At the Globes, 'Brokeback Mountain' Takes Top Awards

Ang Lee poses with the Golden Globe award
he won for best director for his work on "Brokeback Mountain." (Reed Saxon AP)

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 16 - A groundbreaking film about a love affair between two cowboys took top awards at the 63rd Golden Globes on Monday, a ceremony that dealt almost entirely with low-budget, art house films that have not yet broken through to blockbuster-size audiences.

"Brokeback Mountain," a poetic film that spans a 30-year romance, based on the short story by Annie Proulx, won best dramatic film, best director for Ang Lee, best screenplay for Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana and best song.

The film, starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal as the lovers, has raised the issue of the acceptance of gay relationships on screen and in wider American society. The film has been enthusiastically embraced by critics and within Hollywood, but has met some resistance in the broader public, and even now is playing in only 683 theaters, having taken in $30.8 million.

One Utah theater pulled the film from distribution, and the comedian Larry David sparked debate when he wrote a humorous Op-Ed article in The New York Times saying he could not bring himself to see the film. Focus Features, which is releasing "Brokeback," has lately been publishing ads showing the lead actors with their on-screen wives, rather than as lovers.

Accepting his award, Mr. Lee saluted "the power of movies to change the way we're thinking."

In another role that dealt with gender politics, Felicity Huffman won best actress for her portrayal of a transgendered man in "TransAmerica." And Philip Seymour Hoffman won best actor in a dramatic role for playing Truman Capote, the flamboyantly gay and brazenly ambitious writer, in "Capote."