Author Topic: The Choice of 'Surf Party' as the Clip at the Drive-In -- by CaseyCornelius  (Read 8577 times)

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The Choice of 'Surf Party' as the Clip at the Drive-In   
  by - CaseyCornelius (Wed Mar 1 2006 22:11:50 )   

   
UPDATED Sat May 27 2006 18:47:17
I don't know if anyone has come up with any suggestions for the significance of Alma and Ennis watching the clip from 'Surf Party' at the drive-in, but here's a stab at it.

The choice of film suggested in the earlier 2003 shooting script was "Hud",which would have created an in-joke as that 1963 film was based on Larry McMurtry's own novel "Horseman Pass By". Probably in order to avoid the potentially distracting and overly self-conscious in-joke the use of "Hud" was abandonded in favor of the "Surf Party" clip.
I can't imagine, given the attention to detail which Ang Lee displays throughout the film, that the seemingly innocuous choice of "Surf Party" was thoughtlessly random or devoid of interpretive significance.

I've posted in several other threads that in every scene showing Ennis's life between the Signal parting following Brokeback right up to the Riverton reunion with Jack there is a subtle visual or aural 'rhyme', souvenir, or reminiscence of the idealized loving relationship with Jack during the Brokeback summer.

The first example is the winter tobbogganing scene with Alma immediately following their wedding scene with its visual correspondences of: the ginger, frolicing in the snow as an allusion to Ennis's 'bracing' snowy morning encounter on Brokeback; his wearing the blue [Jack's symbolic color throughout the film] wool-cap; and his wrestling with Alma after pitching down the snowy slope in the same way we last saw him making rough physical contact with Jack in the 'bloodied shirts/wounding' scene.

The next scene shows Ennis subject to the non-stop talking of his middle-aged asphalt paving work-mate Timmy [an aural link to the loquacious Jack] and the subtle assonance in Timmy's line "I'm gettin' too old to be breakin' my back shoveling asphalt" of "breakin' my back" with "Brokeback".

The next scene is at the drive-in and shows Alma attempting to initiate physical contact with Ennis, who is noticably preoccupied and 'glued' to the movie, by pulling his right arm towards her to feel the new life swelling inside her. The visual reminiscence is with Jack's first physical contact with Ennis in the initial tent/lovemaking where Jack pulls Ennis's same arm over to him in order that he feel Jack's own 'swelling' anatomy [not to put too fine a point on it !!].

The brief excerpt from 'Surf Party' captivating Ennis shows an early morning scene with a young man greeting a young woman exiting a camp-trailer and informing her that it's illegal to camp on the beach. Not too much of a stretch to see a subtle allusion and aural reminiscence to the illegal camp-sites which the boys were forced by Aguirre to man on Brokeback and about which Jack complained incessantly.
Again, it is another tiny 'nagging' reminder for Ennis of the 'truth' of his supressed feeling for and emotional connection with the distant beloved, Jack.

Just a suggestion "for what it's worth".


Re: Significance of the Choice of 'Surf Party' Clip at the Drive-In   
  by - Rontrigger (Wed Mar 1 2006 22:27:17 )   

   
Casey, your suggestions are usually nothing short of revelations. As is this one. Needless to say, I'm impressed and can't disagree.

"You can't have Ennis without Jack."--Annie Proulx

Re: Significance of the Choice of 'Surf Party' as the Clip at the Drive-In   
  by - jshane2002 (Wed Mar 1 2006 22:39:51 )
   
   
Great work - someone pass the whiskey to that guy.


"She don't ever suspect? -- Ennis

Re: The Choice of 'Surf Party' as the Clip at the Drive-In   
  by - naun (Thu Mar 2 2006 01:28:48 )
   
   
UPDATED Thu Mar 2 2006 02:04:26
Every time I think I ought to stop spending time on this board and maybe get a life, a thread like this one comes up.

Casey, your suggestion that these parallels are significant (as well as your implied crediting of them to Lee, or at least to Lee's influence) is borne out by the fact that not one of them is present in the February 2003 version of the screenplay. There is no tobogganning/roughhousing scene in the earlier script (a scene in a truck takes its place), the "breakin' my back" line is absent, and Alma does not pull Ennis' hand down at the drive-in. (I am pleased to say, however, that Timmy has "a bad case of plumber's butt" in both versions of the screenplay.)

The scene at Ennis and Alma's first home also contains a couple of echoes of the time on Brokeback. There's Alma's washboard, recalling Jack washing Ennis' clothes, and the sound of their crying children has always reminded me, at least, of the bleating of the sheep. (Lee has spoken in interviews of the men "nurturing" the animals.) Again neither of these details is in the 2003 screenplay.

Re: The Choice of 'Surf Party' as the Clip at the Drive-In   
  by - CaseyCornelius (Thu Mar 2 2006 06:56:02 )   

   
UPDATED Thu Mar 2 2006 07:03:54
naun:

Some nice 'catches' here, especially the one of Alma at the washboard/Jack beating the clothes -- crying children/bleating sheep and the 'nurturing' very touching as well.

