns, everything closes in on them again.

They complement each other, Ennis and Jack. Jack is more open to the possibilities of life than Ennis; he's adventurous, friendlier, and has a ready smile. Ennis is very closed off, and does not access his emotions easily, if at all. When he brings up to Jack about the incident he saw as a young boy, that's one of the few things we know about Ennis, other than that his parents were killed when he was teenager, and he's been pretty much alone all his life. His tragedy is how terrified he is of feeling. He has developed a hard shell; inside, he's very vulnerable and easily damaged.

Heath Ledger: I think Ennis punishes himself over an uncontrollable need - love. Fear was installed in him at an early age, and so the way he loved disgusted him. He's a walking contradiction.

Diana Ossana: Jack is the first person that Ennis truly connects with. It's emotional first, and then it becomes physical. It's the most intense thing that's ever happened to Ennis in his young life.

Jake Gyllenhaal: The way Ang described Jack, and the way it's been written, is, he's more open to his emotions - and to a relationship. Ennis is more withdrawn. Jack, to me, tries really hard to hold on to the one thing that he knows is real in his life - his love for Ennis. Somewhere in him he has enough courage to say, "Let's try this. Let's take this risk, but I need you to take it [with me]. I can't do it alone." There comes a time, I think, in every relationship, where you have to say, "Are you gonna make this sacrifice or not? And if you're not, then I'm gonna find somebody else who is maybe more willing."

Michael Costigan: Heath and Jake are extraordinary actors who really understood who Ennis and Jack were, what their emotions were about, and their wanting to find love - which is what the entire story is about.

Filming began in Alberta in May 2004. Shooting locations in the region included the Canadian Rockies, Cowley, Fort MacLeod, and Calgary. Members of the Calgary Gay Rodeo Association advised and consulted with the production, and also appear in several sequences.

Tim Cyr: We're the only gay rodeo association in Canada, but it's part of a huge circuit throughout the U.S. We have the best turnout of the circuit, and to be a part of it is a great feeling.

Michael Costigan: We really were in cowboy country. So when people would come to be in sequences, they looked the part because they were the part. This was not a movie where there were a lot of fancy trailers, and

catering and perks. It wasn't a Hollywood production, but we accomplished so much in terms of scope. I think people will see it all up there on the screen, thanks to the crew that we've been working with.

Diana Ossana: One of the wranglers said an interesting thing to me about Jake. He said, "Wow, what a quick learner. He's a natural; you tell him something once and he remembers it, and does it absolutely that way the next time."

Jake Gyllenhaal: Heath has known how to ride since he was a little kid, and he's already done movies where he's ridden a horse. I knew nothing about riding horses. I came up a month before we started shooting, for, as we called it, "cowboy training camp." Getting on a bull wasn't too freaky; I trusted the guys to give me a bull that wasn't too rowdy. I learned how to ride horses, how to wrangle sheep, and how to do the cowboy things.

Ang Lee: Heath went [to camp], too. He and Jake needed to feel comfortable and find a chemistry - and Jake needed to get blisters and bloody hands, chopping wood, hauling bales of hay, putting up fences…

Michael Costigan: On every movie, Ang does a Chinese good luck ceremony that he leads everybody through. Everybody lights incense and then has to bow to the four corners.

Diana Ossana: Everyone worked so hard and rarely complained. No matter how difficult the terrain or the scene, they went for it. 80 percent of this film is outside, and the weather could, and did, change in 15 minutes. Mornings might be bitter cold, and by the afternoon the sun would be blazing down on us.

Ang Lee: We didn't have good luck with weather - we had sleet, hailstorms, and it was always cold - and mountains are not controllable [, either]. Logistically, it was a stretch, and the budget was modest - this was an independent film, and the cheapest I've made since Eat Drink Man Woman - but sufficient to make my vision come true.

Working on Brokeback Mountain, I feel I was relearning my love and enjoyment for filmmaking - and learning something about myself and my own relationships.

James Schamus: This was probably the most pleasant film shoot that Ang and I have ever worked on. There was almost an inverse proportion between our lack of money and the abundance of spirit in our crew and cast. Everything was done simply - not only because we didn't have the budget but also because, artistically, everything needed to be honest, direct, and clear…from the rawness and vulnerability of our actors to the presence of the natural environment.

Heath Ledger: It was a focused vibe on-set. Everyone there wanted to work hard on telling the story properly.

Scott Ferguson: Everybody on the film felt lucky to be there. Working with Ang Lee was a privilege. It was long hours and hard work; some of the places we went were either a long drive or a long hike with a lot of gear. A number of us working on the film came from either New York or Los Angeles, and sometimes we'd call ourselves the SOB's - the "south of the borders." But we were all making a movie together, it didn't matter who was Canadian and who was American.

Heath Ledger: The crew in Calgary were the most wonderful group of people I have worked with to date.

Randy Quaid: It was my first time in Calgary; I've filmed, I guess, everywhere else in Canada. I loved the mountains, and even the wind; it's gorgeous big sky country.

Ang Lee: You realize, when you place the camera you have to tilt it up a little bit; the sky is so grand. It's not only the big landscape, but the big sky.

Principal photography on Brokeback Mountain was completed in August 2004. Post-production was finished in the spring of 2005, marking the culmination of the story's eight-year journey to the screen.

Judy Becker: In my mind, Brokeback Mountain is like a Shakespearean tragedy. It expresses so many things about human nature, and the nature of being.

Marit Allen: To me, Brokeback Mountain has the look of a classic Western. And the Western is one of the last great romances; the loneliness and the strength of these men who embody hard work and integrity…we're always hoping that those values are still out there somewhere.

Michael Costigan: I think the film shows an American way of life and experience that we haven't seen very often, or depicted with realism on-screen. Not from that place and time.

