Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
TOTW 18/07: Do you think classic cowboy icons like the "Marlboro Man" were proto
Penthesilea:
--- Quote from: injest on December 14, 2007, 01:33:18 am ---the first question I would have to settle in my mind is "Is Brokeback Mountain a western movie?" There are none of the other things I would think of as being in a western movie. (other than horses and sheep)
the time is wrong, the action is wrong,
to me this movie is a love story not a western
--- End quote ---
I can see your point and you are right, it depends of your definition of Western. BBM is clearly not a classical Western. This topic interested me enough to look up what wikipedia says about Westerns (all following quotes in navy are from this page:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_%28genre%29#)
In genereal, I think there are more things in BBM which are typical for Westerns than horses and sheep:
* the setting in the rural american West
* clothing
* equipment (they type of tent on Bokeback, the canvas buckets, the guns, etc. I would even put the pickups into this category, as a modern version of typical means of transportation in rural West)
* type of work which is done (and no, I don't mean selling combines ;))
* the hero as stoic, taciturn loner
* the hero as standing somewhat outside society, being in conflict with military, law, or society in general
* the vast landscape becomes more than a vivid backdrop; it becomes a character in the movie
Wikipedia lists different sub-genres of the Western:
- Contemporary [Western] films: Contemporary Westerns are films that have contemporary American settings but nevertheless utilise Old West themes and motifs (a rebellious anti-hero, open plains and desert landscapes, and gunfights *). For the most part, they still take place in the American West and reveal the progression of the Old West mentality into the late twentieth century. This sub-genre often features Old West-type characters struggling with displacement in a "civilized" world that rejects their outdated brand of justice.
Examples include Tommy Lee Jones' The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada; Sam Peckinpah's Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974); John Sayles' Lone Star (1996); Robert RodrÃguez's Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003); Ang Lee's controversial film about gay cowboys, Brokeback Mountain (2005); and Wim Wenders' Don't Come Knocking (2005).
* = in BBM, we have part of these examples:
* Ennis as anti-hero (think about the fireworks scene, which ends itself with a classical Western shot where Ennis looks much like the archetype of a cowboy - yet it's not a heroic situation for him, his family is terrified by his behaviour). The rebellious thing is quite interesting: while I don't see Ennis as rebellious by character at all (in contrast, he tries hard to blend in), he is still rebellious enough to let a love-affair between him and Jack happen and let it continue for 20 years. Given his character and his crippling fears, this is almost a little wonder.
* We do have open plains, but no desert landscapes.
* No gunfights though, but at least a (kind of) fistfight between the two. And we have a kind of indirect gunfight: Jack missing the coyote, whereas Ennis shoots the coyote and hits the elk.
--- Quote ---to me this movie is a love story not a western
--- End quote ---
To me, it's both.
Penthesilea:
The German wikipedia lists more characteristics of non-classical Westerns, of which some are true for BBM:
- bigger (regarding screen-time and importance) roles for women
- critical attitude towards its heroes
- non-traditional sexuality
Brown Eyes:
Yes, I also agree that BBM is largely a love story. But, lots of westerns have a love story as, often a secondary, theme.
In investigating the romantic possibilities between the pair of main cowboys (instead of a protagonist cowboy and a female character... who is almost always featured as a secondary character) BBM is tweaking this longstanding aspect of westerns I think. Also, it's foregrounding a tension (attraction between the two main cowboys) that's usually just below the surface in traditional westerns. I recall from an award ceremony (the Oscars maybe?) in consideration of BBM, they played a montage of old westerns where there are obvious sexual or romantic innuendos going on between the featured cowboys. Does anyone else remember this montage?
And, in making this a modern western... and in heavily highlighting things like rural poverty and the non-glamorous aspects of small-town living... BBM is certainly concerned with a kind of modern realism.
Penthesilea:
--- Quote from: injest on December 10, 2007, 09:34:59 pm ---Del's point was that Marlboro man imitated the way men dressed in real life out west. and that is the simple truth...whether or not BBM conciously decided to imitate Marlboro or the original that the ad people copied is open to debate. I don't see how you could differentiate between copying the original or copying the copy.
I take pics at the rodeos and at reining competitions and team pennings...places where men that wear Carharts and western hats everyday as their clothes (not costumes) and they all hold their heads and themselves very similarly to how Ennis did. They all use that brim the way Ennis did to hide expression or avoid eye contact. Yes, the Marlboro man ads are carefully staged and costumed....to look like ranchers and cowboys...
--- End quote ---
You and Del have a very valid point here. Especially about the non-existing(?) difference between copying the original and copying the copy (like the way you put it, so simple and logical).
Yet I do think the depiction of Ennis has role models not only in real-life (like Richard Avadon's book), but also in art. I even think I can remember Ang Lee directly referring to the Marlboro Man and I think it was in the Charlie Rose interview. Does anyone know this for sure (or can falsify it)? Otherwise I'll check it and report back.
Brown Eyes:
--- Quote from: Penthesilea on December 14, 2007, 10:11:44 am ---
You and Del have a very valid point here. Especially about the non-existing(?) difference between copying the original and copying the copy (like the way you put it, so simple and logical).
Yet I do think the depiction of Ennis has role models not only in real-life (like Richard Avadon's book), but also in art. I even think I can remember Ang Lee directly referring to the Marlboro Man and I think it was in the Charlie Rose interview. Does anyone know this for sure (or can falsify it)? Otherwise I'll check it and report back.
--- End quote ---
I actually do think there's a difference between copying the original and copying a copy. Because the copy has been layered with meaning beyond the original.
If there was any kind of concsious effort to evoke James Dean and something like the Marlboro Man... then the filmmakers are choosing particularly glamorous/handsome/appealing/sexy examples of the cowboy-image as a baseline for Ennis in addition to the more realistic image of a skinny, hard-living, perhaps-impoverished cowboy as suggested by the Avedon image. These two contrasting ideas of the cowboy are combined in Ennis I think.
There are other types of cowboy images (very famous) that BBM seems to have avoided for the most part. I'm thinking of famous old-time media cowboys like Gene Autry (as one quick example).
<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/3109701-028.jpg" border="0" />
Staying with the Marlboro Man, for example... the advertisers chose to use a baseline image of a rancher/cowboy (real people, observed in real life), but they chose the image of a rancher for a particular reason. Perhaps wanting to show that their cigarettes are an attribute associated with a glamorous form of masculinity. The men in these ads are always handsome, their clothing is often perfect and there's a uniformity in how they're posed. The advertisers know that cowboys are a component of fantasy for lots of men (not sexual necessarily)... the ideal of rugged, western living is, I think, a fantasy for lots of men (straight and gay) from the time they're little boys and this idolization is perpetuated in media. This fantasy doesn't necessarily reflect the reality of real ranchers' lives. If this particular type of image was in mind for Ennis, then I think BBM is making a comment on complex social realities lurking beneath the surface of images of glamorous cowboys.
<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/midsize/2979998-d71.jpg" border="0" />
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