Author Topic: Are Ennis and Jack Mythological? - by BannerHill  (Read 2893 times)

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Are Ennis and Jack Mythological? - by BannerHill
« on: June 16, 2007, 05:23:52 am »
A REPOST from TOB. (Some of the links cited are no longer live.)
==================================================================
Are Ennis and Jack Mythological?
by - BannerHill (Sat May 6 2006 09:25:18 )   


What is it about Jack and Ennis?

In some ways their story seems like a Greek mythological tale; The Story of Jack and Ennis. It is doomed, true, but the story can be told and re examined endlessly. Their time up on the mountain magical, their time in the city disasterous. The whole story has a quality of parable, as if you can use examples of what they did or did not do to illustrate a point.

What is it about this film that gives it this quality

by - BannerHill (Sat May 6 2006 09:32:36 )   


Re reading my post makes me think about some thing.

This story has a timeless quality. It could have taken place in any time period. It could have taken place in Greek times, for that matter. Never thought about that.

by - terryhall2 (Sat May 6 2006 09:37:50 )   
   
Yes, I have felt that these two have become mythological. They represent anima and animus, human emotion on a Greek tragedy scale...the numan condition, etc. Like Anthony and Cleopatra, Ulysses and the lion or David and Goliath...(ok, maybe I'm getting carried away)

by - BannerHill (Sat May 6 2006 10:00:57 )   
   
No, I don't think you've gotten carried away. I think the Story of Jack and Ennis has become a touchstone; a point of reference.

by - the_protector (Sat May 6 2006 10:15:07 )   
I get the 'myth vibe' also...but i see them both as myths to different people.

Jack is like a myth to Ennis' Family. He breezes in and only shows his face briefly but commands a lot of Ennis' attention. My mind is always drawn to Alma frantically looking out the window to see Jack lounging against the truck. "Who IS this man?" "What is he doing to my husband?"

The same for Ennis to Lureen. Ennis is that buddy that Jack 'keeps in his head'. He's this person that Jack will drive 14 hours for--always.

I think this happens a lot when there's a secret relationship between two people. Each respective family sees the member's 'friend' as something enigmatic because they don't know the whole story...



..........
Thank You, Stranger, for your therapeutic smile.


by - BannerHill (Sat May 6 2006 14:45:09 )   

I see your point. I am talking about something different.

I am talking about the story as a whole. Maybe it's because I've seen it so many times and thought about the story. The entire story has become, in my mind, The Legend of Brokeback Mountain.

by - whiteorchid32 (Sat May 6 2006 20:04:25 )   
UPDATED Sat May 6 2006 20:59:48
I get what you mean BannerHill. Myths were used to explain the great mysteries and complexity of human nature, the world and the divine. There is something deeply human and universal about Jack and Ennis' story and I think we can all relate to them on some level. Perhaps we love these characters so much because they offer us precious insight into ourselves. I think in that sense they have taken on a mythological quality for many of us.

by - afhickman (Sat May 6 2006 20:24:32 )   
You are right. Jack and Ennis are archetypes. They are the most recent avatars of legendary couples such as Gilgamesh and Enkidu, David and Jonathan, Damon and Pythias, Matt and Ben. All right, scratch that last couple. But you get my point. Jack and Ennis' story has been replayed in various forms since the beginning of time. It is in our literature; it is in our blood.

"The Mountain Has Wings"

Corydon and Alexis
by - CaseyCornelius (Sat May 6 2006 20:41:17 )
   
UPDATED Sun May 7 2006 05:26:21
BannerHill and afhickman:

Great to see you initate this thread and deliver such pointed and probing comments on the idea. You've all been party to and participated in discussions by fellow serious veterans on this board concerning the interplay of Classical [ie. ancient Greek and Roman] elements in the film especially. [cf. the Classical Allusions REDUX thread - the original now long gone thanks to trolls, but with a re-posting rising from the ashes - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388795/board/thread/40163712?d=40163712#40163712]

