Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Report your use of Brokieisms in so-called "real life"
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on October 03, 2013, 08:33:51 pm ---He is. But part of him is also uncomfortable about his time with Jack, to the point of canceling the get-together in August.
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I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here, or, if I do, I think I don't agree. You're referring to the "What the hell happened to August?" August?
Ennis is certainly uncomfortable telling Jack he can't make it because he predicts, correctly, that Jack's going to be really angry. But I've always taken Ennis's explanation at face value. They're both older--39--and money--or the lack of it--is weighing more heavily on Ennis than when they were in their 20s, say. People often get more cautious as they grow older, less willing to quit jobs and run off to the mountains for a high-altitude fuck. Ennis has had a harder life than Jack, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was "older" at 39 than Jack was. I also wouldn't be surprised if he owed back child support, and in view of that scene in the kitchen, I expect Alma would be just the person to keep after him for it, even if she really didn't need the money for the girls (she seems to have moved up in the world to a resonably comfortable middle class existence).
No, I can't say as I see that cancellation as coming from discomfort with being with Jack per se.
(Of course, bear in mind that a couple of years ago my whole team on my own job was told we shouldn't schedule vacation for August because our supervisor expected us to be very busy at that time of year! So I can really relate to Ennis here! :laugh:)
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on October 04, 2013, 10:45:09 am ---I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here, or, if I do, I think I don't agree. You're referring to the "What the hell happened to August?" August?
Ennis is certainly uncomfortable telling Jack he can't make it because he predicts, correctly, that Jack's going to be really angry. But I've always taken Ennis's explanation at face value. They're both older--39--and money--or the lack of it--is weighing more heavily on Ennis than when they were in their 20s, say. People often get more cautious as they grow older, less willing to quit jobs and run off to the mountains for a high-altitude fuck. Ennis has had a harder life than Jack, and I wouldn't be surprised if he was "older" at 39 than Jack was. I also wouldn't be surprised if he owed back child support, and in view of that scene in the kitchen, I expect Alma would be just the person to keep after him for it, even if she really didn't need the money for the girls (she seems to have moved up in the world to a resonably comfortable middle class existence).
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I agree with you aside from the part about Alma, which I think is overly negative (regardless of their relative financial pictures, both parents need to contribute child support, but it's based on income, so if Ennis' is low the monthly payments would also be low). Absolutely, Ennis uses his job as an excuse, and I don't think he's lying. I just don't think he's telling everything to Jack, maybe not even to himself. Though I think Jack gets it.
There's another level of emotion going on below the "what the hell happened to August" exchange. To Jack, their HAFs are the most important thing in the world. He'd get there even if it meant losing a job. Just like he drove across the country on an impulse to see Ennis after the divorce. Ennis isn't holding their trips at the same priority.
And why not? Because Ennis is poorer, sure, and has to worry more about jobs and work. But also because he's much more ambivalent than Jack about the whole relationship. Yes, he loves Jack and is comfortable in his company. But he's very uncomfortable with the idea of himself as someone who would be most comfortable with "this thing" that grabs ahold of them. He not only doesn't want others to find out, he just doesn't want to be that person at all. So he finds other explanations -- work, money -- to cancel.
Writing this, I suddenly thought of Ennis' much earlier line, "I ain't in the poorhouse yet" in a new light. He sure winds up in the poorhouse in the end. Not just financially, but in terms of his life. If poverty can apply to happiness and life experiences and emotional fulfillment, his little trailer represents "the poorhouse" that way, too.
x-man:
If we look only at the book, the dozy embrace lines, "Nothing marred it, even the knowledge that Ennis would not then embrace him face to face because he did not want to see nor feel that it was Jack he held. And maybe, he thought, they'd never got much farther than that," completely destroys my argument about Ennis' interiorized homophobia. I had been reading the "then" as "then at that moment." The next line clinches it for you: "They'd never got much farther than that." Yours is the clear meaning of the text. I was actually rather shocked to reread those lines as saying that it had always been that way. I realized that I was misreading the text to suit my own desire for everything to be well with the two.
I am still troubled by the reunion. The book describes a scene if anything more passionate than the movie. Ennis is not troubled by embracing Jack face to face. This is accentuated by his virtual indifference to Alma's catching them when she opened the door a second time.
Would you accept the idea that movie Ennis is less homophobic than book Ennis? Besides the reunion, in the movie, we have the "I ain't queer" happening before the second night in the tent only. Also it is obvious to me that from their behaviour towards each other from their second night on they were lovers not casual sex-partners. It is inconceivable to me that in 20 years their lovemaking would be limited only to Ennis taking Jack from the back and that was all there was to it. If all there was to it was "a couple of high altitude fucks once or twice a year" would Jack even bother to say "I wish I knew how to quit you"? If Jack just wanted a fuck he knew how to get it without Ennis. Ennis provided love, and he must have shown it.
