Eight years ago, when Brokeback Mountain was competing for the Academy Awards, Ang Lee’s quiet, yearning melodrama carried the baggage of what it represented. As one of the highest-profile and financially successful gay-themed films up to that time, Brokeback Mountain became a symbol of something larger—which didn’t necessarily serve it well. Some old-guard Hollywood types resisted it for subverting the image of the American cowboy; some gay critics knocked it for being yet another boy-meets-boy story with a tragic air, in which the principals seem miserable much of the time. Removed from the controversies of the time though, the film still works quite well, thanks in large part to Jake Gyllenhaal and the late Heath Ledger’s performances as itinerant ranch-hands who find they can’t resist the physical attraction they have for each other when left alone on the range. Screenwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana adapted Annie Proulx’s short story with an eye towards how the lovers’ relationship deepens over time, affected by separation, marriages, and fear of being found out. Brokeback Mountain is really of a piece with Lee films like Eat Drink Man Woman, Sense And Sensibility, and even Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, in that it’s about people held back from the relationships they’d like to have with the most important people in their lives. It airs on Sundance Channel at 1:15 a.m. Eastern.