I'm sure you've read it elsewhere, but there is also in that same meagre rancher's cabin a fleeting glimpse of a prominent oil painting of an idealized mountain which Ennis walks past on the way to tend to his girls. It links with the idealized views of the Brokeback mountain range we see from a distance earlier.

And as much as both you and I keep quoting the 'plumber's butt' indication in the screenplays, I noticed that there is no actual 'plumber's butt' visible in the film - Timmy's pants are riding a little low, but we don't see his backside. I would imagine the reason is that it's another bowing to Ang Lee's sense of taste and subtletly by avoiding a distracting cheap laugh at that point.

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Re: The Choice of 'Surf Party' as the Clip at the Drive-In   
  by - RobertPlant (Thu Mar 2 2006 07:17:10 )
   
   
Some nice 'catches' here, especially the one of Alma at the washboard/Jack beating the clothes


..and in the previous scene, the shirt Alma is taking when she sees Ennis coming home, is the second one he had on BBM.

I'm packing my bags for the Misty Mountains
over the hills where the spirits fly

Re: The Choice of 'Surf Party' as the Clip at the Drive-In   
  by - naun (Thu Mar 2 2006 13:58:45 )   


I noticed that there is no actual 'plumber's butt' visible in the film - Timmy's pants are riding a little low, but we don't see his backside.

Doubtless it will be included in the deleted scenes on the DVD.

I would imagine the reason is that it's another bowing to Ang Lee's sense of taste and subtletly by avoiding a distracting cheap laugh at that point.

Yes, and this is another example of a small part in an Ang Lee film being cast and touched in to perfection. The inclusion of Timmy's character lightens what might otherwise be a somewhat oppressive scene. Instead of sympathizing with Ennis' toil on the roads, we are invited to sympathize with monosyllabic Ennis having this affable, garrulous man for company all day. (The 2003 script has a foreman coming along to shut Timmy up; in the film Ennis receives no such relief.)

But I'd like to come back to what you say about Lee's sense of taste. He's been praised for it in some quarters, but more often his critics, and even some of his admirers, have equated taste merely with a lack of boldness. This has always struck me not only as a wrong-headed view of Lee's work, but also a wrong-headed view of what taste consists in. In many artists a preference for understatement goes with the ability and desire to hold many varied emotional and thematic elements in balance. I think Lee is one of those artists.

What I've said here is somewhat opaque, but perhaps you or someone else can state it better.

Re: The Choice of 'Surf Party' as the Clip at the Drive-In   
  by - CaseyCornelius (Thu Mar 2 2006 21:26:21 )   

   
Naun:
Your comments are never opaque. More akin to transluscent and luminous.

Re: The Choice of 'Surf Party' as the Clip at the Drive-In   
  by - moog67 (Sat Mar 11 2006 00:32:46 )   

   
Ennis' displays a little plumber's butt in the scene in the bedroom with Alma, he comes in and sits down on the bed wearing is red and white pajama pants and we see an little butt-crack. I can't help noticing these things, especially when it's Heath Ledger.

Ennis's Sleepy-time 'Plumber's Butt'   
  by - CaseyCornelius (Sat Mar 11 2006 21:59:35 )   

   
UPDATED Wed Apr 19 2006 21:37:15
I also took Ennis's Sleepy-time 'plumber's butt' as yet another visual correspondence to his jeans constantly hanging off of his low waist and his endearing habit of always having to tuck in his shirt during moments of heightened emotion -- as if he's not quite comfortable in his own skin.

Ennis's and Jack's Butts   
  by - kellyjt (Sun Apr 9 2006 14:13:12 )   

   
I noticed Ennis's plumber's pajama pants on my first viewing of the movie. I thought it was cute and sexy. In watching the movie over and over these past few days, I noticed that Jack has more of a bubble butt, while Ennis's is kinda flat. He's got the dreaded noassatall. Maybe that's why his pants always hang so low; there's not much to keep them up.

Re: The Choice of 'Surf Party' as the Clip at the Drive-In   
  by - lnicoll (Thu Mar 2 2006 07:23:21 )
   
   
They actually tried to film the truck scene but there was now enough snow/ice on the ground to make it work (I believe they were trying to make the truck spin in circles in a parking lot). It was the suggestion of one of the Canadian members of the crew that they head up into the mountains and go tobogganing as there was still snow on the ground up there.

Re: The Choice of 'Surf Party' as the Clip at the Drive-In   
  by - CaseyCornelius (Thu Mar 2 2006 12:39:34 )   

   
UPDATED Thu Mar 2 2006 12:43:00
lnicoll:
Thanks for this.
Do you have a link or reference to the shooting details which is providing you with this info? I remember passing by something in one of the threads, but have lost trrack of it.

Re: The Choice of 'Surf Party' as the Clip at the Drive-In   
  by - pkdetroit (Thu Mar 2 2006 07:11:25 )   


<<...illegal to camp on the beach. Not too much of a stretch to see a subtle allusion and aural reminiscence to the illegal camp-sites which the boys were forced by Aguirre to man on Brokeback and about which Jack complained incessantly.>>

Has to also allude to the 'illegality' of same sex love. Jack and Ennis being constantly reminded "you can't do that here" followed by what they can do.