Ang Lee: We know the West from movies, as the romanticized world of gunslingers. But the real West, I don't think people around the world know [about] that much. People like me, coming from Taiwan, outside of America, think [of] America [as] New York and the West Coast. But there's this big chunk of rural American life that we don't really know too much about. It's a love story about those people.

I think people need to know about that side of America. Like everybody, they have a heart - and they don't talk too much about it. You have to really dig to discover it, and share that experience.

Diana Ossana: Brokeback Mountain is not so much a Western as it is a story about the West. The media and the film industry tend to talk about how the Western is out of vogue or in vogue - but it never goes out, really, because it's America's history, it's our heritage. That is why we continue, to this day, to

connect with the Western: the good ones are compelling, true-to-life stories, with raw, flawed, human characters mostly operating in a harsh, unforgiving landscape.

Marit Allen: What I hope most is that the film will help people to understand the nature of love. There are as many different kinds of love as there are people.

Tim Cyr: Everybody has a right to love. Everybody should be loved. And if two guys get together or two girls get together, [there] should be no difference in it. Every movie that comes out where people are up there on-screen like this is a push towards more equality and understanding.

Diana Ossana: I hope that our film will move people the same way in which reading the short story moved me. I want the audience to feel the same things I felt when I first read that story. For me, releasing our film Brokeback Mountain is sort of like sending one of your children out into the world: your hope is that they succeed, and that they're accepted, and finally, treated with respect.

Shane Madden: I'm happily married, to a guy. He means the world to me. I'm hoping the film can tell people, believe and respect who you are and not what everybody wants you to be.

Scott Ferguson: Some of the obstacles to Ennis and Jack's happiness were real, in society, and some were inside the two of them. Hopefully, people will learn a little about finding your own way to accept yourself, to take a chance on who you are. When we shot the last scene of the movie, I'd say about three-quarters of the crew was in tears. It had a powerful effect on us, and I hope also [will] with audiences.

Jake Gyllenhaal: What really tears me apart is, Ennis and Jack are two people who actually found love. If you have love, you should hold onto it.

Heath Ledger: Brokeback Mountain is a love story for this generation.

Michael Costigan: Great love stories don't come very often. I hope audiences, after seeing the film, can think about their own lives and the choices they've made.

Ang Lee: It could be my wishful thinking, but if the feelings we're portraying are real, if the actors believing what they're playing appear to be real, and emotion is created with the audiences watching, then maybe issues won't be [had]. Biases might disappear when you look into the heart of people. I hope that's the case with our love story.

Brokeback Mountain

About the Cast

HEATH LEDGER (Ennis Del Mar)

Heath Ledger was born and raised in Perth, Australia.

At the age of 10, he enrolled in the local theater company. While performing on stage, he also began landing roles on such Australian television series as Clowning Around, Bush Patrol, Corrigan, Ship to Shore, and Home and Away.

In 1997, Mr. Ledger starred in an American television series, Roar, which was filmed in Queensland, Australia. The series landed him an American talent agent, and he decided to make his move to America.

He returned to Australia to star in Gregor Jordan's award-winning feature Two Hands. Back in America, starring roles in four major films soon followed: the popular comedy 10 Things I Hate About You (opposite Julia Stiles for director Gil Junger); Roland Emmerich's blockbuster The Patriot (alongside Mel Gibson); Brian Helgeland's hit A Knight's Tale; and the Academy Award-winning Monster's Ball (with Billy Bob Thornton and Halle Berry for director Marc Forster).

Mr. Ledger's subsequent films include Shekhar Kapur's The Four Feathers, Brian Helgeland's The Order, Gregor Jordan's Ned Kelly, Catherine Hardwicke's Lords of Dogtown, and Terry Gilliam's The Brothers Grimm.

He next stars in Lasse Hallstrom's Casanova, as the legendary title character. Mr. Ledger also recently returned to Australia to make a new independent feature, Neil Armfield's Candy (with Abbie Cornish and Geoffrey Rush).

JAKE GYLLENHAAL (Jack Twist)

Among the most promising young actors of his generation, Jake Gyllenhaal has an impressive and diverse list of film credits that continues to attract attention from critics and audiences alike.

He will soon be seen starring in Sam Mendes' Jarhead, alongside Jamie Foxx, Peter Sarsgaard, and Chris Cooper; and in John Madden's Proof, opposite Gwyneth Paltrow and Anthony Hopkins. His next film is David Fincher's Zodiac, in which he stars as real-life author Robert Graysmith, with Robert Downey, Jr. and Mark Ruffalo.

Mr. Gyllenhaal was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for his portrayal of the title character in Richard Kelly's Donnie Darko, one of the most talked-about films of recent years. His other films include Roland

Emmerich's blockbuster The Day After Tomorrow, Miguel Arteta's The Good Girl, Nicole Holofcener's Lovely & Amazing, and Joe Johnston's October Sky.

His earliest film appearances were small ones, in A Dangerous Woman (directed by his father, Stephen Gyllenhaal); and, as Billy Crystal's son, in Ron Underwood's smash City Slickers. He also appeared as Robin Williams' son in the highly acclaimed "Bop Gun" episode of NBC's Homicide: Life on the Street.

In 2002, Mr. Gyllenhaal made his theatre debut, in Laurence Boswell's London staging of Kenneth Lonergan's This is Our Youth. His performance in the play earned him the London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Outstanding Newcomer.

LINDA CARDELLINI (Cassie)

One of the most versatile actresses currently working in both film and television, Linda Cardellini is well-known for her portrayal of Nurse Samantha Taggart on NBC's highly-rated ER. She is reprising the role (which she originated in 2003) this fall, as the series begins its 12th season.