You might or might not have seen the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards in February. But, I'll remind both of you that Producer, James Schamus, when he accepted the BAFTA award for Brokeback, delivered a tongue-in-cheek comment hoping to 'set the record straight' that Brokeback was not the 'gay cowboy film', but the 'gay shepherds' film. AND quoted lines from Christopher Marlowe's lyric "The Passionate Shepherd to His Love" "Come live with me and be my love and we will all the pleasures prove", by the English, Elizabethan, gay poet who explored the nature of male shepherds love --- Which is itself a gloss on the second Eclogue of Virgil about the male-male love of Classical shepherds, Corydon and Alexis.

http://www.glbtq.com/literature/virgil.html

Tongue in cheek, my foot !! My strong suspicion is that mythical, Classical overtones were always an overt element of the thinking of James Schamus, Ang Lee, Diana Ossana, Larry McMurtry, Annie Proulx, et al in creating the look, design, symbolism, multitude of allusions, and overall 'feel' of the film. The sensitive and devoted lovers of this film such as yourselves and myself realize this intensely in the subconscious proddings and overtly emotional thrall which grips us when experiencing the film.

by - afhickman (Sat May 6 2006 21:09:09 )   
"My strong suspicion is that mythical, Classical overtones were always an overt element of the thinking of James Schamus, Ang Lee, Diana Ossana, Larry McMurtry, Annie Proulx, et al in creating the look, design, symbolism, mulitutde of allusions, and 'feel' of the film."

Else why would we be here? It's reassuring to see that new posters to this board are "discovering" some of the same ideas that others of us have been discussing for months. It points to a real future for the serious study of "Brokeback" as a work of art.


"The Mountain Has Wings"
Brokeback Poster is a re-interpretation of Janus   
by - CaseyCornelius (Sat May 6 2006 21:36:38 )
   
UPDATED Tue May 9 2006 09:45:02
afhickman:

The Classical dimension even extends as far as the publicity poster. The James Schamus 'official line' is that it was a gloss on the Titanic poster, but it has always seemed to me to echo two other Classical images:
1] the double-faced Roman God Janus [whence we get our January month name] who looks both forward and back, imaginatively and conservatively, hopeful and regretful - the contrasting personalities of Jack and Ennis succinctly captured
2] the much discussed [in the long-lost original Classical Allusions thread] reference to Aristophane's fable concerning loving and longing in Plato's 'Symposium' which tells the story of how all humans were originally two beings [male/female for heterosexuals; male/male or female/female for gays and lesbians], joined back-to-back, ie. never facing each other, who were split by Zeus and scattered over the earth, our fate being that of constantly searching for and striving to be re-united with our original counterparts. Again, Ennis and Jack to a 'T'.

Re: Corydon and Alexis   
by - kudzudaddy (Sat May 6 2006 21:37:38 )   

Cornelius,

But, doesn't all this arise out of the fact that this IS a tragedy? The American public is not used to such things. 99.9% of the movies that fall into the "sad" or "drama" category are melodrama... which has long ago supplanted tragedy because it "lets the audience off the hook," it's easier to take. BBM could easily be subtitled: The Tragedy of Ennis Del Marr"

We throw the term "tragedy" around a lot and by it we usually mean something "sad" but it's a very specific term and refers to a specific form of drama. One that, unless one frequents our better class of regional theatre regularly, one doesn't see very often.

Just my 2 cents.

"...careless where the next bright bolt might fall.

Greek Tragedy, Hamartia, and Hubris   
by - CaseyCornelius (Sat May 6 2006 21:46:06 )   

UPDATED Tue May 9 2006 09:46:01
kudzudaddy:

I agree with you completely. Most viewers are finding Brokeback bewildering for this very reason - there is in North America almost no remnant in the public schools of the study of the great theatrical Tragedies of Shakespeare, let alone Classical Greek tragedy. And so much of the film moves at a pace and requires the attention to detail, innuendo, subtle allusions, and connections which this great literature/art deals in.