I think the problem disappears if we treat the movie and the book as separate texts. In the book there are inconsistencies that cannot be gotten rid of by interpretation. The movie removes them by leaving out any reference to lovedmaking as Ennis-top/Jack-bottom/fuck only.
About the Jimbo bar scene. You ask a good question, "What's the point of that scene?" The point is either, as I suggest #1, to show a vulnerable Jack, lonely, reaching out unsuccessfully to another human being, emphasizing what he has lost in being separated from Ennis. #2, as you suggest, Jack was cruising Jimbo, Jimbo knew it and was repelled, while the bartender looked on disapprovingly. You appear to be basing your case on the screenplay as presented in Story to Screenplay: "The CLOWN looked surprised...JACK stands close to his shoulder...There is something , a frisson, a vibe that gives the CLOWN an uneasy feeling...although he remains perfectly friendly...takes his beer, stands up (and after the exchange with the bartender) JACK slams down the rest of his beer. Looks around anxiously. Puts a ten on the bar. Leaves"
If that were what we saw in the movie, I would agree with you. But that was NOT in the movie. Jack walks over, sits on the next stool--he does not stand close to him--and the frisson and vibe to not make it from screenplay page to the actor's expression. What we actually do see is #1. Cruising is a more complex maneuver than looking directly at someone longer than necessary, as you claim Jack did. Screenplay bartender watches the whole Jack/Jimbo exchange and has "seen it all." Movie bartender does not say to Jack "Well, you win a few, you lose a few--nice try." He does ask Jack if he has considered a roping horse, apparently discounting his efforts in the ring that day. Only then does Jack react in anger. He stalks out, he does not "look around anxiously." You seem to be saying that straight people would see the scene as homoerotically charged. Would they if not previously warned by the screenplay?
I am coming more and more to the conclusion that the difference in our positions is based on not separating the book from the original screenplay, and from the movie, and on the book having internal inconsistencies that cannot be explained away.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: serious crayons on October 04, 2013, 11:11:34 am ---There's another level of emotion going on below the "what the hell happened to August" exchange. To Jack, their HAFs are the most important thing in the world. He'd get there even if it meant losing a job. Just like he drove across the country on an impulse to see Ennis after the divorce. Ennis isn't holding their trips at the same priority.
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Agreed.
--- Quote ---And why not? Because Ennis is poorer, sure, and has to worry more about jobs and work. But also because he's much more ambivalent than Jack about the whole relationship. Yes, he loves Jack and is comfortable in his company. But he's very uncomfortable with the idea of himself as someone who would be most comfortable with "this thing" that grabs ahold of them. He not only doesn't want others to find out, he just doesn't want to be that person at all. So he finds other explanations -- work, money -- to cancel.
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Well, OK, I agree with this, up to the last part. Sounds to me like you're over-emphasizing his internalized homophobia--which is what you're describing--as his reason for cancelling. I've often said that I believe that human beings have an infinite capaclity to lie to themselves, but I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this point. I don't think August--specifically August--bgoes any deeper than what Ennis says. He does, after all, offer the alternative of a get-together during the hunting season, when the ranch work has slacked off. (However, I recognize that two guys getting together in an isolated cabin during the hunting season might be less likely to raise eyebrows and questions than two guys getting together in August might. Straight guys do that sort of thing all the time.)
(BTW, I didn't know that level of child support was pegged to income, but I still think Alma is not the type of person to let Ennis slide on that, not in view of the anger that finally boiled over in the kitchen that Thanksgiving.)
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on October 04, 2013, 11:43:33 am ---I don't think August--specifically August--bgoes any deeper than what Ennis says. He does, after all, offer the alternative of a get-together during the hunting season, when the ranch work has slacked off. (However, I recognize that two guys getting together in an isolated cabin during the hunting season might be less likely to raise eyebrows and questions than two guys getting together in August might. Straight guys do that sort of thing all the time.)
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I don't mean August, specifically, because it's the 8th month and in Deuteronomy, 8 means ... or because it's named after Augustus, who was known for ... No. I don't even think getting together in hunting season vs. fishing season seems really that much safer.
I just mean he's willing to let a whole get-together slide, wait an additional three months before seeing Jack again. That, to me, is the behavior of someone who has changed considerably since his eager "You bet," drinking 12 beers, "Jack Fuckin Twist" days. He's either grown more cautious or more conflicted or both. The night-before conversation and the breakdown scene suggests internal conflict is at least one big factor. "It's because of you I'm like this." He loves Jack, but he doesn't want to be "like this."
--- Quote ---[ Alma is not the type of person to let Ennis slide on that, not in view of the anger that finally boiled over in the kitchen that Thanksgiving.)
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Agreed. Though at 19 Junior is no longer of coverable age, so the payments would be half of what they used to be.
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