Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
As Easter nears, no Easter in Annie's story or the BM movie?? But??
Artiste:
Thanks atz!
--- Quote ---Maybe having religious holidays depicted would almost seem to be too much.
--- End quote ---
...
To that, why?
Maybe because religions so far refuse gay men? Lesbians?
Hugs!
Brown Eyes:
I just wonder if the filmmakers didn't want to become too heavy or heavy-handed with religious metaphors/subtexts/content. It's an underlying element of the film, but probably not meant to be too much of a dominant/ surface subject or issue.
Marge_Innavera:
--- Quote from: atz75 on February 22, 2008, 12:33:20 pm ---I think it's important to note that both the holidays represented in BBM - the 4th of July and Thanksgiving- are nationalistic/specifically American holidays. I think the decision to use patriotic-type holidays in the narrative may relate to the decision to make Jack and Ennis cowboys... in that one component of BBM has to do with re-confronting American myths and archetypes.
--- End quote ---
Good point. The religious references are a bit more subtle, such as Ennis asking Jack what the Pentecost is -- just hours before their own "Pentecostal fire". 8)
Brown Eyes:
Yes, the religious themes are somewhat understated, but they seem to run through the film at various levels. I'm not at all personally religious, but I think the deployment of certain religious metaphors is really very evocative and effectively done in BBM.
My favorite (maybe) is the three crosses that signal the beginning of the film.. they're of course, really electrical wire posts that appear to the left in the screen as the semi-truck carrying Ennis pulls up in Signal.
Also, as Lynne indicates, there's a long, complex argument to be made about the idea that Jack is a "Christ-like" figure. He is always the one leading Ennis (physically and visually... he's in front of the flock of sheep and even as they walk to the bar at the beginning... Jack is leading Ennis). Also, Jack does "walk on water" so to speak (a literalization of the song he sings) when they're on the way up to Brokeback and need to cross the stream. Jack is the one seen walking through the water. Etc. There's also the idea of Jack as a "sacrificial lamb" (the seeming connection between the sheep killed by "predator loss" on Brokeback equated to both Jack and Earl) that may be seen as playing into this metaphor too. Further, at the end... the idea that Jack is capable of comforting or reaching out to Ennis even after Jack's dead (i.e. through Ennis finding the shirts) seems to extend this concept.
And, the fact that Ennis and Jack are shepherds (even though we usually use the more modern phrase sheep herders or ranch hands) is of course loaded with possible religious subtext.
Artiste:
Thanks atz, thansks marge!!
Very interesting are your posts!
I remember religious images with persons and sheep. In the BM movie, of course there are persons (Jack and Ennis) with sheep!!
Remember when Jack carries one sheep over his shoulders??
More?
Hugs!!
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