In addition to Brokeback Mountain, she stars in two other films this year; Aric Avelino's drama American Gun, with Donald Sutherland and Forest Whitaker, and Nick Goossen's comedy Nana's Boy, produced by Adam Sandler and costarring Shirley Jones, Shirley Knight, Doris Roberts, and Nick Swardson.

Ms. Cardellini's past feature film work includes starring as Velma in Raja Gosnell's pair of popular Scooby-Doo movies; appearing in Robert Luketic's hit Legally Blonde; and costarring with Martin Short in Vadim Jean's Jiminy Glick in Lalawood.

Among her earlier screen credits are Alan Cohn's Dead Man on Campus, Brian Robbins' Good Burger, John Pieplow's Strangeland, and Tom McLoughlin's The Unsaid.

Ms. Cardellini first came to prominence starring as academic decathlete Lindsay Weir on the celebrated NBC series Freaks and Geeks, which has recently enjoyed a renaissance on DVD.

ANNA FARIS (Lashawn Malone)

Anna Faris is known to audiences worldwide for her starring role as hapless heroine Cindy Campbell in the Scary Movie film series, directed initially by Keenen Ivory Wayans and, subsequently, by David Zucker. She will reprise the role in the fourth film in the blockbuster series, which is beginning production.

The Seattle native began acting in theater at a young age and embarked on her professional acting career there. She starred in commercials before being cast in Jon Steven Ward's independent feature Lovers Lane.

Ms. Faris' subsequent film credits include, also for Focus Features, Sofia Coppola's Academy Award-winning Lost in Translation; Tom Brady's The Hot Chick (starring opposite Rob Schneider); and Lucky McKee's May (which premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival).

She has recently completed roles in several features, including Roger Kumble's Just Friends and Ryan McKittrick's Waiting (starring opposite Ryan Reynolds in both); and Paul Myers and Brennan Shroff's Southern Belles.

On television, Ms. Faris made guest appearances during the 10th season of NBC's top-rated Friends, including in the series finale.

ANNE HATHAWAY (Lureen Newsome)

Continuing to emerge as one of the industry's most engaging talents, Anne Hathaway is an accomplished actress, singer, and dancer.

She memorably starred as Princess Mia Thermopolis, opposite Julie Andrews, in Garry Marshall's The Princess Diaries and The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, both of which were boxoffice hits.

Ms. Hathaway's other films include Tommy O'Haver's Ella Enchanted, Douglas McGrath's Nicholas Nickleby (for which she shared, with her fellow actors, the National Board of Review's Best Acting by an Ensemble award), and Mitch Davis' The Other Side of Heaven. Prior to working in films, she attracted industry attention with her acclaimed performance in the television series Get Real.

While in high school, she was nominated for the Rising Star Award, sponsored by New Jersey's Paper Mill Playhouse. She studied acting at the Playhouse, and was the first and only teenager ever admitted to the intensive acting program at NYC's award-winning Barrow Group. She also studied in the musical theatre program of the Collaborative Arts Project (CAP 21), which is affiliated with New York University.

Additionally, Ms. Hathaway studied dance at the Broadway Dance Center; is a first soprano, and has performed twice at Carnegie Hall with the All-Eastern U.S. High School Honors Chorus; and, in 2o02, received the prestigious Clarence Derwent Award following her performance in the City Center "Encores!" series production of Carnival.

In January 2005, she traveled to Cambodia to participate in a documentary production organized by Angelina Jolie. The project placed 25 participants in various locations on the same day, with each videotaping their surroundings at a specific "moment in time" (the working title for the documentary).

MICHELLE WILLIAMS (Alma)

In 2004, Michelle Williams shared a Screen Actors Guild Award nomination with her fellow actors from Thomas McCarthy's The Station Agent, for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture. The film had

previously earned the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival, and also won a BAFTA Award.

She has recently finished production on Julian Goldberger's The Hawk is Dying, with Paul Giamatti and Michael Pitt. Last year, Ms. Williams starred in Wim Wenders' Land of Plenty, which was in competition at the Venice International Film Festival, winning the UNESCO Prize.

On stage, Ms. Williams received glowing reviews for her portrayal of Varya in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard at the Williamstown Theatre Festival. Prior to that, she also achieved critical acclaim for her run in Mike Leigh's Smelling a Rat at the Samuel Beckett Theatre and her off-Broadway debut in Tracy Letts' Killer Joe.

Ms. Williams' other film credits include Dan Harris' Imaginary Heroes, Richard Ledes' A Hole in One, Michael Showalter's The Baxter, Sandra Goldbacher's Me Without You, and Andrew Fleming's Dick.

On television, she starred opposite Chloe Sevigny in the critically acclaimed HBO telefilm If These Walls Could Talk 2, for director Martha Coolidge. She also had a 6-year run as Jen Lindley on The WB's hit television series Dawson's Creek. The program premiered in 1998 and remained one of The WB's top-rated shows throughout its time on the air.

RANDY QUAID (Joe Aguirre)

Randy Quaid has been one of America's favorite actors ever since his memorable performance in Hal Ashby's The Last Detail earned him Academy Award, BAFTA Award, and Golden Globe Award nominations.

Brokeback Mountain marks Mr. Quaid's return to the milieu of the American West; his many roles in that setting over the years recently earned him a career Golden Boot Award.

He will soon be seen, also for Focus Features, in The Ice Harvest, directed by Harold Ramis; Mr. Quaid's previous collaboration with the director was on the original smash comedy Vacation.

He has been directed five times by Peter Bodganovich: in the Academy Award-winning The Last Picture Show and its sequel Texasville (both film versions of novels by Brokeback Mountain screenwriter Larry McMurtry), as well as in Targets, What's Up, Doc?, and Paper Moon.

