Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Double meanings: Lines that can be taken more than one way
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Mikaela on June 01, 2006, 07:09:34 pm ---Hmmm. I see what you mean - I agree on him accepting himself, having reached some point of peace with his nature. But he still keeps who he is hidden from everyone else than himself, away in that closet, and as such, I think society does have a strong influence on him - just as before, it makes him hide and conform and stay silent. Also, I would argue that him attending the wedding implies him conforming to society's rules, and not the oppsosite, as I mentioned in my previous post. Unless US rural society is very different from the place where I live and grew up....... Over here at least, "society" would really frown at a father who didn't move heaven and earth to attend his own daughter's wedding and walk her up the aisle if she wanted him to.
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I agree. That is usually how it goes here, too. In this case, though, I think the metaphor has been turned around because it makes the point better. Before, Ennis rejected Alma's request to live with him because he had to work. And he told Jack they couldn't meet in August because he had to work. And he couldn't live with Jack in the first place because of he had a family and needed to "make a living." So maybe instead of "society" we should call it "obligations." It's that trait in him that makes him feel he has to eat beans instead of sheep.
But at the end of the movie, he is finally able to do the latter. The reason he decides to go to the wedding isn't that he fears "society" would disapprove if he skipped it. (And the fact that he could lose his job would provide a socially acceptable excuse not to go.) Instead, he decides to go because he loves Alma and saw the disappointment in her face when he mentioned the roundup and realized that if he skipped her wedding she would be sad and doesn't want to repeat the mistake he made with Jack.
As for why he lives alone at the end, I see it less as a matter of hiding and conforming and staying silent because of his sexuality than because of his unsociable personality and his grief. Not that I see him leading a gay pride parade anytime soon, but to me it seems that shame about his sexuality is less a factor by this point.
tiawahcowboy:
The Movie closet at the Twist home had a door on it and so did Ennis's trailer closet.
But, the Story closet in Jack's boyhood bedroom did not have a door because it just a shallow cavity in the wall with a cretonne fabric curtain hung from a string, closing it off from the bedroom. [Cretonne fabric is a type of upholstery material.]
And, in the Story, Ennis did not hang the shirts in the closet; he hung them on the trailer wall.
In the Bible story of Jesus dying on the cross, at the very moment he gave up his Spirit and died, the fabric curtain, aka the Veil in front of the Holy of Holies, in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem split from the top down to the bottom. And, everything that had been hidden behind the curtain which only the high priest had seen only once a year was open to the other worshippers to see.
Story Jack had hidden the shirts on a nail (probably without a hanger), in a jog in the wall, in his Lightning Flat closet and I think that was his own "holy" place for the shirts. While many people believe his mother knew they were there, I personally don't think so. [Oh, the Bible word translated as "holy" does not alway refer to something consecrated by a religious leader; at times, it just means something designated as having a special purpose.
Since Ennis had opened the holy place in Jack's curtained closet, I say that his own holy place was the trailer wall in which he lived on the Stoutamire ranch.
Ellemeno:
--- Quote from: nakymaton on May 23, 2006, 06:43:27 pm ---Meaning #3: Ever notice that the first line in the movie is Jack swearing, and the last line is "Jack, I swear..."?
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Oh, this is going to be a great thread to catch up on, I can tell already. Thank you, Katherine, for starting it, and thank you, nakymaton, for your pearls.
Update: Okay, now I'm like 10 posts into this thread, and I feel sycophantic adoration for all of you - Amanda, Katherine, Lee, Mel, and others.
Gosh I love this movie and this place.
Mikaela:
--- Quote ---The reason he decides to go to the wedding isn't that he fears "society" would disapprove if he skipped it.
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No - I don't think he fears society - I'm just thinking that this once, society's rules and what he truly wishes to do based on love for another person are perfectly aligned - and that simplifies his decision, -strongly nudges him in that specific direction.
--- Quote ---.....but to me it seems that shame about his sexuality is less a factor by this point.
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Your view is a tad more optimistic than mine here! I think I really envy you. :)
Though he's come to terms with what he had with Jack and what it truly meant to him, I still cannot help seeing...... well, if not shame - then at least a fear of other peoples' and society's disapprobation, or their meddling, or their lack of acceptance..... - in him hiding the shirts in the closet. Then again, probably that last image is intended more as an emotional, poignant and visually stunning closing statement for the whole movie, its story and message - rather than a minute indication of Ennis's relation to society's norms at that specific point in time. I'd like to think you're right in this.
At any rate, I think at the end of the film Ennis has finally managed to fight down the cruel and crippling influence of his own father's abusive actions and prejudices, and if there are a few things to be happy about there at the end, surely the fact that he's welcoming in his daughter's love and showing his father's hatred and bigotry the door must be one of them....
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Mikaela on June 01, 2006, 07:51:56 pm ---At any rate, I think at the end of the film Ennis has finally managed to fight down the cruel and crippling influence of his own father's abusive actions and prejudices, and if there are a few things to be happy about there at the end, surely the fact that he's welcoming in his daughter's love and showing his father's hatred and bigotry the door must be one of them....
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We can certainly agree on this! :D
This movie is very ambiguous throughout, and the ending particularly so. I don't just mean the "I swear," but everything about the ending. How much, if any, did Ennis come to accept his sexuality? What did he finally realize about his relationship with Jack? We could argue endlessly, I suppose. But one thing for sure, I guess, is that he makes progress of some sort. :) :'( :)
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