Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum

what's the point of the job switch?

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serious crayons:
OK, maybe "she's wrong" does sound a bit presumptious. (She's misguided? No, kidding.) I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not willing to let six words -- six very ambiguous and possibly casually chosen words -- dictate my interpetation of a central issue in a movie that I care enough about to have spent the past three months discussing constantly.

Besides, I think that's too big a burden to place on that tiny phrase. For one thing, I don't know how literally she meant it; I can imagine writing something like that without examining it all that closely. For another, I don't know exactly what it means. Ennis undeniably can be described as not accessing ALL of his feelings. Until Jack made his move in the tent, Ennis was unable to access his attraction to him. Unable to access his feelings of sadness or fear, Ennis reacts by beating people up. I would not be averse to applying it to his feelings about sexuality, Alma, his childhood. Those all make sense.

But if there's a way to do all the things I listed a couple of posts ago -- all those things people do when they're in love and that Ennis certainly is aware that he's doing -- if you can fully recognize that you long for someone when he's absent and be overjoyed when he's present and so on, if you can do all that stuff yet NOT think of what you feel as something like love ... Well, that's just too abstract a concept for me to grasp. What does that even mean? How would it look inside someone's head? What would they be telling themselves? I can't imagine that in any sort of concrete way.

Let's say for the sake of argument that love has maybe three major requirements that all have to be in place, broadly described as 1) friendship, 2) sexual attaction and 3) something harder to label but combining longing and joy and affection and emotional tension and all those other ways you feel about lovers as opposed to friends. I realize others might catalog these requirements differently, but assuming it goes something like that, then Ennis has all the requirements, and he KNOWS he has them. So almost by definition, he can access his feelings of love. Easily, I think.

Jeff Wrangler:
Tell you what, the truth is, when I read Diana's comment, that was the catalyst that made all the pieces of the puzzle that is Brokeback Mountain fall into place for me. Suddenly I understood the difference between Annie Proulx's original Ennis and the Ennis we see on the screen. At last the movie made sense--it's own sense, but sense nevertheless--to me.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

Apparently I also have greater faith in the human capacity for denial than you do.

j.U.d.E.:
Euh, just bumping for later, sorry.

~ j U d E

Jeff Wrangler:
Starboardlight,


--- Quote ---We do see a hint at a reversal. At the camp fire conversation, before the lake side showdown, it's Ennis who moves his hand between Jack's legs. I think he's more comfortable with Jack's cock than you suggested. Certainly the scene doesn't reveal anything specific, but it hints at Ennis being willing to give little Jack some happy attention.
--- End quote ---

It's been a while since I had time to sit down and watch the DVD, so my memory of the staging of that scene in the film is hazy and I won't address the film's treatment of the conversation. If, however, you are just referring to the Annie Proulx original, then I'm afraid you have it backwards.

Here's the paragraph from the story:

"The horses nickered in the darkness beyond the fire's circle of light. Ennis put his arm around Jack, pulled him close, said he saw his girls about once a month, Alma Jr. a shy seventeen-year-old with his beanpole length, Francine a little live wire. Jack slid his cold hand between Ennis's legs, said he was worried about his boy who was, no doubt about it, dyslexic or something, couldn't get anything right, fifteen years old and couldn't hardly read, he could see it though goddamn Lureen wouldn't admit to it and pretended the kid was o.k., refused to get any bitchin kind a help about it. He didn't know what the fuck the answer was. Lureen had the money and called the shots." [Boldface added by me.]

If Jack is doing anything here besides trying to warm his hand between Ennis's thighs, then he's trying to get Ennis hard so that Ennis can fuck him. Two paragraphs later we are told "they rolled down into the dirt." So in the original story anyway, I believe this passage actually tends to support my interpretation.

But thanks for reminding me of it!

serious crayons:

--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on May 03, 2006, 04:18:27 pm ---Apparently I also have greater faith in the human capacity for denial than you do.

--- End quote ---

Maybe. But if that interpretation helps you make sense of the rest of the movie, then you definitely should go with it.

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