Mr. Quaid's numerous other films include Ted Kotcheff's The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz; Arthur Penn's The Missouri Breaks; Hal Ashby's Academy Award-winning Bound for Glory; Alan Parker's Midnight Express; Walter Hill's The Long Riders; Robert Altman's Fool for Love (adapted by Sam Shepard from his play); Bob Balaban's Parents (for which he received an Independent Spirit Award nomination); Tony Scott's Days of Thunder;

Howard Franklin and Bill Murray's Quick Change; Ron Howard's The Paper; Roland Emmerich's blockbuster Independence Day; Peter and Bobby Farrelly's Kingpin; Mikael Salomon's Hard Rain; and (in voiceover) Will Finn and John Sanford's Home on the Range.

His television credits include, most recently, an Emmy Award-nominated portrayal of Colonel Tom Parker in James Sadwith's miniseries Elvis. He won a Golden Globe Award for his portrayal of Lyndon Baines Johnson in Peter Werner's LBJ: The Early Years, which also brought him an Emmy Award nomination. He had previously been an Emmy Award nominee for his work in John Erman's telefilm remake of A Streetcar Named Desire.

Mr. Quaid has also starred in an episode of the anthology series Gun, which reteamed him with director Robert Altman, and, among other miniseries, Joseph Sargent's Streets of Laredo (written by Brokeback Mountain screenwriters Larry McMurtry & Diana Ossana).

His stage appearances include starring in several works by Sam Shepard, among them True West and The God of Hell.

Mr. Quaid next stars onscreen in Milos Forman's Goya's Ghosts, as Spain's King Carlos IV, with Javier Bardem and Natalie Portman.

KATE MARA (Alma Jr., age 19)

Kate Mara's first film roles were in Frank Whaley's independent feature Joe the King and Sydney Pollack's Random Hearts (as Kristin Scott Thomas' daughter).

She has since appeared in such films as Gary Winick's Tadpole, Jonathan Parker's The Californians, and Mary Lambert's upcoming Bloody Mary.

Ms. Mara has had notable recurring roles on several television series, including Everwood, Nip/Tuck, and (most recently) Jack & Bobby. She has also guest-starred on such shows as Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Law & Order, CSI, CSI: Miami, and Cold Case.

She is an accomplished singer, and made her professional theatre debut at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Landscape of the Body, with Lili Taylor.

Brokeback Mountain

About the Filmmakers

ANG LEE (Director)

As director of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Ang Lee received the Academy Award for Best Foreign-Language Film.

Based on a novel by Du Lu Wang, that film won 3 additional Academy Awards - Best Cinematography (Peter Pau), Best Original Score (Tan Dun), and Best Art Direction/Set Decoration (Tim Yip) - and was nominated for 6 more, including Best Picture and Best Director. Mr. Lee won the Directors Guild of America, BAFTA, and Golden Globe Awards for Best Director, among other honors.

Born and raised in Taiwan, Mr. Lee moved to the United States in 1978. After receiving a Bachelor of Fine Arts in theatre from the University of Illinois, he went to New York University to complete a Masters of Fine Arts Degree in film production. His short film Fine Line won Best Director and Best Film awards at the annual NYU Film Festival.

His first feature film, Pushing Hands, was screened at the 1992 Berlin International Film Festival and won Best Film at the Asian-Pacific Film Festival. The film was also nominated for 9 Golden Horse Awards [Taiwan's equivalent of the Academy Award].

Pushing Hands was also the first film in his "Father Knows Best" trilogy, all of which starred actor Sihung Lung. The next film in the trilogy, The Wedding Banquet, premiered at the 1993 Berlin International Film Festival. It won the top prize (the Golden Bear) there and subsequently opened to international acclaim. The film was nominated for the Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign-Language Film, and received 6 Independent Spirit Award nominations.

Mr. Lee capped the trilogy with Eat Drink Man Woman, which was selected as the opening night feature for the Directors Fortnight section of the 1994 Cannes International Film Festival. Named Best Foreign-Language Film by the National Board of Review, the film was nominated for the Academy Award and the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign-Language Film, and received 6 Independent Spirit Award nominations.

In 1995, Mr. Lee directed Sense and Sensibility, starring Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet. The film was nominated for 7 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and won for Best Adapted Screenplay (Emma Thompson, from the Jane Austen novel). Sense and Sensibility also won Golden Globe Awards for Best Picture [Drama] and Best Screenplay; was named Best Picture by BAFTA, the Boston Society of Film Critics, and the National Board of Review; and won the top prize (the Golden Bear) at the 1996 Berlin International Film

Festival. Mr. Lee was cited as Best Director by the New York Film Critics Circle, the National Board of Review, and the Boston Society of Film Critics.

He next directed The Ice Storm, adapted by James Schamus from Rick Moody's novel, and starring Joan Allen, Kevin Kline, Sigourney Weaver, Christina Ricci, and Tobey Maguire. The film premiered at the 1997 Cannes International Film Festival (where it won the Best Screenplay award), and was selected as the opening night feature for the 1997 New York Film Festival. For her performance in the film, Sigourney Weaver won a BAFTA Award, and was nominated for a Golden Globe Award, for Best Supporting Actress.

Mr. Lee's subsequent films were Ride with the Devil (adapted by James Schamus from Daniel Woodrell's novel, and reteaming the director with actor Tobey Maguire); the aforementioned Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; and the boxoffice hit The Hulk (starring Eric Bana and Jennifer Connelly).

LARRY McMURTRY (Screenplay; Executive Producer)

Larry McMurtry was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1986 for his novel, Lonesome Dove.

