Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Black Hats, White Hats
twistedude:
Having just finished a story whidh ends with the beginning of BBM (hands off, please!), I put the first 5 minutes under a microscope...and this least fashion-conscious person discovered that Ennis, when we first see him, is a symphony in brown: his hair, his eyes, his boots, his bag, his canvas jacket (this later appears quite light, but in front of Aguirre's, it's distrinctly light brown), belt, and the narrow braid around the base of the crown of his hat--whcih appears off-white in this scene, though sometimes white (as when he watches Jack ride away from camp after having so much trouble getting his horse pointed in the right diredction). His jeans are of course blue, and his shirt is white withl a ight blue pattern. In my story, his appearance registers with Jack as "a beautiful Brown Man--not his skin; everything else."
It's amazing, with Ennis's apparent imperviousness to cold--an almst unbroiken series of canvas jackets, with one foray into corderoy--he should nearly freeze to death the night of the first tent scene. Poor guy...
As for the "boys like you," Proulx has the thought in Ennis's mind "Mexico was theplace, he had heard"...but he doesn't express it so crudely. Jack's brave and solid response is just one more reason to love Jack...
I have to go to work, just like I did four hours ago and didn't...or the Asain Art Museuim is going to dashboard me...
serious crayons:
Thanks, Elle! And Julie, about the cold, you're right -- their choice of shirts vs. jackets often seem unrelated to the weather. For instance, the night of TS2, when it's presumably still cold, Ennis wears no jacket because he is taking that step toward Jack.
Penthesilea:
latjoreme:
wow, so many good thoughts in one post. You really watched very intensly yesterday, didn't you?
Ennis wearing brown when with Jack, but wearing blue (Jack's colour) when apart from him - that's a good obversation. I had noticed that Ennis wears blue, often too, but didn't recognise that he (almost?) only wears it when apart fom Jack.
Makes perfect sense.
Barb and latj:
For the time-line of the last scenes from pie scene on:
--- Quote ---Barb, I've always assumed they happened on different days. Either of us could be right, I guess (let's check to see if the shirt under the jacket changes to find out for sure!).
--- End quote ---
This is quite ot here. So I will start a new thread: Timeline for the last cenes.
Edit: It's here: http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php?topic=1371.0
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Penthesilea on May 12, 2006, 05:13:26 am --- You really watched very intensly yesterday, didn't you?
--- End quote ---
Thanks, Penth. Tell you what, when you go two months without seeing it, but spend about five hours a day of those two months discussing it here and about 18 hours a day thinking about it, when you finally do see it you watch pretty intensely.
Actually, though, I'm kind of surprised that, given that we've found so much meaning in coffee pots and Elk signs and snow and moons and pickup trucks, and given what a huge powerful symbol TWO of the shirts are, I never thought to take a closer look at ALL of them before. I just kept thinking, Hmmm! Ennis looks cute in that gray shirt; wonder why he never wore that earlier? It was Barb who pointed out there might be more to it than a random outfit choice.
ednbarby:
All I can do is echo Clarissa's sentiments and say Wow, Katherine. And thank you. I think you're right on in every one of your observations. The only one I can add is this:
When Jack returns to Aguirre's trailer the next summer looking for Ennis, he is wearing four layers - a white T-shirt, a *plaid* shirt (though a nearly solid one) - the only one he wears in the entire movie, a *red* zip-up sweater or sweatshirt zipped up about halfway, and a heavy brown, I believe, coat. I've always thought of this as symbolizing his vulnerability to Aguirre - he knows deep down that he probably saw them - maybe doesn't think of it consciously until he says so, but metaphorically layers himself for protection and wears the one plaid shirt in the whole thing because it's the one time he feels uncomfortable about his own sexuality.
Have I mentioned yet today how much I love this movie?
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