There was a thread within the last few weeks by someone raising the technical terminology of Greek tragedy and the notions of hamartia - tragic flaws and hubris-unassailable human pride with reference to the essentially tragic self-hatred and homophobia of Ennis. If someone can find it, please, bump it up near the front of the line for the rest of us.

by - pclimer-2 (Sat May 6 2006 20:27:51 )   
Banner,
You don't have to go so far back or so far away to see a corrolation of a Mythos. The South American natives have two mountains close to each other. One is named after a woman and the other a man. It is said that they forever loved each other but ran afoul of the "gods" and the woman was turned into one mountain and the man the other so that he could gaze on her forever but not be able to touch/love her ever again.,,,:(
Peacefull Threading,,,:)

"I condoned their actions because I was silent,,,, I was afraid they would turn on me."

Re: Are Jack and Ennis mythological ?   
by - naun (Sun May 7 2006 03:33:13 )   

The South American natives have two mountains close to each other. One is named after a woman and the other a man. It is said that they forever loved each other but ran afoul of the "gods" and the woman was turned into one mountain and the man the other so that he could gaze on her forever but not be able to touch/love her ever again

Gosh, that is very apposite, pclimer. Do you have more details of this story -- names of characters, which mountains, etc.?

Quite a few people have commented on the mythic quality of the Brokeback story. I remember reading an interview where Jake Gyllenhaal said he had the feeling that Annie Proulx had gone into a forest and found this ancient story.

In another, probably long-deleted thread, I mentioned Orwell's observation that many stories in Western fiction seem to repeat the Don Quixote/Sancho Panza archtetype. He mentioned the Sherlock Holmes/Dr Watson pairing as a subtle variation where the physical types were interchanges. You could view Jack and Ennis as yet another variation, one where the dreamer is the sensuous one, and the "realist" is self-denying.

As usual Casey has come up with a striking insight, this time about the "Janus" aspect of the movie poster. Funnily enough, his comments remind me of a discussion in another thread where a couple of us were talking about the significance of the left/right orientation of the roads in the film. Left to right is the direction of freedom and escape, whether to the mountains or to Mexico. Right to left seems to be the direction of fate (the white truck and crow in the post-divorce scene), and takes you to Lightning Flat.

I'm glad to see this thread. It's a good antidote to all those comments that Brokeback Mountain is a bad movie because it lacks good role models, that it portrays gays negatively because Ennis and Jack don't move to San Francisco, or women negatively because Alma and Lureen don't stand up to their husbands. The people who make those comments don't want a motion picture drama, they want a video game.


by - atackkel (Sun May 7 2006 04:31:30 )   
   
I can understand the myth vibe; a forbidden love, higher powers, morals and the distinction between right and wrong. I never thought of it that way before, but I can definitely seen where your coming from!



Sidney Prescott: What's the point they're all the same, some stupid killer stalking some big-breasted girl who can't act and is always running up the stairs when she should be running out the front door, it's insulting.

by - pclimer-2 (Sun May 7 2006 06:56:13 )   
naun,

"Do you have more details of this story -- names of characters, which mountains, etc.?"

Sorry but I can't remember the details because the names were soooooooo "native".,,,:(
You probably would LOL if you knew how long it took me to pronounce Quetzalcoatl correctly. It was not something I read, so I can't just go look it back up. HOWEVER, I think I watched it on a PBS show OR the Weiss adventure show. The PBS show was about trying to discover child sacrifices up in the Peruvian mountains. Several frozen mummies have been discovered over the years and some archaeologists are trying to find these child sacrifice sites before they are destroyed by robbers. I think I ended up watching it twice, but the names of the mountains/lovers were just not that important to me (at the time). Weiss has a half hour show on now but my newspaper guide doesn't give much information. It has been a hit and miss thing. I THINK he ALSO went to these mountains to show the audience the effects of trying to climb up great hieghts too fast. He is supposed to be the president or big poobah of the Explorers Club. Anyhow, whatever combination of the above, I ended up seeing the mountains and hearing the story twice. When they camera pan to the "female" mountain, it is a long form (woman in repose?)covered in snow. Sorry my brain doesn't retain more.,,,,:( (Hey! I AM getting up there, I have an excuse).,,,:)
I did read through a thread about the roads and also? railroad tracks. I don't SEE these things when I watch a movie. I did catch the nervous almost furtive glance at the pick up driving by, didn't catch anything about the crow. I guess I am just not THAT much of a "movie buff". I personally don't know how people enjoy a movie while they are tearing it to pieces. Old fashioned maybe.
Have tried to post a few "in defense of" posts about why the wives/Jack/Ennis etc., did what they did, IMO, which had little to do with selfishness/adultery and so on, probably didn't do any good. I could go back into it but this post would be much MUCH longer.
Peacefull Threading,,,:)
PS,, I can't get into the extremely finer points of some of these posts because I still have only been able to see this once. It hurt me too badly.

