Who
is... Donna Barr? Donna
Barr has been drawing since 1954, writing since 1962, published since 1986,
and publishing since 1996.
She has a Bachelors' Degree in German, and
is a veteran of the United States Army (1970-1973).
Readers worldwide
follower her THE DESERT PEACH, STINZ, BOSOM ENEMIES, HADER
AND THE COLONEL, among others.
She is recognized by her peers as
a pioneer in the field of drawn books and their use in new technologies of distribution
and reproduction. She is a contributor to the world's largest webcomics site,
moderntales.com, and its affiliate
sites.
She achieved her lifetime career goal in 2004 when her life's
work -- past, present and future -- has been accepted as part of the San Diego
State University's Library's Special Collection, and will be available to students
and professors for research, and to the public for exhibits.
She can
be emailed at barr at stinz dot com (remove spam barriers). She answers. Keep
the sentences short.
The excellent North Olympic Peninsula Library System finally got in a copy of Brokeback Mountain and since we'd put right in for it right away, we got it without having to wait behind fifty other requests and people who let their kids use the library dvds while eating pizza.
The best part of this dvd package is the Bonus Features. The making of.
Now this will mark me right away as a hopeless Film Geek. I recommend The Station Agent not only for the movie itself, but for the hilarious commentary that includes the director and the main actors. We (me and Dan the Man) always watch both; the film is touching and perfect, and the commentary displays the goofy affection the whole crew had for each other. Watch for the "Stella!" moment.
I admit utter dork geekiness when I say that the one thing I ran back repeatedly was the newswoman's voice-over moment that begins: "While Jake was busy scaring the sheep --." There's something hyterically funny about watching Jake Gyllenhaal in a big black hat and slicker, demonstrating the joys of throwing his arms out and watching the sheep scatter. Nice to see somebody else is so easily amused. Heath Ledger's bear-tongue demonstration is pretty funny, too.
The dvd does have a major drawback: no blooper reel. There are some moments, like watching Ang Lee getting his butt whipped by the mechanical bull, but this ain't no Jackie Chan tape. Word to all directors: no matter how deep and profound and meaningful and important you think your movie is, if you're putting out a dvd, do not forget the blooper reel! Even the Toy Story people whipped up a fake blooper reel. The Incredibles took a wilder hit when they added a real cgi blooper reel, but at least they stayed in the ballpark.
Riding styles: I don't know THAT much about riding, except to say that I've done my share of lying flat on my back looking up at a bemused horse. Heath Ledger's Australian style seems to take the shocks in the legs, including the knees and ankles. A different contact with the horse than Ben Jonson's direct-saddle-contact pelvic-swivel (native?) style. You'll see Jeff Bridges using the pelvic swivel when he rides off in Seabiscuit. It seems to be a bit easier on the joints and spine. I use it myself, when I'm not falling off.
Horse handling: You'll actually see the horse switch leads in Seabiscuit. In Brokeback Mountain, Gyllenhall's troublesome horse is obviously being yanked into a fake display of temper. It's like watching old Kurosawa films where the Samurai are spurring the horses forward and hauling back on the reins to make them dance.
The film itself: Gorgeous Albertan scenery. You have to go to Canada to get something that beautiful. Story: couple of people having an affair over twenty years, after making the wrong choices; film kind of takes a long time to tell the story. This is no Doctor Zhivago. Though if the idea was to get you begging, "Please, please, let's go back to the pretty woods and away from these awful awful people!" as a method of having you identify viscerally with the main characters, then it works. Very very well. HORRIBLY well.
Sympathy: this film gets called "gay cowboys" the way my book gets called "gay Nazis," and for the same reasons, and usually by people who never looked at either ("OOOH! Gay people! Nazis! SCARY!!! I might turn gay or change my fashion sense if I look at them!"). I don't get all freaked by the two guys in this flick because I've known for a long time that guys will screw a watermelon if they have nobody else, and humans can fall in love with anybody, anytime, anywhere. Which is why, to me, it's just a story about an affair that went on too long, and then somebody gets killed by the society that disapproves.
Like us womenfolks don't know all about witch-burnings. But let guys get their faces broke because they've gone to bed with the wrong person, and threaten the fact of male sexual freedom and this country gets as bonkers as it did over Viagra. My heart bleeds. Women usually had their noses and ears and sometimes their hands cut off, in a lot of different societies. Which is why enlightened women support gay causes -- if it's done to gay men, it will be done to us. The gay guys are symbols of the way we'll get it if we get out of line. There are gay guys I could just pop in the head for being silly twits, but I'll fight to the death for their right to do what they want with the people they mutally and consensually love. I might as well -- I'd get killed for what I do sexually if I didn't, anyway.
Did you catch the backstory? The rapes? "Where, where?" you gasp. Any of those men who had been raped by their straight male relatives were looking for a gay man to pound to death, because they just wanted to kill any male who could have sex with another male, and did not dare to confront daddie or uncle with what had been done to them. Our gay community is taking the rap for the rapes of children by the straight male community. Which gives this story a hell of a backstory. Any family murder goes back four generations, so there are a LOT of raped kids in this movie.
America is the country that could actually use a president's personal sexual life as a reason for impeachment. I'm still embarrassed about that one. And pissed off that the big fool didn't just say, "My sex life is none of your goddamn business!" thusly setting up a precedent for the whole in-your-bedroom witchhunt (yes, I'm using the word "witch" here on purpose). NOT appreciated, thank you very much.
Political points MUCH appreciated: clear demonstration of the pinched, grey, evil, anti-sexual, brutal society based in fundamentalist straight Christianity that can't even enjoy the beauties and richness of the land it lives in. Where food, shelter, water and wood are everywhere, these people starve and slave to feed their kids and kill each other because somebody's putting a penis in the wrong place and the Christians just get the willies (pardon the pun) if they even have to imagine it.
How did America end up there?
I guess we're going to be paying a karmic debt for the buffalo genocide for a long, long time...