"It was the Summer that Sebastian and I went to the Incantadas"
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Re: The Choice of 'Surf Party' as the Clip at the Drive-In   
  by - seaweed727 (Thu Mar 2 2006 13:50:36 )
   
   
Casey,

I've been at this along with the rest of the observers here since the movie came out almost three months ago and wanted to thank you once again for an enlightening post.

The next scene is at the drive-in and shows Alma attempting to initiate physical contact with Ennis, noticably preoccupied and 'glued' to the movie, by pulling his right arm towards her to feel the new life swelling inside her. The visual reminiscence is with Jack's first physical contact with Ennis in the initial tent/lovemaking where Jack pulls Ennis's same arm over to him in order that he feel Jack's own 'swelling' anatomy [not to put too fine a point on it !!].

I was so happy to see you bring this up as I noticed it on my first viewing of the movie... how the motion of Alma's arm guiding Ennis' hand to her swelling belly and their un-born child jumped out at me. The parallel was nothing I could describe as well as you have and I am so happy to see it mentioned. You really have added so much to my enjoyment of this great movie with your discussions and observations.


"I got a boy. Eight months old.... Smiles a lot."

Its a clip from The Misfits!   
  by - Wooski (Thu Mar 2 2006 14:04:16 )
   
   

its Marilyn Monroe on screen!

No to The Misfits and That's Bobby Vinton   
  by - CaseyCornelius (Thu Mar 2 2006 14:13:58 )   

   
UPDATED Thu Mar 2 2006 14:17:03
It's not Marilyn Monroe but appears to be one of the ubiquitous Marilyn Monroe clones from the period. Don't know the name of the actress [no pics in the IMDB listings for the cast], but the young man looks like Bobby Vinton.

Surf Party is acknowledged in the final clearance credits for Brokeback Mountain.


Re: No to The Misfits and That's Bobby Vinton   
  by - Julie01 (Thu Mar 2 2006 22:37:48 )
   
   
Just got back from the movie, and finally wrote down that in the Ennis-Alma falling off the sled, Alma unexpectedly grabbing him, Ennis's instinctive reaction to fight back, quickly halted when he remembers it's Alma, and rubs snow into her hood instead--- reminiscent not only of the Jack-Ennis fight on the last day on Brokeback, but also, if anyone watching the movie has read the story, of how Ennis's dad tells him how to get rid of his older brother's domination--catch him unawares (and hurt him). In this case, the element of surprise is provided by Alma.

I'll buy Alma's womb being reminiscent of Jack's cock, on some level, possibly a negative one, possibly not--the cock is only in the story (of course). but "Surf Party" is so vapid, it wouldn't remind me of anything I wanted to remember, and the poor soul who thought that girl looked like Marilyn Monroe--doesn't know what he missed. My attraction for people of my own sex is really disgustingly nil, but Marilyn Monroe...I didn't think Ennis was fasacinated by the movie, either.

Just me again...

"You come back and see us again"--Jack's mother


Re: No to The Misfits and That's Bobby Vinton   
  by - southendmd (Fri Mar 3 2006 10:31:15 )   

   
Casey,
IMDb suggests the actress we see in "Surf Party" is Jackie DeShannon!

Re: No to The Misfits and That's Bobby Vinton   
  by - Petronius Arbiter II (Fri Mar 3 2006 11:25:14 )
   
   
Holy cow! "Needles and Pins" Jackie De Shannon! Who'da thunk it!!!

As much as I love The Searchers' version of that song, I'd have to say I love De Shannon's original-release version even more.

***looks British-invasion music conscious***

"I don't deduce, I observe."

Re: No to The Misfits and That's Bobby Vinton   
  by - kellyjt (Sun Apr 9 2006 14:36:44 )   


First off, interesting interpretations of the use of "Surf Party" in the film. I was curious as to why such an obscure movie was chosen. It's not even available on DVD or video.

I'm most certain that the boy in the film clip is Bobby Vinton, and I'm pretty certain that the girl is Patricia Morrow, not Jackie DeShannon. Now, "Surf Party" and the performers in it were before my time, but I have had a keen interest in '60s and '70s pop culture since I was a kid, and I ain't totally ignorant on those topics.

I don't recall ever seeing photos of DeShannon with that flip hair style like that of the girl coming out of the trailer in the scene. I've only seen her with long (past the shoulders), straight hair. However, Morrow had that flip do or something like it for much of the 60s (sometimes the flip was out, sometimes in). Morrow was in the "Peyton Place" TV series. I couldn't find too many pictures of her on the web, but I did find this page. . .

http://members.aol.com/mbubb81706/vietnam.html

Whaddya think? I'm curious to hear from others to see if they think it's Morrow or DeShannon. Maybe we could debate that instead of whether Jack was murdered or not. . . it gets tiresome.

Re: The Choice of 'Surf Party' as the Clip at the Drive-In   
  by - starboardlight (Thu Mar 2 2006 23:38:35 )   

   
UPDATED Thu Mar 2 2006 23:46:31
I wonder too if the Surf Party clip also reminds Ennis of the moment when the two boys first met. In Surf Party, the girl steps out of the trailer and greets the boy, which throw us back to the moment where Ennis and Jack steps out of Aguirre's trailer, finally shaking hands and formally meet. A stark contrast of how openly flirtatious the girl and the boy in Surf Party were able to be in just three words "Well, hello there" while Ennis and Jack had to be very coy and subtle with their attraction to one another.

