Ang Lee’s film tops Venice festival award

VENICE: Ang Lee’s tale of the homosexual love between two cowboys set in the conservative West of the 1960s won the Venice Film Festival’s top award Saturday. ‘Brokeback Mountain,’ starring Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal, topped 19 other competitors, including favourite ‘Good Night, and Good Luck,’ George Clooney’s black-and-white movie set in the McCarthy era of the early 1950s. Receiving the Golden Lion award, Lee described his movie as a “great American love story” that is “unique and so universal.” Based on a novella by “The Shipping News” author E Annie Proulx, the movie has sweeping vistas, lonesome men, bucking broncos and smouldering campfires. Lee’s other films include ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,’ ‘Hulk,’ ‘The Ice Storm’ and ‘Sense and Sensibility.’