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

A question about the Final Argument scene

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mvansand76:
OK, I really don't know how to formulate this question without sounding like an idiot. Anyway, here goes.

From the first time I saw the movie I had a real problem with this scene. It's the one scene that absolutely breaks my heart, but the reason is different than I always thought. because I really cannot see the love between them anymore in this scene... Ennis has become a burden to Jack and the other way around too. Especially the way Jack looks at Ennis with poorly hidden disgust. Even though the dialogue is identical to that in the Short story, the whole scene feels so different, so barren, so full of emotion and rage and frustration, but lacking in the thing that has kept them together all those years: love. I think I would have been devestated beyond repair if the dozy embrace hadn't followed it and made me believe in them again.

This is not a "Did Jack quit Ennis?" thread, I would just like to hear your opinion about this scene. What do you think?

Let me know if I am making sense or not....

 :-\

Shasta542:
I can just say that I perceived that scene differently. I felt like they loved each other so much that the frustration overwhelmed them. Ennis was very reluctant to tell Jack that he couldn't come until later-- I think he thought that Jack would take it a little better than he did, tho. I felt love and heartbreak.

moremojo:
I definitely think the scene shows how very much Ennis was in love with Jack. Notice how even after Ennis realizes the truth of Jack's sexuality and the full ramifications of it, and has threatened Jack as a result, he cannot follow through on the threat, and collapses in tears of frustration and fear when he thinks he is losing Jack once and for all.

Jack's feelings are more ambivalent. He's definitely feeling frustration, but one can argue that he's feeling a new resolve here as well ("I wish I knew how to quit you"). He reflects on the passage of time, and of how the chance for the kind of life he really wanted for the two of them has quietly slipped away. He goes to comfort Ennis in his despair, but there's an air of grudging responsibility here, and his anger has in no way dissolved ("Damn you, Ennis"). It pains me to think it, but I think it's a real possibility that we are seeing Jack in the process of letting Ennis go here--not necessarily letting go of his love, but of his dream of having the kind of relationship with him that he had always desired. He clearly is unhappy when watching Ennis drive away for that last time...as much as the film is saying goodbye to Jack here, Jack may be silently saying goodbye to Ennis and all Ennis had meant to him.

Daphne7661:
Goodness, but it amazes me to feel such deep emotion for this film and our beloved Jack and Ennis even after all this time.  I am almost a year and a half out, and I STILL get that deep ache when I remember that lake scene...

Snavel del Snuit - I can understand your thoughts on this scene.  However, my thoughts are that, basically, Ennis is "stuck" and Jack is "deeply sad"....

Jack's sadness jumps out at us and at Ennis when he proclaims, while looking so solemnly forward, that he misses Ennis so much he can hardly stand it....  I think, getting that sadness, longing and pain OUT and to Ennis so that he hears it, releases a floodgate of emotions for Jack, and he can no longer hide them the next day.  He is sad.  He is lonely.  He realizes quite clearly that Randall is a fill-in for what he really wants and misses -- Ennis!!

He misses all that he and Ennis could have been to each other and how much they could have shared together, if only Ennis could break free of his fear, just a little, enough to trust Jack and not look back, but, he couldn't.  Poor Ennis...  He just couldn't get out of his own way....

I think, in this scene, that Jack is mourning his and Ennis' lost chance...   I think, when he says he wishes he could quit Ennis, that he really means that.  He wants to let go and he doesn't know how.  He wants to let go because, at this point, it hurts him too much to hang on, but, when Ennis breaks down from realizing that Jack might actually leave him for real and for good, it is my thought that Jack then realizes that this is all hurting Ennis much more than Ennis might be hurting him.  Ennis is being eaten up inside, and Jack, who, as Clancy taught me, understood love, feels he needs to let Ennis go and release the pressure on Ennis...  What Jack doesn't know is that this is Ennis' point of no return.  Ennis is starting to understand....

But, as we know, sadly, it is too late....

 :'(

Brokeback_Dev:
I think the argument I wish i knew how to quit you was the climax of the movie.. Everything that happened before that argument was everything their relationship could be, a glimpse of true love, but sadly it had somehow become "A couple high altitude f**ks once or twice a year"..  It wasn't enough..not for Jack or not for Ennis.  Sadly it was the end for them both.  Its the most heartbreaking scene I have ever seen in any movie ever.  My question is did Ennis ever get passed that sad resolve?  I hope so..

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