He has authored 40 books, both novels and essay collections, and has written over 30 screenplays. Several of his works have been adapted into feature films and television miniseries. His first novel was Horseman, Pass By. The book became Martin Ritt's Hud, adapted by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr. and starring Paul Newman. The film won 3 Academy Awards: Best Actress (Patricia Neal), Best Supporting Actor (Melvyn Douglas), and Best Cinematography (James Wong Howe).

Mr. McMurtry's novel The Last Picture Show was made into a feature film by Peter Bogdanovich, with Mr. McMurtry receiving an Academy Award nomination for co-writing the screenplay adaptation with the director. The film won 2 Academy Awards, Best Supporting Actor (Ben Johnson) and Best Supporting Actress (Cloris Leachman), and was nominated for Best Picture.

His novel Terms of Endearment, was adapted into a movie, and directed, by James L. Brooks. The film won 5 Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress (Shirley MacLaine), and Best Supporting Actor (Jack Nicholson).

The aforementioned Lonesome Dove was adapted by William D. Wittliff into a television miniseries directed by Simon Wincer. The program, one of the most popular miniseries of all time, won 7 Emmy Awards.

Mr. McMurtry began a writing collaboration with Diana Ossana in 1992. The team has written two novels together, Pretty Boy Floyd and Zeke and Ned. They adapted two of his novels, Streets of Laredo and Dead Man's Walk, into acclaimed miniseries, both of which they also executive-produced. The two miniseries were directed by Joseph Sargent and Yves Simoneau, respectively. The duo later adapted Frederick Manfred's novel Riders of Judgment into the

miniseries Johnson County War, which they also executive-produced, and which was directed by David S. Cass Sr.

Tom Hanks is slated to star in, and produce, the Universal Pictures film version of Mr. McMurtry's novel Boone's Lick, for which the author and Ms. Ossana are writing the screenplay adaptation.

Among his other novels are Moving On, All My Friends Are Going To Be Strangers, Somebody's Darling, The Desert Rose, Film Flam, Loop Group, and The Colonel and Little Missie: The Beginnings of Superstardom in America. His essay collections include Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen, Roads, and Paradise. He is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books.

Mr. McMurtry was born in Wichita Falls, Texas, and raised in Archer City. His father and eight uncles were all ranchers. He attended North Texas State and Rice Universities, and was also a Stegner fellow at Stanford University.

DIANA OSSANA (Screenplay; Producer)

Diana Ossana was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. Her father emigrated from Italy to America in 1937. She attended Eastern New Mexico University in Portales, New Mexico, majoring in English/Political Science.

She moved to Arizona in 1977. In Tucson, she helped to implement and establish a successful law practice for a corporation of 5 trial attorneys.

In 1992, Ms. Ossana began a writing collaboration with Larry McMurtry, which continues to this day and has expanded to encompass film and television projects that they write and produce.

The team has written two novels together, Pretty Boy Floyd and Zeke and Ned. They adapted two of his novels, Streets of Laredo and Dead Man's Walk, into acclaimed miniseries, both of which they also executive-produced. The two miniseries were directed by Joseph Sargent and Yves Simoneau, respectively. The duo later adapted Frederick Manfred's novel Riders of Judgment into the miniseries Johnson County War, which they also executive-produced, and which was directed by David S. Cass Sr.

Tom Hanks is slated to star in, and produce, the Universal Pictures film version of Mr. McMurtry's novel Boone's Lick, for which the author and Ms. Ossana are writing the screenplay adaptation.

ANNIE PROULX (Author)

Annie Proulx's short story, "Brokeback Mountain," was originally published in The New Yorker in 1997. The story earned, among other accolades, a National Magazine Award. It was subsequently published in the author's 1999 collection Close Range: Wyoming Stories.

In 1994, Ms. Proulx's novel The Shipping News earned her the Pulitzer Prize.

The Connecticut native studied history at the University of Vermont and Concordia University in Montreal, and passed her doctoral oral examinations in that subject.

In 1975, with few teaching jobs available, Ms. Proulx became a journalist. She also wrote short stories, two of which were listed in editions of Best American Short Stories.

In 1988, she published her first fiction work, Heart Songs and Other Stories. Her first novel, Postcards, won the 1993 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

Ms. Proulx's other books include Accordion Crimes, That Old Ace in the Hole, and Bad Dirt: Wyoming Stories 2.

JAMES SCHAMUS (Producer)

An integral contributor to the American independent film business for over a decade, James Schamus has the unique distinction of being an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter and producer who is also a film executive.

He has had a long collaboration as writer and producer with Ang Lee, on nine feature films. Prior to Brokeback Mountain, the duo's earlier films together include The Hulk (which Mr. Schamus wrote and produced); Ride with the Devil (which Mr. Schamus produced and adapted); The Ice Storm (which Mr. Schamus produced and adapted, earning the Best Screenplay prize at the 1997 Cannes International Film Festival as well as WGA and BAFTA Award nominations); Sense and Sensibility (which Mr. Schamus co-produced); Eat Drink Man Woman (which Mr. Schamus co-wrote and associate-produced); The Wedding Banquet (which Mr. Schamus co-wrote and produced); and Pushing Hands (which Mr. Schamus produced).

Mr. Schamus is co-president, with David Linde, of Focus Features, a motion picture production, financing, and worldwide distribution company committed to bringing moviegoers the most original stories from the world's most innovative filmmakers. The duo formed Focus in May 2002.

Prior to the formation of Focus, Mr. Schamus was co-president of the independent film production company Good Machine, which he co-founded in 1991. Mr. Schamus and his partners at the company produced over 40 films during an 11-year period, in partnership with filmmakers such as Mr. Lee, Todd Solondz, and Nicole Holofcener. Through its financing and distribution arm, Good Machine International, the company represented dozens more filmmakers, among them Pedro Almodovar and the Coen Brothers. Good Machine was recently honored with a 10-year retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City.