Re: The Choice of 'Surf Party' as the Clip at the Drive-In   
  by - CaseyCornelius (Fri Mar 3 2006 16:30:48 )
   
   
UPDATED Wed Apr 19 2006 21:40:47
starboardlight:
More brilliance from you. DUHHH I hadn't even considred linking the two trailers together.
My only other thought was that the Surf Party clip seemed at first glance to be a suggestive morning-after scene, its innocence contrasting with the dis-ease of Ennis and Jack's - an allusion in my mind to the morning after the first tent scene with Ennis waking up, hoisting his pants back up from around his ankles and 'beating it out of camp' before Jack rose.

OT- About souvenirs..horses   
  by - RobertPlant (Fri Mar 3 2006 08:23:13 )   

   

I've posted in several other threads that in every scene showing Ennis's life between the Signal parting following Brokeback right up to the Riverton reunion with Jack there is a subtle visual or aural 'rhyme', souvenir, or reminiscence of the idealized loving relationship with Jack during the Brokeback summer.


I think you've already discussed this topic, sorry.
My question: is there something similar when we see Jack?


I looking for signs and noticed horses:

-there is a big horse head in Aguirre trailer, when Jack goes there and asks about Ennis (in the first summer it's not there)...btw in the first summer Aguirre binoculars are in teir case , in the second one they are outside
-the picture of an horse in the Bobby
birth scene, behind Jack. We see it well when he goes away. In the next image we see Ennis truck and the big ELK on the building at the corner.
-a little horse in the "Honey, where is my blue parka" scene (the previous image is the card Alma puts under the newspaper, with the big Honey on it)
-a picture with an horse in the Thanksgiving scene, behind Lureen father when Jack says him "you son of .."..(indeed Lureen is on that horse so maybe it doesn't count)
-two horses on the "entering Wyoming" signal..


Please ...answer ..   



I'm packing my bags for the Misty Mountains
over the hills where the spirits fly

Re: OT- About souvenirs..horses   
  by - CaseyCornelius (Fri Mar 3 2006 09:34:14 )
   
   
UPDATED Fri Mar 3 2006 22:08:20
I had not noticed the use of a visual 'horse motif' in Jack's scenes in as consistent a way as I had noticed the details I've raised with regard to Ennis.
Worth some thought.

My first reaction is that since both Lureen and Jack have rodeo riding in their background, it would make sense that they would have 'trophies' of their accomplishments peppered around their living spaces.

The horse as a symbol in film is frequently associated with a strong 'life-force' [and not just in westerns as I'm thinking of Andrei Tarkovsky's incredible "Andrei Rublev" here] - so it might make sense that there is some extra-quotidian significance to it with regard to Jack. He does have that iconic carving of the horse and rider on his childhood desk and there has been much discussion regarding his pulling the 'crow-hopping' horse under control in front of Ennis up on Brokeback, another revealing juxtaposition of the life-energy evident in the horse and the quenchless desire in Jack.

Re: OT- About souvenirs..horses   
  by - latjoremekeed (Fri Mar 3 2006 09:52:11 )
   
   
Wow. Thanks CaseyCornelius, for another amazing thread. And bravo to the other contributors too. It's threads like these that keep me from quitting this board. I get to the point where I don't think there's anything else to analyze, and then you guys point out a whole new web of meanings.

Shouldn't we be earning grad school credits for this?

Anyway, others have mentioned this elsewhere but I don't think I've seen it on this thread; the way Alma holds Ennis in the bedroom scene echoes the way Ennis holds Jack in the flashback. It's the rhyme but in reverse, adding a little extra resonance to the flashback, and a little more sadness (retroactively) to the bedroom scene.

Re: OT- About souvenirs..horses   
  by - BannerHill (Fri Mar 3 2006 10:19:40 )   

   
Wow

That is an amazing line of logic. It never dawned on me that her coming out of the camper was a reminder of Jack in the tent. Jeez

Anything I should ask Dianna today?




"Hey Ennis, do you know someone named 'Jack'?"

Re: OT- About souvenirs..horses   
  by - naun (Fri Mar 3 2006 20:35:05 )
   
   
UPDATED Fri Mar 3 2006 21:15:53
The horse as a symbol in film is frequently associated with a strong 'life-force' [and not just in westerns as I'm thinking of Andrei Tarkovsky's incredible "Andrei Rublev" here]

Casey, it's interesting to hear you say that. I mentioned in another thread that the horses in BBM suggest to me the notion of nature being in harmony with itself. When the two men are together we frequently see horses in the background, usually grazing peacefully. I doubt it's accidental since the shot often appears to be framed deliberately to include the horses, the most notable example (if I'm not misremembering) perhaps being the "dozy embrace" shot. In (chronologically) later scenes, by contrast, we see the horses "caged" in the back of Ennis' truck, and of course that is what Jack sees when the "dozy embrace" scene returns to the present and Ennis departs for what turns out to be the last time. It may also be significant that the first time we see the horses confined in the back of Ennis' truck is at his home after his marriage to Alma.