"I condoned their actions because I was silent,,,, I was afraid they would turn on me."

by - afhickman (Sun May 7 2006 07:10:39 )   
   
"I personally don't know how people enjoy a movie while they are tearing it to pieces. Old fashioned maybe."

I can't speak for others, but a good measure of my enjoyment of art is "tearing it to pieces." The first time I saw "Brokeback," I just sat back and let the film wash over me and work its magic. It wasn't until I got home that I started analyzing my emotions. It's my way of reliving the moment and hanging on to something I'm not ready to let go of. I saw "Brokeback" a dozen times in the theatre--what? did you expect me NOT to start noticing things? In today's throwaway culture, I'd argue that those of us who take the time to savor a film, or a painting, or a novel, are the ones who are being "old-fashioned." What you call tearing a film to pieces is what I call enjoying it. In the case of "Brokeback," I am coming to know the film inside and out; it's like an old friend or a worn pair of shoes, something I'm comfortable with and like being around. It doesn't happen with all films, but when it does, it's magic.


by - pclimer-2 (Sun May 7 2006 07:17:56 )   
afhickman,
Maybe AFTER I am able to bring myself to see it many times?,,,:)
However, I have read through threads that take every blade of grass apart,,, SOME of it seems too much, for me anyway,,,:)
No matter what, I am glad that you enjoyed it so much.
Peacefull Threading,,,:)


"I condoned their actions because I was silent,,,, I was afraid they would turn on me."

by - MartinPh (Sun May 7 2006 07:26:29 )   
afhickman, I totally agree. Like with good music, you can return to a good movie forever without diminishing its effect - the only trick is to find those very rare movies that can stand frequent revisits. Most of what is being made today, including expensive megaproductions like King Kong, really is single-use, throwaway material.
With BBM I find it stands close analysis equally well as a Mahler score does - and as with the Mahler, close analysis only deepens the impact and reveals ever more cross-references and subsidiary themes.

-----

Are Jack and Ennis mythological? It seems to me in order to answer that question we'll need to check in in another 1,000 years or so and find out.

More Brokeback connections to Mahler   
by - CaseyCornelius (Sun May 7 2006 12:47:49 )
   
UPDATED Sun May 7 2006 13:18:02
MartinPh:
Welcome to another European !! And another person who sees Brokeback as serious, integrated, true, and honest Art. We who choose to discuss every last detail of it [with the hind-sight of several viewings] are not picking the film apart as boys pick the wings off of a butterfly for sport. But, trying to approach a marvelous filmic and artistic creation through which run countless currents of cultural, literary, and symbolic allusions to keep all of us busy for years to come.
As one Mahlerian or Mahler-phile to another, I'll point you to another discussion a few months back which featured a very pertinent connection between Brokeback and Gustav. Check out the following set of exchanges - I'll give you the link to the beginning of the specific exchange within a very long, but rewarding topic/thread:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388795/board/thread/32762368?d=32773796#32773796

by - MartinPh (Mon May 8 2006 04:31:01 )   
Hey Casey, thanks! And thanks for the interesting link, I had missed that one (and haven't read it all yet, it's very long).