Mr. Schamus is also a screenwriter, and received Academy Award nominations in the Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Original Song categories for his work on Mr. Lee's Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The

blockbuster Good Machine feature, which Mr. Schamus co-wrote and executive-produced, won 4 Academy Awards.

He executive-produced several Good Machine features that won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, including Edward Burns' The Brothers McMullen, Tom Noonan's What Happened Was…, and Todd Haynes' Poison. Among the other films that he executive-produced at Good Machine are Paul Schrader's AutoFocus, Gregor Jordan's Buffalo Soldiers, Todd Solondz' Happiness, Bart Freundlich's The Myth of Fingerprints, Cindy Sherman's Office Killer, Nicole Holofcener's Walking and Talking, and Todd Haynes' Safe.

Mr. Schamus is also Associate Professor in Columbia University's School of the Arts, and he currently serves on the boards of directors of Creative Capital and the Foundation for Independent Video and Film. He was the 1997 Nuveen Fellow in the Humanities at the University of Chicago, and received his Ph.D. in English from U.C. Berkeley in 2003.

He was honored with the NBC Screenwriter Tribute at the 2002 Nantucket Film Festival as well as with the Writers Guild of America, East's 2003 Richard B. Jablow Award for devoted service to the Guild.

Focus' top-grossing film to date is Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation, which grossed over $100 million worldwide and won the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. The company's most-honored release to date is Roman Polanski's The Pianist, which won 3 Academy Awards, including Best Director and Best Actor.

Focus' other celebrated releases have included two more Academy Award winners, Michel Gondry's Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Walter Salles' The Motorcycle Diaries; Todd Haynes' Far from Heaven; Francois Ozon's Swimming Pool; and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's 21 Grams.

Current and upcoming Focus Features releases, in addition to Brokeback Mountain, include Fernando Meirelles' The Constant Gardener, starring Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz; Jim Jarmusch's Broken Flowers (winner of the Grand Prix at the 2005 Cannes International Film Festival), starring Bill Murray; Joe Wright's Pride & Prejudice, starring Keira Knightley; Harold Ramis' The Ice Harvest, starring John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, and Connie Nielsen; Sanaa Hamri's Something New, starring Sanaa Lathan and Simon Baker; Rian Johnson's Brick, starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt (winner of a Special Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival); Gaby Dellal's On a Clear Day, starring Peter Mullan and Brenda Blethyn; Phillip Noyce's Hotstuff, starring Tim Robbins and Derek Luke; Shane Acker's animated fantasy epic 9, produced by Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambetov and Jim Lemley & Dana Ginsburg; and Allen Coulter's Truth, Justice and the American Way, starring Adrien Brody, Ben Affleck, and Diane Lane.

In addition to Brokeback Mountain and the majority of the previously mentioned titles, Focus International, the company's worldwide sales and

distribution arm, is also currently handling the overseas distribution of Ben Younger's Prime, starring Meryl Streep and Uma Thurman; (excluding Italy,) Roberto Benigni's The Tiger and the Snow, starring Mr. Benigni, Nicoletta Braschi, and Jean Reno; (excluding Asia,) Fearless, starring Jet Li for director Ronny Yu; Danis Tanovic's Hell, starring Emmanuelle Beart, Karin Viard, Marie Gillain, and Carole Bouquet; Isabel Coixet's The Secret Life of Words, starring Sarah Polley, Tim Robbins, and Javier Camara; and Christophe Gans' Silent Hill, starring Radha Mitchell.

Focus Features is part of NBC Universal, one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies in the development, production, and marketing of entertainment, news, and information to a global audience. Formed in May 2004 through the combining of NBC and Vivendi Universal Entertainment, NBC Universal owns and operates a valuable portfolio of news and entertainment networks, a premier motion picture company, significant television production operations, a leading television stations group, and world-renowned theme parks. NBC Universal is 80%-owned by General Electric, with 20% controlled by Vivendi Universal.

WILLIAM POHLAD (Executive Producer)

William Pohlad is president of River Road Entertainment, an integrated entertainment company active in independent film production. River Road, which maintains offices in Minneapolis and Los Angeles, was founded by Mr. Pohlad in 1987.

After founding the company, he wrote, directed, and co-produced his first feature film, Old Explorers (which starred Jose Ferrer and James Whitmore). He followed that up with numerous commercial, corporate, and documentary film and video projects. His documentary credits include profiles of rock star Prince, Hall of Fame baseball player Kirby Puckett, and Irish theatre director Joe Dowling. He has also created music videos and in-store programming for Musicland/Sam Goody, and has partnered with Musicland to produce music programming for cable and syndicated television. The company continues developing and producing creative television programming through its River Road Productions subsidiary.

The company also owns Hi-Wire, a state-of-the-art post-production facility with full digital, HDTV, film and video editorial, film transfer, 3-D animation, motion graphics, and music and sound design capabilities. Clients include major national advertising agencies, working with such brands as Best Buy, BMW, LL Bean, Target Stores, and Northwest Airlines.

In 2003, River Road closed a co-financing deal with Focus Features. The resulting features are distributed domestically by Focus, which handles international sales on some of the titles as well.

With River Road partner Laura Bickford, Mr. Pohlad's next projects as producer are Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus, to be directed by Steven Shainberg and adapted by Erin Cressida Wilson from a biography by Patricia Bosworth, and to star Academy Award winner Nicole Kidman and

Robert Downey, Jr.; Brett Morgen's political documentary C7; and Che, which will reteam two Academy Award winners, director Steven Soderbergh and actor Benicio Del Toro. The latter will star as the legendary Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna.

