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

TOTW 10/08: Jack's hang-ups - or lack thereof

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myprivatejack:

--- Quote from: optom3 on March 24, 2008, 04:13:49 pm ---Thankyou for your lovely comments.
Is that not the beauty of it though.We are lost in the tragedy of their meeting.We the viewer ache to shout and scream at them as we watch it unfold before us.Yet at the same time are  simultaneously rendered speechless, by the hold they have over us and our emotions.What a paradox.For the first time ,the film led me to truly understand the phrase,dumbstruck.It is like those terrible nightmares you sometimes have, when you open your mouth and no sound is emitted.That is how I felt when I first watched the film,with tears streaming down my face.
It was like a moving,living, breathing version of that painting,the scream,watching dreams become nightmares.

--- End quote ---
Beautiful post,Optom¡ It's what most of us have felt sometimes watching BBM,but indeed you've put it into words much better... :'(
Coming back to the topic,I really think that all Jack's hang-ups were,as you said,Ennis and reality.And I'd add that not having a real support in his daily life to win reality,on one side,and Ennis fears,on the other side.He had nobody by his side who believed in him and in his possibilities,neither as son,nor as husband or father...And the only one who could believe it-Ennis-was his greater enemy in this sense;it wasn't a question of believing in him,but to believe in what he dreamed about-or better,to admit it...-.In spite of this,or maybe because of this,Jack had during all his life enough touch as not to put Ennis against the ropes,obliging him to decide something;his main fear was to fear Ennis so much as he could run  away from him. Maybe this behaviour was the reason of his progressive lost of dreams and illusions and lead to a final confrontation that must take place much before,IMO.Yes,surely Jack was a dreamer much more than a doer,but his own circumstances made him lost his strenght to fight for what he wanted and get it in the end... :'(  :'(
Ah¡ Pentesilea,you said:"And I'm sure nobody of us could picture Jack as a rainbow flag carrying advocate of gay rights."Of course not,but he could be a kind of rough predecessor.In the sense that,for me at least,fighting for having a dignity as a same-sex couple in the difficult environment of the rural  60´s America  could be the most similar to what we understand this now.I don't know if this makes sense...

BlissC:
Aw, Jeez! I can see this week's gonna be a tough one. It's already set me off again sniffling just reading the comments so far!  :'(


--- Quote from: optom3 on March 24, 2008, 03:27:43 pm ---He was forever the optimist,and as long as you have your dreams,that can make up for many a shortfall in reality.Take away the dreams and reality then bites hard.
Jack in the last meeting with Ennis surely feels the last remnants of his dream,get blown away on the wind.It is at this point that that his dreams maybe become his biggest hang-up.Hence his explosion,reality sucks.So could it be that Jacks dreams,once his greatest comfort,finally become his greatest hang-up, ultimately,the shattering of which,leads to his death.For Jack I do believe up until then,hope had always sprung eternal.
He has I believe already died emotionally,when his dreams of a sweet life with Ennis died.All that remains is the physical death,which seems almost a forgone conclusion.Unbeknown to him,Ennis by trying to protect his lover has in fact done completely the reverse.Therein lies the horrendous tragedy which haunts,Ennis and will continue to do so,and also us the viewer.Never has the phrase,we always hurt the one we love most,resonated more devastatingly.

--- End quote ---

I agree. Reality was Jack's greatest single hang-up. As you say Optom, by their final meeting Jack has already died emotionally, and that's yet another of the tragedies that unfolds through the course of the story - the fact that we first meet a young man who's a dreamer, and watch as year by year those dreams get crushed ever further away and unattainable, and as you say, the physical death does seem almost a foregone conclusion. There is no other possible conclusion to the story.


--- Quote ---behind all those masks is the one constant,his love for Ennis. His greatest joy and ultimately his undoing.

--- End quote ---

*gulp* I'm so not gonna cry again....okay then so I am...


--- Quote from: optom3 on March 24, 2008, 04:13:49 pm ---We are lost in the tragedy of their meeting.We the viewer ache to shout and scream at them as we watch it unfold before us.Yet at the same time are  simultaneously rendered speechless, by the hold they have over us and our emotions.What a paradox.For the first time ,the film led me to truly understand the phrase,dumbstruck.It is like those terrible nightmares you sometimes have, when you open your mouth and no sound is emitted.That is how I felt when I first watched the film,with tears streaming down my face.
It was like a moving,living, breathing version of that painting,the scream,watching dreams become nightmares.

--- End quote ---

Dumbstruck. That sums it up perfectly. I've only ever watched the film in silence. I could never put into spoken words anyhow the emotions it makes me feel. Having said that, since the second time I've watched the film I always speak three words, or rather whisper them, because it's my own private promise, right at the end of the film. "Jack, I swear..." I'm not the swearing kind either, but...

Back to Jack's hang-ups though, there's an interesting line in the story, right at the beginning about Jack - "he was crazy to be somewhere, anywhere else than Lightning Flat". I guess part of it's maybe his hang-ups about his father, and I can't help but feel that's part of the reason he's "crazy" over Ennis. He tells Ennis up on the mountain, "Can't please my old man, no way", and he tells Ennis he never went to see him rodeo. Part of me feels he gave up hope of ever trying to please his father, to impress him, but he he transfers that need to be approved of, to do whatever he can to please, to Ennis. Cook for Ennis, do his washing, drive 14 hours to be with Ennis, drive straight there when he heard about Ennis's divorce...A lot of it was obviously just wanting desperately to be with Ennis, but I can't help but feel that there was an element of wanting Ennis's approval, Ennis's respect. He didn't get it from his wife, or his father-in-law, or even he hints from his son's teacher. Ennis was the one person who accepted him.

optom3:
BlissC that is such a good point you made about wanting approval.It is glaringly obvious when I think of it.He is like a child in many ways,desperate to please and gain some recognition.It should have slapped me in the face as I am very much like that.My father had such high standards for us,his approval was almost impossible to gain.
Only recently has he said how proud he is of me.Every relationship I have been in,bar one I have acted as Jack,desperately seeking,the pat on the back.Always doing the running around.
So I agree 100% it is a big hang-up of his.Undoubtedly having its roots in his damaging relationship  with his father.Jake acts it so brilliantly as well,now I look at it from that angle,all doe eyed and silent pleading.Yes part of it is love,but that is inextricably bound up with wanting approval.The two go hand in hand.

Katie77:
The posts here are really great and really sum Jack up perfectly.

I have always wondered about what kind of conclusion Jack and Ennis came to after the last lake scene, and if it was the end of Jack's dreams.

The emotional outburst from Ennis, was the first time he had ever let his true feelings and insecurities out, he was telling Jack, in a round about way, that "its because of you, Jack, I'm this way"......he was finally telling him that he loved him (in a round about way), telling him that its because of what there is between the two of them, that has controlled his whole life.

I have always thought, that instead of being the end of Jack's dreams, it would have been some reassurance that Ennis felt exactly the same way about him as he did....

We dont know what happened between the two of them, after the grasping clutch on the ground, or what was said in reply to what Ennis said, but the one consolation we do have, is that Jack did not die wondering.......he did know how Ennis felt.

BlissC:

--- Quote from: optom3 on March 26, 2008, 06:40:15 pm ---Jake acts it so brilliantly as well,now I look at it from that angle,all doe eyed and silent pleading.Yes part of it is love,but that is inextricably bound up with wanting approval.The two go hand in hand.

--- End quote ---

I think you've hit the nail on the head there Optom. Jack talks, Jack's always talking, always acting the clown, but it's what he doesn't say that's much more telling, and Jake portrays that so brilliantly. 

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