Strangely enough the grazing horses reminded me of Andrei Rublev too, particularly the very last shot in the film. (I don't pretend to have the foggiest idea what Andrei Rublev is about -- if there's ever a CaseyCornelius thread on it, please let me know -- but that hasn't stopped some of its images from lodging in my mind in the fifteen or more years since I first saw it.) What you say about the horses representing a "life-force" rings true to me, especially when you bring up those scenes where Jack has trouble bringing his horse under control.

Interestingly, there's some fairly prominent "life-force" imagery in Hulk as well, although there it usually takes the form of moss, of all things. I mention this because there are some pretty obvious thematic similarities between the two films. In fact, I'm starting to think that there must have been some creative cross-pollination going on -- remembering that Ang Lee read the screenplay for BBM before he made Hulk. There's even a shot in BBM of horses treading on moss, which had never struck me as even remotely significant until this moment.

Jackie DeShannon   
  by - WLH-V (Fri Mar 3 2006 20:44:13 )   

   
"Surf Party"

Jackie DeShannon's #1 song: "What The World Needs Now"
(written by ace team of Burt Bacharach and Hal David)


Will  & Dre 

Only 2 daze: Academy Awards on Sunday, March 5 @ 8 p.m.

Horses and the Life Force   
  by - CaseyCornelius (Fri Mar 3 2006 22:38:44 )   

   
naun:
Thanks for your observations regarding the horses - astute as ever you are.
The freedom versus the containment of same is very telling throughout the film, just as you've pointed out.
I'd second your observation that the positioning of the horses within the frame or in relationship to the actors might have some significance. Repeating a post from another thread, I raise Ang Lee's admitted influence and admiration of Michelangelo Antonioni. And one can certainly see this in the scene of Jack bringing his 'crow-hopping' horse under control in one half of the frame juxtaposed with Ennis calmly cleaning breakfast dishes with his docile horse tethered in the background.
Lureen in her first lurid appearance is shown literally charging into the film on her wild mount [sorry, can't stop thinking of this suggestive rhyme to her name - right in keeping with Annie Proulx's Dickensian suggestive name choices of Twist, Aguirre, Alma]. What a perfect allusion to her take-charge, no nonsense, won't-take-no-for-an-answer, direct seduction of Jack two scenes later and in the rest of her life - obviously her Daddy's daughter?

I sense a terrific discussion nascent here, which might have to transfer to a new thread.

RE: Andrei Rublev - without a doubt, if I was forced to pick one film, would be my favorite film of all time. I see it as a vast epic on the relationship of THE ARTIST to the beauty, terror, violence, jostling for political and religious power, incredible natural beauty, and destructive forces ever present around him. I shudder when I contemplate some of the most powerful scenes in the film [especially a horse stumbling down the stairs and crippling itself during the horrible Tartar raid] and never fail to break down at Andrei's embrace in the penultimate shot of the young bell-maker Boryska as the only person who can understand what his celebrated artistry has cost him in physical and emotional sacrifice. Only one other film on this great theme of THE ARTIST comes close, and that is Ariane Mnouchkine's amazing film biography of 'Moliere'[1978].
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Re: The Choice of 'Surf Party' as the Clip at the Drive-In   
  by - kirkmusic (Fri Mar 3 2006 22:50:29 )
   

And here I thought Surf Party was chosen because it was as devoid of real depth as Ennis and Alma's relationship/life together. But everything eveyone is suggesting about it makes sense as well.

Re: The Choice of 'Surf Party' as the Clip at the Drive-In   
  by - sunsetsilk (Sat Mar 4 2006 21:05:43 )   

   
Also "for what it's worth"....

In "Surf Party," the character Jackie DeShannon plays is named Junior Griffith.

Alma is pregnant with the girl eventually called....Junior.

Re: The Choice of 'Surf Party' as the Clip at the Drive-In   
  by - CaseyCornelius (Fri Mar 10 2006 23:23:22 )   


The web of allusions and assonance is woven ever finer.

The Three Trailers   
  by - CaseyCornelius (Mon Mar 13 2006 20:15:18 )
   
   
Everything seems to happen in threes in the film as numerous discussions and threads have pointed out.

The film symmetrically both begins and ends at/in a trailer - Aguirre's and Ennis's - and the scene from Surf Party is the third instance in the film.
I caught this last 11th time viewing the film how much in shape and layout the outside of Ennis's trailer is to Aguirre's even though the latter's is so much larger. The entrance is proportionally in the same location on the outside of the trailer with similar wooden steps. Again, it can't be a matter of coincidence. I'm almost toying with the idea that the last third of the film recapitulates much of the same imagery but in reverse - almost as if the film is structured much like a palindrome or, in music, a retrograde or canzicrans.

Re: The Three Trailers   
  by - naun (Mon Mar 13 2006 21:07:48 )
   

I'm almost toying with the idea that the last third of the film recapitulates much of the same imagery but in reverse - almost as if the film is structured much like a palindrome or, in music, a retrograde or canzicrans.

