Friday, The Hollywood Reporter published this wonderful piece, Ang Lee's 'Brokeback' explores 'last frontier'. It opens like this:

There's no doubt that a $13 million quality movie like Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain," which has wowed festivalgoers and reviewers in Telluride, Venice and Toronto, will play well in big movie markets around the country. The question is, how broad will it go?

No one knows that answer, because no one has ventured into this territory before. The movie is a groundbreaker. There's never been a homosexual cowboy movie, and while the indies have been supplying gay romances to the art house circuit for years, and gay series like "Queer as Folk" and "Will & Grace" have been pulling big numbers on TV, there hasn't been a mainstream gay love story since 1982's "Making Love," which bombed and was blamed by many for damaging Harry Hamlin's career. "It's the one last frontier," says Lee.

Reaches its most hopeful here:

Brokeback Mountain could be the mainstream gay romance that many people have been waiting for. One Toronto wag called it "the gay 'Gone with the Wind'." "Of all the gay-themed films I've watched," says Damon Romine of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, "this is the first one I've seen about two men in love, told in a way that straight people can relate to. People don't have to be gay to understand loss and longing and unrequited love. Hollywood churns out endless variations on the theme of forbidden love. This is a new take on that genre, a film that has tremendous potential to reach and transform mainstream audiences."

And gets serious about the marketing plan here:

Focus will release "Brokeback" in limited situations through the holidays -- as the big studio guns play themselves out -- and widen it in January. Since the trailer went out, Focus has placed a registration page for advance sales on the "Brokeback" Web site. The initial marketing push is to women and younger moviegoers. "You're looking for people who are empathetic," says Schamus, "and able to reach their emotions. And younger folks are way out ahead on this stuff. Overall, they are not worked up about gay issues." Becoming an Oscar contender should push "Brokeback" into must-see territory, as it did "Philadelphia."

And this morning, Newsweek unleashed a similar story: "Forbidden Territory".  (It was incorrectly ID'd all over the web as their review. Author Sean Smith is their entertainment reporter, not their film critic. He writes pieces about the business of Hollywood, trends, analysis, so forth. The review will come soon, probably from David Ansen.)

More heartening words there:

The film, written by Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana, is a near-perfect adaptation of Proulx's work. It has already earned the top prize at the Venice Film Festival and is almost certain to be an Oscar contender. More than that, though, "Brokeback" feels like a landmark film. No American film before has portrayed love between two men as something this pure and sacred. As such, it has the potential to change the national conversation and to challenge people's ideas about the value and validity of same-sex relationships. In the meantime, it's already upended decades of Hollywood conventional wisdom.

And this fascinating take on the marketing, expanding a bit on the HR's take. There's more to it than this, but you'll get the gist:

That discomfort would seem to make the movie difficult to market. When the trailer plays in theaters where there are a lot of young men in the audience, it's often met with snickers or outright laughter. How do you get those guys to see the movie? You don't. "If you have a problem with the subject matter, that's your problem, not mine," Schamus says. "It would be great if you got over your problem, but I'm not sitting here trying to figure out how to help you with it." In an early meeting, Schamus told Lee that, from a marketing standpoint, they were making this film for one core audience. "Yes, of course," Lee said. "The gay audience." No, Schamus said. "Women."

When it came time to design the poster for the film, Schamus didn't research posters of famous Westerns for ideas. He looked at the posters of the 50 most romantic movies ever made. "If you look at our poster," he says, "you can see traces of our inspiration, 'Titanic'."

I'm skeptical that it can attract huge numbers of straight women, much less inspire them to drag their boyfriends. But it doesn't need huge numbers. Modest numbers for an arthouse film would be a nice start. Actual crossover success would be wonderful. I'm sure hoping.

And you can do your part by spreading the word. And organizing a group for opening weekend in your town. Advance group ticket sales here.

Anyway, the big, gay AMERICAblog posted a somewhat curious take on the Newsweek story today, which provoked a spirited and often interesting debate in its lively comments section.

Wildly divergent views there--and elsewhere--about how it will play to mainstream America.

Personally, I think it wll have modest success, beating most expectations, but well shy of a blockbuster. (Who knows, $30-60 million gross. I realize that's a big range. Hoping toward the high end, but would be satisfied with the low.)

Here's the thing: like most big cultural-moment movies, the number of people who actually see it at theatres will be a small fraction of the national population. But EVERYone will hear about it, read about it, end up talking about it or at least sitting silently and having to listen about it.

It will change the national conversation. How much it changes, that's the question. It won't make gay-love acceptable in southern Baptist churches next month. But it will leave the conversation changed.

And all the answers will start trickling in soon.

And I will see it in six days.

Till then, got to buckle under on my book. See you next Sunday.

Update:

You guys kept adding so many comments (thousands), that long after this post, we started a whole Brokeback Mountain Discussion Forum.

And for links to everything imaginable, see our Ultimate Brokeback Mountain Guide.