Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Yin and Yang: Ennis and Jack
Brown Eyes:
Oh, oh, more on whether or not the yin and yang idea was deliberate! I made myself re-watch all the bonus features on the DVD last night (which I hadn't done for a long, long time) and discovered that in one of the on camera interviews Jake actually refers to the tension between Jack and Ennis as yin and yang. So, I would guess that there were at least discussions about this metaphor on the set.
I like to think of yin and yang in more abstract terms... without loading a lot of gender baggage onto it. Although, I guess the gendered connotations become really complex when talking about two men.
Meryl:
I like to think that the yin/yang philosophy did play a part in the film, especially since Ang Lee was raised in the Asian culture. When this was being discussed at IMDb, on Casey's pentacles thread, I noticed something that made me wonder if Ang Lee had put a literal yin/yang symbol right into the film.
Look at the scene where Ennis is in Jack's room at the Twist ranch. Directly across from the window is a barn with the door open. The barn door is light grey, and the interior of the barn is black, creating a rectangle that is half light, half dark. A white piece of machinery is inside the dark half, much like there is a white dot in the black half of the yin/yang symbol. No black dot adorns the light half of the rectangle (maybe because Jack is no longer alive?).
Ennis props open the window and sits down. As he lowers himself to sit, the camera follows him downward, bringing the yin/yang rectangle into position exactly between two horizontal bars of the window. For a brief moment we see it framed there. Just an accident? It seems like that shot would have had to be carefully planned.
Mikaela:
**Rushes to watch the scene at once**
I've now and then thought it would have been really neat if someone with skills in animation made an icon or the like with the two naturalistic cowboy hats ( for instance as they appear in the dozy embrace scene) slowly moving and merging into a stylizied yin/yang symbol. I'd have loved that!!
Penthesilea:
Hi Meryl,
do you mean this?
On stripedwall.com it can be seen bigger and in better quality. But somehow I can't insert the pic from stripedwall and I can't link it. It's always 404ing :(
Meryl:
Yep, that's it! Cool, isn't it? 8)
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