Casey, I'd be interested (as I'm sure would many others) to hear you develop this idea. Just one small point I can't resist mentioning here, for whatever it's worth. Several posters have commented that Ennis' refusal of Jack after the divorce postcard is the turning-point of the film. It did strike me as quite possibly significant that when Jack departs in this scene he reverses his truck back out onto the road.

Re: The Three Trailers   
  by - CaseyCornelius (Mon Mar 13 2006 21:18:05 )
   
   
UPDATED Mon Mar 13 2006 21:23:19
naun:
I'm trying to be faithful to promptings from within me regarding inchoate, nagging ideas about the film. The inception of the Classical Allusions thread came out of an obsessive prompting regarding something which need articulating. I was, originally, going to dismiss it as too far-fetched, but am I glad I didn't ignore it.
The last few viewings of the film, I've noticed recurring allusions, symmetries, layers, etc. which are prompting an increasingly obsessive idea that so much of the film 'turns upon itself' in some way. I fear that it's going to be like trying to play three-dimensional chess. I can't pinpoint it yet, but I'll keep exploring it because it's creating a 'feeling' as strong as the one which drove me to wrestle with and 'riff' upon the Virgil-Aeneid motif.
Your motif of the truck reversing might be a clue.
I'll keep you posted.

A Palindrome   
  by - CaseyCornelius (Wed Apr 5 2006 22:25:30 )   

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naun:

I'm still working on the idea of the film turning symmetrically upon itself at some key point. We could work on it together, maybe. I always appreciate your posts and the fine visual acuity which they denote -- such as noticing that Jack reverses his truck in that very key, devastating scene of the first of many of Ennis's rejections of Jack following his divorce.

I'm looking at the very noticeable use of the bathroom mirror as Ennis prepares to leave on the first of numerous 'fishing trips' with Jack following the Riverton reunion. Ennis opens the medicine chest to create an exactly symmetrical image of himself at the same time he's initiating the numerous transparent lies with which he will attempt to stave off Alma's prying into his 'marriage' to Jack. Other threads have briefly mentioned the use of mirrors in the film and their significance. The medicine chest reflection is certainly a key narrative turning point.

Re: A Palindrome   
  by - naun (Thu Apr 6 2006 00:47:03 )   

   
UPDATED Thu Apr 6 2006 14:46:41
I'm still working on the idea of the film turning symmetrically upon itself at some key point. We could work on it together, maybe.

Casey,

Well, let me try and sketch out a line of thought that has been on my mind recently. "Just thinking out loud", as Jack says.

I have been toying with the idea that several of the characters that we meet either side of the film's midway point are counterparts of each other. Bitterly homophobic Joe Aguirre and John Twist seem to make an obvious pair. The two men also seem to share the curious trait of being more or less immovably seated (in judgement?) most of the time. There are also the two amiable chatterboxes, Timmy the roadworker and LaShawn Malone, both of them met on the road.

I would venture to suggest that the two instinctively maternal, emotionally unfulfilled women, Alma and Jack's mother, also make a pair. We've noted that a cross is seen prominently in the frame with Jack's mother. The only other time I can recall seeing an actual cross in the film is in the wedding scene, where a partially obscured cross is visible behind Alma. Both women are involved with the Church, the difference being that to Alma it seems mainly to be a social institution and to Jack's mother it is a spiritual one.

To round out the picture, the flashier and more impulsive women, Lureen Newsome and Cassie Cartwright, also seem to go together. Each makes the acquaintance of her prospective man through dancing; each has a scene with an ironic love song in the background. Even Cassie's name seems to contain an echo of Lureen's family background. "Cassie" perhaps recalls the Newsomes' "cash" wealth, and a "cartwright" is a purveyor of a type of agricultural equipment.

There's also been that whole discussion about "bookends" in the film, which of course imply a symmetrical structure.





Re: A Palindrome   
  by - naun (Sun Apr 9 2006 13:29:01 )   

   
I would venture to suggest that the two instinctively maternal, emotionally unfulfilled women, Alma and Jack's mother, also make a pair.

Another image uniting the two women: there is a vacuum cleaner near one of the doors in the Riverton apartment which seems to be a counterpart to the broom seen outside the Lightning Flat house.

Re: The Three Trailers   
  by - Flickfan-3 (Tue Mar 21 2006 05:53:19 )   

   
Maybe I am reading too much into the "trailer" allusion but referring only to Ennis and his connection because I know some of this does not work regarding the movie's trailer or Aguirre's--have you also considered the inherant significance visually and metaphorically of a trailer--physically they are home shrunk to its smallest dimensions, supposedly offering basic but all-inclusive shelter and sustenance--like the womb.

The ones in the movie are about the smallest ones made, emphasizing how it is almost impossible to acquire and keep personal property of anything except the most important value--and not necessarily monetary.

Calling them trailers pretty much creates a hierarchy of values because it implies they follow something more important thus automatically reducing the value of the inhabitants who live in them.

Trailers are genetically mobile even if stopped for prolonged periods--like a rolling stone of the song or tumbleweed of the plains, they are not supposed to put down roots or ties but be ready to wander according to the needs/wants of the inhabitants and thus reflect the ultimate disharmony of the occupants for their location since they can't commit permanently.

