Interview With Brokeback Producer James Schamus

One year ago this month, Brokeback Mountain opened in New York City before gradually opening across the country. After breaking box office records in New York, Brokeback went on to gross $83 million domestically (more than double that worldwide) and won more Best Picture and Director awards in America than any other film in history. Indeed, Brokeback Mountain is arguably the most honored film of all time. To celebrate the anniversary of Brokeback Mountain's release, we recently spoke with Brokeback's executive producer and the CEO of Focus Features, James Schamus.

AfterElton.com: What can you tell me about the director's cut of Brokeback Mountain?
James Schamus: It's not even really a director's cut. … The changes really are very minuscule. They're going to package in some … featurettes about the music, the reception of the film. What you saw [in the theaters] was the director's cut. It's what Ang wanted.

AE: That's good to hear.
JS: Yeah. They wanted to put in some deleted scenes. There was a discussion about deleted scenes, but quite frankly, as Ang said, “The reason I deleted them was because I wanted to delete them. So why would I put them in the DVD?” [Laughs.] That's a pretty good point there, Ang!

AE: There was probably a certain faction of the audience hoping for an alternative ending.
JS: Well, yes. You know my joke is that in the sequel, Heath will go to New York and become one of the Village People. [ Laughs.] That's a whole other different movie.

AE: It's just so sad that so many straight men wouldn't see the movie. I hadn't thought about this when I saw Brokeback, but what would director John Ford have said about Brokeback Mountain?
JS: Ang did not want to put the film in the western category. He knew the film was about the West, and he knew if he overstudied westerns while he was preparing it, he would be stultified a bit and getting into a genre he wasn't interested in, because [Brokeback Mountain] is not a “western” per se. But it is about people of the West and men of the West.

So he is very aware of westerns, and we watched a lot together. And what he wanted was a movie that was, I think, stylistically a little different. You know, there are a lot of main wide shots, and [in] Brokeback he doesn't punch in a lot. When he does, it's usually very specific, and it's a very simple course of filmmaking.

AE: It also seems very much a movie about class.
JS: Thank you! No one talked about that. A few people did. But in terms of general culture, I think because of the gay love story there was really very little discourse saying “ Jeez, you actually don't see a lot of movies about working-class people, historically.”

AE: Absolutely.
JS: It's almost like a law saying you're not allowed to do it. So thank you for saying that, because we always knew why it wasn't being discussed. … There is a whole other part of this [film] that gets teased out that has to do with the relation of class.

AE: Well, even through the prism of gay issues, it seems like Jake, since he has more money, is able to think outside the box about having a different kind of life, whereas —
JS: This is exactly right.

AE: Heath is in such a small world that he can't really see outside it. Unless you have a certain amount of economic freedom, you can't really think of those things. If you're willing to comment at this point, do you have a sense of how Brokeback is going to fit in cinematic history?
JS: I honestly — I make 'em, you tell me …