Pedro Pascal in a Brokeback Mountain? Yup, that’s worth a watch!
Filmmaker Pedro Almodóvar is working on what he says is his “answer to Brokeback Mountain.” The gay Spanish director has avoided working in Hollywood for decades now. For years, Almodóvar rejected many projects that became big name movies like Sister Act and Brokeback Mountain. The reason being, he wanted full creative control of the film. But now, as the entertainment industry becomes more internationally conscious, Almodóvar has decided to try his own take the classic American Western.
In an interview with IndieWire, the filmmaker shared that he originally turned down Brokeback Mountain before Ang Lee was tapped to direct the film.
“I think Ang Lee made a wonderful movie, but I never believed that they would give me complete freedom and independence to make what I wanted,” Almodóvar explained. “Nobody told me that — they said, ‘You can do whatever you want,’ but I knew that there was a limitation.”
He then added, “The relation between these two guys is animalistic. It was a physical relationship. The punch of the movie comes when they have to separate, and Heath Ledger discovers that he can’t think about leaving. That’s a strong discovery. But until that moment, it is animalistic, and for me, it was impossible to have that in the movie because it was a Hollywood movie. You could not have these two guys f*cking all the time.”
So how would Pedro Almodóvar approach the movie if he were to make it? That’s essentially what Strange Way Of Life or Extraña Forma de Vida will explore. According to Variety, the 30-minute film will follow a middle-aged gunslinger named Silva (played by Pedro Pascal). Silva will be crossing the desert to reunite with an old friend named Sheriff Jake (played by Ethan Hawke) after 25 years apart. But then the sheriff reveals “that the real reason for his visit isn’t memories of their old friendship….”
Related: ‘Brokeback Mountain’ Author Reveals Film Caused Her ‘Hassle’ & ‘Irritation’
From there, Almodóvar says, “There will be a showdown between them, but really the story is very intimate.”
When asked what he meant by “intimate,” Almodóvar responded, “You can guess, I mean, masculinity is one of the subjects of the movie.”
And, truly, Almodóvar has hinted at what he’d do if he had directed Brokeback Moountain. When talking in a 2016 episode of the podcast The Empire, the filmmaker said he would have made the movie, based on the Annie Proulx short story, with “more sex, more sex.”
“And it’s not gratuitous,” he added. “The Annie Proulx is about a physical relation, an animal relation, so sex is necessary because it is the body of the story.”
“I was sure that I couldn’t do it as physical as I wanted to,” Almodóvar also told Vulture in 2019 when talking about the film. “Perhaps I will one day make a movie in English, but it will be with European money, then I can be as free as I am now.”
Strange Way of Life will begin production in late August and will be filmed in the desert of Tabernas in Almerí, Southern Spain. In addition, it’ll be shot in the same settlement that Sergio Leone built 50 years ago to shoot his Dollars trilogy with Clint Eastwood.
Saint Laurent by Anthony Vaccarello will oversee costume design and take an associate producer credit. Meanwhile, Agustín Almodóvar, Pedro Almodóvar’s brother, will also produce the film under the brothers’ company El Deseo. And, unfortunately, no release date has been decided just yet.
Source: IndieWire, Variety, The Empire,
I really hope someone working on the movie will suggest this be made into a full length gay movie, and have it released on a streaming app. I just feel a short movie won’t get as much attention.