These conclusions seem to reflect some of Ennis's inability to commit to Jack, his desire to protect himself at all costs, his "thinned-skinned" personality which views himself with something akin to disgust, Trailers are built pretty thin as well . Finally, to a certain extent, choosing a trailer for Ennis reflect his innured acceptance of living "without" so many things that others value--including love...

Maybe I am going overboard with the analysis--but I haven't really done any BBM posting in a while--guess I was depressed over the awards' snub...

"...That's the beauty of argument, Joey. If you argue correctly, you're never wrong..."

Re: The Three Trailers   
  by - CaseyCornelius (Wed Mar 22 2006 14:06:41 )   

   
UPDATED Thu Apr 6 2006 23:53:06
Flickfan:
I for one do not feel you're reading too much into your 'trailer' thoughts.
Annie Proulx in the very first page of the story mentions and in a noticably key way, to my literary mind, links three trailers - the one in which the aged, ever-inured-to-the-stoic-life Ennis wakes up after his dreams of Jack [which initiates the whole story as a flashback]; the horses in the trailer he must transport that day and his concern for their comfort; and the meeting of Jack and Ennis in Aguirre's trailer.
To add to your thoughts:
This raises the importance of the only other entity which we see occupying trailers in the film - the horses - a motif of their having to be subject to the confinement by humans. The only time we see the horses - and by allusion Ennis and Jack - truly free is in the natural wilderness, where thry are all set apart. Ennis and Jack are, similarly, confined to be less than what they truly can freely be to each other within the prejudices of the society in which they move.
Ennis, especially, seems subject to this direction by others in every way in his life - from obeying the rules set down by Aguirre regarding the 'don't shoot the wildlife order' to fearing what everyone else in town might think of his 'queerness'.

Re: The Three Trailers   
  by - Flickfan-3 (Thu Mar 23 2006 12:41:26 )   


just remembered the phrase from "King of the Road", the song Jack listens to as he drives away from Ennis's and towards his Mexico rendevous--- trailers for sale or rent --perhaps a very subtle allusion to the body he will rent across the border...

"...That's the beauty of argument, Joey. If you argue correctly, you're never wrong..."

Verbal and Visual Clues   
  by - CaseyCornelius (Fri Mar 24 2006 09:03:50 )
   
   
Flickfan:

Great!! It has to be yet another intentionally subtle linking scenes by means of verbal and visual clues which a number of posters on countless thread have pointed out.
ie, to name only two:
Alma's newspaper ad featuring 'honey' followed immediately by Jack's calling out "Honey".
The newspaper ad underneath the DECEASED-marked postcard featuring shovels [burial motif] followed two scenes later by a shot of a shovel against the Twist's Lightning Flat farm-house.
We should start collecting only these correspondences in a thread.


Re: The Three Trailers   
  by - jlilya (Sun Apr 9 2006 08:24:02 )   
   
UPDATED Tue Apr 11 2006 14:16:26
This post is awesome! the allusion of jack and ennis to the horses and there freedom in the natural world and confinement by society is beautiful, sad, and almost made me cry. It's also awesome how one persons ideas influence anothers ideas on this board and we come up with so much more!


Re: Bump encore   
  by - prettyboy_c (Mon May 22 2006 04:06:35 )   


Great thread
Besides the symbolism of the 'Surf party' clip, did that other clip have any significance? The guy with long hair walks in and some man pulls a gun behind him

(<>..<>)

Re: Bump encore   
  by - naun (Tue May 23 2006 11:29:24 )
   
   
Besides the symbolism of the 'Surf party' clip, did that other clip have any significance? The guy with long hair walks in and some man pulls a gun behind him

It may be an echo of the "trespassers will be shot" sign outside Aguirre's door in the opening scene, although I'll grant you it's not clear from the clip which of the two men is the intruder or "trespasser". In the same scene we see Ennis resisting Alma's suggestion to attend the church social, no doubt at least partly because he fears having his own "trespasses" exposed in the company of "that fire and brimstone crowd". This scene is followed by a brief bedroom scene which leads into the divorce scene, which visually mirrors, with cruel irony, the wedding scene, which had been introduced with the minister intoning the words, "forgive us our trespasses".

'Kojak' showing up Ennis's ennui   
  by - CaseyCornelius 3 days ago (Sat May 27 2006 19:53:19 )

   
UPDATED Sun May 28 2006 23:05:07
Hey, naun !!:
Great to see you back on this Board.
I'm impressed, one again, by one of your luminous posts on this seeming insignficant excerpt from Kojak on the del Mar Saturday night television viewing docket. Will not argue with anything you suggest.
I'd also comment on the visceral contrast in mood within the scene. The feel of the tension, movement, and suspense as depicted on the black and white TV scene constrasts SO markedly with the complete lack of movement in the living room, indicative of the palpable ennui and lethargy which has gripped Ennis, affecting Alma and his family. The avoidance of any contact with other people, even the 'fire and brimstone' crowd, on a Saturday night tells so much about the compromised and limited world which he has started to close around himself in Jack's absence. [Even in the ripe middle-age in which I find myself, I'm still embarassed to be 'caught' home with nothing to do on a Saturday night -- posting on this Board ironically !!]
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Re: The horses in the background
« Reply #3 on: February 27, 2010, 06:40:07 pm »
In many scenes on the mountain, Ennis' and Jack's horses are seen in the background, echoing the action in the foreground.