Recently, Mr. Pohlad executive-produced the Madonna documentary I'm Going to Tell You a Secret.

MICHAEL COSTIGAN (Executive Producer)

After a successful career as a motion picture studio executive, Michael Costigan has now made the transition to producing movies, beginning with Brokeback Mountain.

He is president of Ridley and Tony Scott's production company Scott Free, which is based at 20th Century Fox. Scott Free's 2005-2006 slate includes Domino, directed by Tony Scott and starring Keira Knightley; In Her Shoes, directed by Curtis Hanson and starring Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette, and Shirley MacLaine; A Good Year, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crowe and Albert Finney; and the hit television series Numbers.

Mr. Costigan founded his own production company, Corduroy Films, in 2002. Corduroy, based at Sony Pictures, retains projects in development at the studio including Another Bulls-t Night in Suck City, to be adapted and directed by Academy Award nominee Paul Weitz from Nick Flynn's award-winning memoir; and Dallas, the feature film version of the globally popular television series, which Robert Luketic will direct from Robert Harling's screenplay. The latter project, being done in conjunction with New Regency, will be distributed through 20th Century Fox.

He is also developing an hourlong HBO series, Motel Novella, which he will executive-produce with Emmy Award-winning directors Joe and Anthony Russo.

Previously, Mr. Costigan was an executive at Sony Pictures for 9 years. As executive vice president, production, he oversaw the acquisition, development, and production of dozens of movies. Among these were James Mangold's Girl, Interrupted; Milos Forman's Academy Award-nominated The People vs. Larry Flynt; McG's blockbuster Charlie's Angels; Gus Van Sant's acclaimed To Die For; Andrew Niccol's first film, Gattaca; and Wes Anderson's debut feature, Bottle Rocket.

MICHAEL HAUSMAN (Executive Producer)

Michael Hausman has made a career of film production for nearly four decades.

The native New Yorker has had a long collaboration with Academy Award-winning director Milos Forman. The duo began their creative association with the director's Taking Off, for which Mr. Hausman was both production

manager and associate producer. They worked together again on Hair (for which Mr. Hausman was first assistant director), Ragtime (which Mr. Hausman executive-produced), Amadeus (which Mr. Hausman executive-produced, and which won 8 Academy Awards, including Best Picture), Valmont (which Mr. Hausman produced), The People vs. Larry Flynt (which Mr. Hausman produced), and Man on the Moon (which Mr. Hausman executive-produced).

He has teamed with writer/directors Robert Benton and David Mamet three times apiece. For the former, he executive-produced Places in the Heart (which won 2 Academy Awards), Nobody's Fool, and Twilight. For the latter, he produced House of Games, Things Change, and Homicide.

Mr. Hausman's many films as producer also include Elaine May's Mikey and Nicky; Robert M. Young's Rich Kids and The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez; Richard Pearce's Heartland, No Mercy, and A Family Thing (the latter two as executive producer); Mike Nichols' Silkwood; and Eugene Corr's Desert Bloom.

He has also been executive producer of such notable films as Sydney Pollack's The Firm, Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York, and Steven Zaillian's upcoming update of All the King's Men.

Mr. Hausman previously worked with Focus Features on Michel Gondry's Academy Award-winning Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

While continuing his producing career, he is a member of the board of directors of DuArt Laboratories; teaches at Columbia University's Graduate Film School; and is co-chair of the producing concentration of Cuba's EICTV (International School of Film and Television).

SCOTT FERGUSON (Co-Producer)

Scott Ferguson has worked together with Brokeback Mountain executive producer Michael Hausman on eleven films to date. These include (also for Focus Features) Michel Gondry's Academy Award-winning Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind; Milos Forman's The People vs. Larry Flynt and Man on the Moon, both of which Mr. Ferguson associate-produced; Robert Benton's Nobody's Fool and Twilight, both of which Mr. Ferguson associate-produced; Sydney Pollack's The Firm; David Mamet's Homicide; and Steven Zaillian's upcoming update of All the King's Men.

His other producing credits include Lisa Cholodenko's Laurel Canyon (as executive producer); David Mamet's Heist (as co-producer); Alan Taylor's Palookaville (as co-producer); James Mangold's Heavy (which won a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and which Mr. Ferguson associate-produced); and Joseph Castelo's American Saint (which won the Golden Starfish at the Hamptons International Film Festival).

Additionally, Mr. Ferguson was production consultant on Catherine Hardwicke's award-winning debut feature thirteen.

RODRIGO PRIETO, A.S.C., A.M.C. (Director of Photography)

Amores perros brought cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto to the attention of the world film community. His work on the feature, directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, brought him several honors, including the Silver Ariel Award (Mexico's equivalent of the Academy Award) and the Golden Frog Award at the Camerimage International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography.

His subsequent films as cinematographer have included Michael Cristofer's Original Sin, Julie Taymor's Frida (for which he was nominated by his peers, for the American Society of Cinematographers Award), Curtis Hanson's 8 Mile, Spike Lee's 25th Hour, and Mr. Inarritu's award-winning Focus Features release 21 Grams.

Mr. Prieto traveled to Cuba with director Oliver Stone to shoot Comandante, the documentary on Fidel Castro. The two then went to the Middle East to film a documentary on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Persona Non Grata. Their next project together was the epic Alexander, for which Mr. Prieto was honored with the Silver Frog Award at the Camerimage International Film Festival of the Art of Cinematography.

He studied at Mexico City's Centro de Capacitacion Cinematografica. Prior to Amores perros, he shot 12 Mexican feature films in a decade, winning two previous Silver Ariel Awards for his work on Carlos Carrera's Un Embrujo and Daniel Gruener's Sobrenatural.

