Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Paper Bags
akredhead:
How lonely an existance when all that matters to you can fit in a bag.
--- Quote from: whiteoutofthemoon on June 04, 2006, 08:53:43 pm ---I'm presuming this has been discussed before, but as I'm new here, thought I'd chime in with a new thread and my take on the topic.
The first time I saw the movie, I was immediately struck by the opening scene in which Ennis gets off the truck with a paper bag in his hand. No suitcase, no duffel bag...just a solitary paper bag containing what he needs to work that summer. Very poignant and humble, reflecting not only his poverty, but the simple life he came from.
But this scene represents one of the several bookends in the movie. When you first see Ennis, he is carrying the paper bag, the wind is blowing, and he is looking somewhat aimlessly around. then flash to the end of the movie at the Twist house. This is the only other time that you see Ennis with a paper bag. Why in the world would Mrs Twist insist on putting the shirts into a paper bag? Ennis folds the top of the bag down in the exact same manner as the opening scene, and as he steps out of the house...you see him carrying the paper bag, wind blowing, and Ennis looking aimlessly around.
Two bookends, with the paper bags......his life began with Jack, his life was over with Jack's demise.
--- End quote ---
bbm_stitchbuffyfan:
This thread is making me cry. Literally.
It's a beautiful, beautiful parallel.
iristarr:
After all this time, and my being away from these forums for many weeks, I'm hooked again by this thread and the insightful thoughts here. I always wondered where Ennis got the cloth bag he carried his belongings in when he left the mountain. Maybe it was a sack that flour came in while they were up there. Any other ideas?
alec716:
--- Quote from: whiteoutofthemoon on June 04, 2006, 08:58:46 pm ---Right...the first time, all that he owned was in the bag...the second time, all that mattered.
--- End quote ---
I cannot imagine a better characterization of the scenes being discussed. Excellent!
Everyone's comments on this thread are literally giving me goosebumps as I recall the scene in the physically and emotionally barren Twist(ed) house. Parents' emotions twisted into decades' worth of knots, fingers twisted by years of hard labor in the fields and the house, hopes and dreams and affections of the once-young couple twisted into scrub brush and tumbleweed. And the father's view that his son was, well, twisted in his plans to live with a man.
I have to believe that Ennis' visit was Mrs. Twist's first opportunity to have a real connection with someone who truly loved her son... and I believe she knew the whole story, knew exactly who was visiting on that sunny day. To me, the bag into which she placed the shirts became a shroud for the most valuable part of her son that remained on earth -- the shirts which symbolized her son's ability to experience a love which she had likely never had the opportunity to feel or act on in her own life. I ache for her lonliness, and for the quiet desperation she expressed when asking Ennis to come visit again.
iristarr:
My God, Alec, I'm tearing up all over again!!! Will the insights that this incredible film has evoked ever end? Maybe not -- they'll just go on reverberating forever. I am truly without words to express my feelings about all this . . . Iris.
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