Actually, my Mahler reference was random, I could just as easily have mentioned one of the other greats.
I very much sympathize with the need to find positive clues in this cruelly sad tale. But I must say that for me the worlds of Mahler/Das Lied and BBM are a very great distance apart. Mahler strives for, and finds, resolution and comfort in nature. As far as I understand the story and screenplay, the vast empty Wyoming plains do not represent such resolution - rather, they are the embodiment of loneliness, emptiness and the lack of any focuspoint. In the story, Ennis is devastated to learn that Jack's ashes will be buried in the "grieving plain". And the final words of the screenplay refer explicitly to the desolation of the landscape. Ennis doesn't ease back into the eternal cycle of life - all he knows to do is "to stand it", forever haunted, as we know from the story, by dreams of his lost lover.

The most usual symbolic connotation of the moon, as far as I know, is death. The Romantic Movement associated it with yearning and despair, later also with serenity and contemplation.

My single positive notion regarding the final scene is that Ennis finally breaks his old, bad habit ('can't, gotta work') and gives in to his daughter's wish. Thanks to Jack he has learned that you must respond to the needs of the people who love you, or you will loose them. Maybe what he tries to swear at the end is that he will not make the same mistake again?
Former IMDb Name: True Oracle of Phoenix / TOoP (I pronounce it "too - op") / " in fire forged,  from ash reborn" / Currently: GeorgeObliqueStrokeXR40

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Re: Are Ennis and Jack Mythological? - by BannerHill
« Reply #1 on: June 16, 2007, 05:27:33 am »
Repost continued
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by - BannerHill (Mon May 8 2006 04:42:32 )   

I see several positive aspects to the film

1) Ennis calls Lureen. This is a big deal for Ennis. He doesn't usually like surprises, and in this situation he does not know what is going to happen.

2) Ennis visits Jacks parents. Again, this is really quite huge. His heart is broken, and he is going as Jack's good friend, and as his love. Again he has no idea what is going to happen.

3) The fact that Jack survived his own childhood and his father, and that he had hope and optimism and had not been crushed and believed that he and Ennis could live a happy life together is, if you think about it, miraculous.

4) Ennis realises the importance of participating in his daughters life

In the course of the film, there has been a lot of pain and dissapointment. There has also been change, however gradual.

by - afhickman (Mon May 8 2006 06:53:43 )   


MartinPh: Don't overlook the associations of the moon with love, as in honeymoon, etc. Also, the moon is associated with a sudden derangement, as in lunacy: "The lunatic, the lover, and the poet, are of imagination all compact," sayeth the Bard. Also, there's the expression, "once in a blue moon," with reference to a rare occurrence. Add it all up, and the moon is an incredibly apt tutelary presence in Brokeback: two young men, through an inexplicable derangement, are given the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to find love. I have suggested elsewhere that Brokeback is another magical presence in the story (especially the orignal by Annie Proulx), as in "Brokeback got us good." In fact, there is magic at work (and not always postively) in most every story in the collection entitled "Close Range."

by - taj_e (Mon May 8 2006 08:44:35 )   
   
Maybe what he tries to swear at the end is that he will not make the same mistake again?

Maybe. But don't you think that since his fear all along was the fact that he loves Jack? another man?
The Yes earlier from his daughter, was something he should have uttered to Jack. While Jack should have been the one who asked 'Do you really love me Ennis?'

I always find full moon as both romantic and 'dark'. Making love under it is romantic, but realising the pact was a lie, is surely sad

'I wish I knew how to quit BBM...'

Re: Are Jack and Ennis mythological ?   
by - taj_e (Sun May 7 2006 13:17:05 )   


Are Jack and Ennis mythological? It seems to me in order to answer that question we'll need to check in in another 1,000 years or so and find out

lol, on another serious question, what if they are myth at all? Can we comfortably say that these characters aren't real? I might have misunderstood the question

by - retropian (Sun May 7 2006 07:52:02 )   

Thanks for another thoughtful and interesting topic. I was beginning to feel that the BBM board was fading, and that we had wrung all the juice we could out of the film.

