Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Report your use of Brokieisms in so-called "real life"
Sason:
Interesting discussion. Thanks, x-man, for reviving analysis and discussion about our movie!
I think Ma Twist knew Jack was gay, and what Ennis meant to him. Her knowing little smile when Ennis returns downstairs with the shirts tells me that. Maybe the reason she even suggested he go up there, was that she hoped he'd find the shirts.
Also, given OMT's form of fatherhood (the bathroom incident in the book, his open contempt with Jack, his lack of fatherly support etc), I think it's very likely that Jack did in fact not rave about Ennis when his father was around, but kept those confidences for his mother alone.
The fact that OMT knew where Brokeback Mountain is, and the way it emphasized it, doesn't necessarily mean that he knew anything about Jack's and Ennis' relationship, but rather the contempt he felt for his son who wished to be buried at some godforsaken mountain rather than in the family plot. His overall disappointment with Jack doesn't necessarily mean that he knew Jack was gay - he did, after all, marry and have a kid.
--- Quote from: Monika on September 29, 2013, 04:10:30 am --- Brokeback Mountain left both of them shell shocked, and neither one ever fully recovered from it.
--- End quote ---
Monika, I love the way you worded this!
The same goes for us, really.
x-man:
We're still waiting to hear from serious crayon and Jeff Wrangler, but I just want to add one small point. Monika, I agree with your analysis that Jack was the one who knew what he was doing, and I alluded to this. Proulx and the movie do have Ennis catching on pretty quickly, but he is responder, not initiator. It is the Second Night that gets my attention. After telling Jack that afternoon that what they done the previous night was only a "one-shot thing," Jack lies in the tent, waiting; Ennis sits by the fire, thinking. Then he slowly gets up and goes into the tent. Serious crayon, this is where Ennis really shows his courage. Consider what it took, with all his fears, for Ennis to show that it was not to be a one-shot thing at all. He then goes in and shyly offers himself to Jack. Here we go beyond sex, to love. Whatever they end up doing, Jack is here making love to Ennis, and showing that he, Jack, is a knowing, experienced, and tender partner. He indeed knows what he is doing, and doing a pretty good job of it. Whether that experience was from random encounters around Lightening Flat in previous times, or with the previous herder the summer before, we may never know. Except, if that experience HAD been with the previous year's herder, would Jack have waited so long to get things going with Ennis? If he had had a previous encounter on the mountain, would he not have thought that sex was just a regular part of the scene on BBM?
x-man:
Excellent points, Sason, especially about the mother knowing and hoping Ennis would find the shirts, Jack's guardedness around his father, etc. Your position is closer to my original posting--now I don't know what to think.
Sason:
I agree, x-man. Going into that tent where he knew Jack was waiting for him, was probably the most courageous thing Ennis ever did in his life. For the main part, he just did what was expected of him in a given situation. But going into that tent - that was really challenging his internalised homophobia, his fears, his self denial, his life long strive to pass for a "normal" straight man.
--- Quote from: x-man on September 29, 2013, 09:05:36 am ---now I don't know what to think.
--- End quote ---
Well, welcome in the club! ;D
That's part of the beauty of BBM - there are so many ambiguities, we can never be sure of so many things. They will always be open to interpretation and new input. If you follow the usual course of the brokie fever, you'll eventually settle with the not-knowing, x-man.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: x-man on September 29, 2013, 08:55:22 am ---We're still waiting to hear from serious crayon and Jeff Wrangler.
--- End quote ---
I'm glad you ordered a copy of Story to Screenplay. I can't imagine who criticized it here--but let be, let be. ??? As I said, Annie's essay is priceless, and it will also give you a screenplay--though not necessarily a "shooting script," and you'll notice there are lines in the film--ad libs?--that aren't in the screenplay.
No offense meant, but it seems to me that some of your questions are getting into the area of "counterfactual history," so to speak. We don't know how Earl and Rich behaved in public, or how many bedrooms their house had. It's just a "given" of the story that they were a couple of "tough old birds," but also that they were "a joke" around Ennis's home town. Let's put it this way. It might be within the realm of possibility that they weren't even homosexual, but the "given" is that at least the community presumed they were homosexual, and that's the important point: The community assumed they were "queer," and that's why Earl was murdered. You will read in Annie's essay that the author herself says the story is not about "two gay cowboys in love." It's about the effects of rural homophobia.
Annie's essay also discusses homosexual sex among guys doing the type of isolated work that Ennis and Jack did. I've assumed since I read the story that Jack had some experience of homosexual sex because it wasn't his first summer in the mountains, and because he took the initiative. He knew what to do to get the ball rolling.
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