Intimacy

Some weeks before Christmas, well past the watershed, RAI2, one of the Italian state TV channels, showed Brokeback Mountain. Well, actually, it didn’t. It showed a version of Brokeback Mountain shorn of its moments of intimacy. Brokeback Mountain without intimacy is another film entirely, and this was pointed out to the head of RAI2, who claimed it was all a terrible mistake – the bowdlerised copy had been prepared for another section of the RAI (presumably under total Vatican control) – and would be remedied forthwith. I’ve been told by a RAI director that it’s damn nigh impossible that a film be broadcast without its having been seen by someone, but why should I doubt the word of a regime whore respected professional. If that’s what he says, that must be the way it was.

We’re still waiting to see the film as Ang Lee, and Annie Proulx, intended it, but who knows what the new year may bring. In the meantime, I discovered yesterday, from an article in the Observer, that Cuban state television has shown Brokeback Mountain without cuts. Cuba Libre.