The story is a tragedy in the true sense. It has provided or sparked a cathartic experience for many. It may be the first time they've had catharsis and are bewildered by it, hence the numerous emotional posts we've read and shared here. I know it had that effect upon me and has altered my outlook on life.
by - BannerHill (Tue May 9 2006 08:39:26 )   

I am not sure how it has altered my outlook on life. I do find I am more patient with people. I am also finding that I am less patient with some people , though. I think I am becoming more outspoken. Not sure if that is a good thing.


The characters and story do have a mythological quality, imo.
by - taj_e (Wed May 10 2006 08:16:34 )   


The characters and story do have a mythological quality, imo

True. I guess we all are
We have seen both characters, though mythological qualities existed, they're no myth other than 'real' IMO

by - retropian (Wed May 10 2006 06:46:07 )   

BannerHill,
Perhaps you are no longer willing to settle for beans.

Catharsis   
by - CaseyCornelius (Tue May 9 2006 09:53:09 )   

UPDATED Tue May 9 2006 10:23:31
retropian:
You've hit the nail on the head, as you are wonted.
Catharsis describes precisely the effect Brokeback has had on a large number of us. One frequently reads comments from bewildered posters and hears comments from fellow viewers who have experienced the 'purging' of fear which Aristotle indicated as the essential element in a cathartic experience of Tragedy. You and a number of we veterans have bandied about the Classical allusions so much that they seem a natural outgrowth of the film and story.
It's only natural to admit that the seeming perfection of the film would be steeped in the processes of the great dramatic art and ancient literature which has fuelled our mythology and sub-conscious proddings for eons.

Re: Catharsis   
by - BannerHill (Tue May 9 2006 10:18:09 )
   

>It's only natural to admit that the seeming perfection of the film would be steeped in the processes of the great dramatic art and ancient literature which has fuelled our mythology and sub-conscious proddings for eons. <

Casey

This is a great summation of why and how this film is so powerful.
Re: Catharsis   
by - afhickman (Tue May 23 2006 10:17:50 )   


"Brokeback" is essentially Ennis' tragedy. He is a tragic figure in the mold of Oedipus. His tragic flaw is his inability to see beyond the conventional life that society has prescribed for him. His anagnorosis occurs in Jack's bedroom, when he discovers the shirts. Like Oedipus, he does not die, but he is "exiled" forever from his great love. There are all sorts of parallels, but the comparison is not exact. After all, Oedipus' flaw was intellectual pride: he dared to challenge the gods on their own turf. There is little of the intellectual about Ennis.

However, I recently had occasion to see a production of Shakespeare's "Coriolanus" in London, and I had a sort of epiphnay. Coriolanus is the victim of his own overweening pride. He cannot bring himself to propitiate the common people, the very people he needs to validate his candidacy as Tribune. His flaw is a blind allegiance to decorum, the sense he has of himself and of his relation to society. I'm not suggesting that anyone who had anything to do with "Brokeback" had even read "Coriolanus," let alone taken it as a source, but I am saying that Ennis is a tragic character who derives from a long line of such characters. Interestingly, though, there is a subplot in the Shakespeare play that brings Coriolanus together with his great enemy, Aufidius, who declares, "I lov'd the maid I married; never man / Sigh'd truer breath; but that I see thee here, / Thou noble thing, more dances my rapt heart / Than when I first my married mistress saw / Bestride my threshold." That's Shakespeare-ese for "I like doin' it with women, yeah, but Jesus H., ain't nothin like this" (Proulx). Coriolanus later betrays Aufidius at his family's behest (he is a real mama's boy), and Aufidius arranges his death. Ennis betrays Jack as well, but it's Jack who meets the tire iron. Not the same story by any means but another possible link in a chain.

"The Mountain Has Wings"

Re: Catharsis   
by - retropian 6 days ago (Thu May 25 2006 07:24:44 )   


afhickman,

great post. I agree that BBM is a tragedy in the Classical meaning of the word. Ennis is another great tragic character and had put me in mind of Shakespeare, to paraphrase; "The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves..."
Former IMDb Name: True Oracle of Phoenix / TOoP (I pronounce it "too - op") / " in fire forged,  from ash reborn" / Currently: GeorgeObliqueStrokeXR40