JUDY BECKER (Production Designer)

Cited as one of "25 to Watch" in the summer 2002 issue of Filmmaker, Judy Becker came to her career in production design from a background in fine arts, including several years as an "underground" comics artist.

She most recently completed work on the production design for two movies, Julian Goldberger's The Hawk is Dying, starring Paul Giamatti and Michelle Williams, and Douglas McGrath's Every Word is True, starring Toby Jones as Truman Capote.

Ms. Becker has been the production designer of several notable independent films, among them Mike Mills' Thumbsucker; Zach Braff's Garden State; Rebecca Miller's Personal Velocity: Three Portraits (Grand Jury Prize winner at the Sundance Film Festival); and Peter Sollett's Raising Victor Vargas.

GERALDINE PERONI (Editor)

Geraldine Peroni (1953-2004) was born in Manhattan and raised in Rockaway, Queens.

She studied film at Hunter College, and began her career with the Mirra Bank/Ellen Hovde three-part independent feature Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, on which she was an editorial apprentice.

Working under Thelma Schoonmaker, Ms. Peroni was first assistant editor on Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ, as well as the director's "Life Lessons" segment of New York Stories. She was also assistant editor on John Sayles' Matewan, before earning her first full credit as editor on Shirley Sun's Iron & Silk.

Beginning on Vincent & Theo, she began a steady creative collaboration with director Robert Altman. This continued through The Player (for which she received Academy Award, BAFTA, and A.C.E. [American Cinema Editors] Award nominations), Short Cuts, Pret-a-Porter [Ready to Wear], Kansas City, The Gingerbread Man, Dr. T and the Women, and The Company.

Ms. Peroni's other credits as film editor include Rose Troche's The Safety of Objects, Tim Robbins' Cradle Will Rock, and Nora Ephron's Michael. She also edited episodes of the television series The Wire.

DYLAN TICHENOR, A.C.E. (Editor)

For his editing on Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums, Dylan Tichenor received an A.C.E. (American Cinema Editors) Award nomination.

Geraldine Peroni and Robert Altman gave him his start in the business, as apprentice editor on The Player. Continuing those collaborations, Mr. Tichenor became assistant editor on Short Cuts, Pret-a-Porter [Ready to Wear], and Alan Rudolph's Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle; technical coordinator on Kansas City; and editor on the documentary Jazz '34 (for which he received an Emmy Award nomination).

He subsequently worked on three films with Paul Thomas Anderson, beginning as post-production supervisor on Hard Eight, and then editing the award-winning Boogie Nights and Magnolia.

Mr. Tichenor's other credits as film editor include Brad Silberling's Academy Award-winning Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, Mike Figgis' Cold Creek Manor, M. Night Shyamalan's Unbreakable, and Anthony Drazan's hurlyburly.

GUSTAVO SANTAOLALLA (Music)

Gustavo Santaolalla's most recent original score was for Walter Salles' The Motorcycle Diaries, which earned him the BAFTA Award for Best Music. The Focus Features release was also honored with the Academy Award for Best Original Song (Jorge Drexler's "Al Otro Lado del Rio").

Mr. Santaolalla has collaborated with Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu on Amores perros, for which he composed the original score (receiving a Silver Ariel Award [Mexico's equivalent of the Oscar] nomination); on the award-winning

Focus Features release 21 Grams; and on Mr. Inarritu's segment of the multipart feature 11'9"01.

In 1967, he founded the legendary Arco Iris, the Argentine band that pioneered the fusion of rock and Latin American folk. In 1981, he released his first solo album, "Santaolalla," followed by two more solo projects: 1995's powerful "GAS" (which featured the hit "Todo Vale") and 1998's instrumental "Ronroco."

As a producer, Mr. Santaolalla has worked with and developed some of the most important musical talents in Latin America. If "rock-en-espanol" is now a Pan-American global movement, credit is due the top-selling albums that he has produced with Anibal Kerpel. Through their Surco Records, they have overseen albums by artists including Molotov, Cafe Tacuba, Caifanes, Maldita Vecindad, Divididos, Bersuit, La Vela Puerca, Puya, Arbol, El Otro Yo, Fiebre, Dracma, and Juanes.

A Latin Grammy Award winner in the awards' inaugural year (in 2000, for producing Cafe Tacuba's "Reves/Yo soy"), he has been nominated several times since, winning three more in 2003 (including album of the year, for "Un Dia Normal").

Mr. Santaolalla most recently received a Grammy Award in 2004, for producing Cafe Tacuba's "Cuatro Caminos."

MARIT ALLEN (Costume Designer)

Marit Allen has been the costume designer on two previous films directed by Ang Lee, The Hulk and Ride with the Devil.

She was a Costume Designers Guild Award nominee for her work on Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut; an Emmy Award nominee for her costume design on John Erman's miniseries Scarlett; a CableACE Award nominee for designing the costumes on Ivan Passer's telefilm Stalin; and a BAFTA Award nominee for Michael Radford's White Mischief.

Early in her career, Ms. Allen collaborated with director Nicolas Roeg, on Don't Look Now and Bad Timing: A Sensual Obsession, and would later reteam with him on Eureka and The Witches.

Among the many other films she has been the costume designer on are Stephen Frears' The Hit; Frank Oz' Little Shop of Horrors and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels; Dusan Makavejev's Manifesto; Wayne Wang's Eat a Bowl of Tea; Richard Benjamin's Mermaids; Carroll Ballard's Wind; Agnieszka Holland's The Secret Garden; Chris Columbus' Academy Award-winning Mrs. Doubtfire; Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man; Kathryn Bigelow's The Weight of Water and K-19: The Widowmaker; Jonathan Frakes' Thunderbirds; and, most recently, Steven Zaillian's All the King's Men.

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