Quote
OT- About souvenirs..horses   
  by - RobertPlant (Fri Mar 3 2006 08:23:13 )   [/b]
   

I've posted in several other threads that in every scene showing Ennis's life between the Signal parting following Brokeback right up to the Riverton reunion with Jack there is a subtle visual or aural 'rhyme', souvenir, or reminiscence of the idealized loving relationship with Jack during the Brokeback summer.


I think you've already discussed this topic, sorry.
My question: is there something similar when we see Jack?


I looking for signs and noticed horses:

-there is a big horse head in Aguirre trailer, when Jack goes there and asks about Ennis (in the first summer it's not there)...btw in the first summer Aguirre binoculars are in teir case , in the second one they are outside
-the picture of an horse in the Bobby
birth scene, behind Jack. We see it well when he goes away. In the next image we see Ennis truck and the big ELK on the building at the corner.
-a little horse in the "Honey, where is my blue parka" scene (the previous image is the card Alma puts under the newspaper, with the big Honey on it)
-a picture with an horse in the Thanksgiving scene, behind Lureen father when Jack says him "you son of .."..(indeed Lureen is on that horse so maybe it doesn't count)
-two horses on the "entering Wyoming" signal..

Re: OT- About souvenirs..horses   
  by - CaseyCornelius (Fri Mar 3 2006 09:34:14 )
   
   
UPDATED Fri Mar 3 2006 22:08:20
I had not noticed the use of a visual 'horse motif' in Jack's scenes in as consistent a way as I had noticed the details I've raised with regard to Ennis.
Worth some thought.

My first reaction is that since both Lureen and Jack have rodeo riding in their background, it would make sense that they would have 'trophies' of their accomplishments peppered around their living spaces.

The horse as a symbol in film is frequently associated with a strong 'life-force' [and not just in westerns as I'm thinking of Andrei Tarkovsky's incredible "Andrei Rublev" here] - so it might make sense that there is some extra-quotidian significance to it with regard to Jack. He does have that iconic carving of the horse and rider on his childhood desk and there has been much discussion regarding his pulling the 'crow-hopping' horse under control in front of Ennis up on Brokeback, another revealing juxtaposition of the life-energy evident in the horse and the quenchless desire in Jack.

Re: OT- About souvenirs..horses   
  by - naun (Fri Mar 3 2006 20:35:05 )
   
...

Casey, it's interesting to hear you say that. I mentioned in another thread that the horses in BBM suggest to me the notion of nature being in harmony with itself. When the two men are together we frequently see horses in the background, usually grazing peacefully. I doubt it's accidental since the shot often appears to be framed deliberately to include the horses, the most notable example (if I'm not misremembering) perhaps being the "dozy embrace" shot. In (chronologically) later scenes, by contrast, we see the horses "caged" in the back of Ennis' truck, and of course that is what Jack sees when the "dozy embrace" scene returns to the present and Ennis departs for what turns out to be the last time. It may also be significant that the first time we see the horses confined in the back of Ennis' truck is at his home after his marriage to Alma.

Strangely enough the grazing horses reminded me of Andrei Rublev too, particularly the very last shot in the film. (I don't pretend to have the foggiest idea what Andrei Rublev is about -- if there's ever a CaseyCornelius thread on it, please let me know -- but that hasn't stopped some of its images from lodging in my mind in the fifteen or more years since I first saw it.) What you say about the horses representing a "life-force" rings true to me, especially when you bring up those scenes where Jack has trouble bringing his horse under control.

Interestingly, there's some fairly prominent "life-force" imagery in Hulk as well, although there it usually takes the form of moss, of all things. I mention this because there are some pretty obvious thematic similarities between the two films. In fact, I'm starting to think that there must have been some creative cross-pollination going on -- remembering that Ang Lee read the screenplay for BBM before he made Hulk. There's even a shot in BBM of horses treading on moss, which had never struck me as even remotely significant until this moment.

Horses and the Life Force   
  by - CaseyCornelius (Fri Mar 3 2006 22:38:44 )   

   
naun:
Thanks for your observations regarding the horses - astute as ever you are.
The freedom versus the containment of same is very telling throughout the film, just as you've pointed out.
I'd second your observation that the positioning of the horses within the frame or in relationship to the actors might have some significance. Repeating a post from another thread, I raise Ang Lee's admitted influence and admiration of Michelangelo Antonioni. And one can certainly see this in the scene of Jack bringing his 'crow-hopping' horse under control in one half of the frame juxtaposed with Ennis calmly cleaning breakfast dishes with his docile horse tethered in the background.
Lureen in her first lurid appearance is shown literally charging into the film on her wild mount [sorry, can't stop thinking of this suggestive rhyme to her name - right in keeping with Annie Proulx's Dickensian suggestive name choices of Twist, Aguirre, Alma]. What a perfect allusion to her take-charge, no nonsense, won't-take-no-for-an-answer, direct seduction of Jack two scenes later and in the rest of her life - obviously her Daddy's daughter?

I sense a terrific discussion nascent here, which might have to transfer to a new thread.
...
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