Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Got What They Deserved?
dly64:
--- Quote from: fontaine on June 24, 2006, 01:52:32 pm ---It's also one of the things that made this a good movie in that by portraying them as regular people--regular human beings--it avoided cliche (which is always good in fiction) and also helped make a political statement. But the movie, IMO, transcended political statements. The way it was written and filmed allowed it to take on more universal, human qualities. While it may have been society that discriminated against these two lovers, it was ultimately their inability and unwillingness to counter that society that was the deeper tragedy IMO.
Although we might wish that society made whoever we are more accepted and embraced, what other people do and don't do (individually and in a group) is outside our control. What is far harder to do is to change ourselves to deal with outer realities. Jack and Ennis, in particular, did not do that. To me, that was the greater tragedy and Ennis paid the price for it.
--- End quote ---
I think what you say has a lot of merit. I am going to quote some of Robert Ebert's review because I think it pertains to this issue (for those who are critic haters, don't kill me):
Ennis tells Jack about something he saw as a boy. "There were two old guys shacked up together. They were the joke of the town, even though they were pretty tough old birds." One day they were found beaten to death. Ennis says: "My dad, he made sure me and my brother saw it. For all I know, he did it."
This childhood memory is always there, the ghost in the room, in Ang Lee's "Brokeback Mountain." When he was taught by his father to hate homosexuals, Ennis was taught to hate his own feelings. Years after he first makes love with Jack on a Wyoming mountainside, after his marriage has failed, after his world has compressed to a mobile home, the laundromat, the TV, he still feels the same pain: "Why don't you let me be? It's because of you, Jack, that I'm like this -- I'm nothing, I'm nobody."
But it's not because of Jack. It's because Ennis and Jack love each other and can find no way to deal with that.
..... The movie wisely never steps back to look at the larger picture, or deliver the "message." It is specifically the story of these men, this love. It stays in closeup. That's how Jack and Ennis see it. "You know I ain't queer," Ennis tells Jack after their first night together. "Me, neither," says Jack.
Therein lies the tragedy. Ennis could not even allow himself to acknowledge he was in love with a man. To say Ennis was a "jerk" is simplistic. IMO, a person is shaped from what s/he knows ... that is his/ her "normal". Anything outside of that realm is overwelming, frightening. For Ennis, he was so fearful of his own feelings, he could hardly open his mouth to speak. And yet, ironically, he loved Jack so much that he could not share his love with anyone else (Alma, Cassie).
serious crayons:
Well, I think Ennis does acknowledge that he loves Jack, but otherwise I agree with you. And it's interesting, now that you mention it, that he blames Jack for his being nothin and nobody, when obviously it's society's fault, not Jack's. I always took that as just a sort of lashing-out behavior that he doesn't really mean -- like the punch when they leave the mountain. But at a certain level, he does mean it. Not that he really resents Jack for this, but he does accept society's dictates so deeply that he doesn't realize society should be held to blame.
dly64:
--- Quote from: latjoreme on June 24, 2006, 06:59:03 pm ---Well, I think Ennis does acknowledge that he loves Jack, but otherwise I agree with you. And it's interesting, now that you mention it, that he blames Jack for his being nothin and nobody, when obviously it's society's fault, not Jack's. I always took that as just a sort of lashing-out behavior that he doesn't really mean -- like the punch when they leave the mountain. But at a certain level, he does mean it. Not that he really resents Jack for this, but he does accept society's dictates so deeply that he doesn't realize society should be held to blame.
--- End quote ---
IMO, when Ennis says, "It's because of you that I'm like this ...," I see Ennis as "blaming" Jack that he is in love with a man. Even at the end of their relationship, Ennis still does not see himself as gay. He is so homophobic ... he can't begin to understand what he really feels. In other words, he cannot own his feelings. I agree that he acknowledges he loves Jack. However, I don't think he understands the depth of his love until Jack has died. By then, it is too late.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: dly64 on June 24, 2006, 07:25:59 pm ---IMO, when Ennis says, "It's because of you that I'm like this ...," I see Ennis as "blaming" Jack that he is in love with a man. Even at the end of their relationship, Ennis still does not see himself as gay. He is so homophobic ... he can't begin to understand what he really feels. In other words, he cannot own his feelings. I agree that he acknowledges he loves Jack. However, I don't think he understands the depth of his love until Jack has died. By then, it is too late.
--- End quote ---
I'm sorry, dly, but I have to respectfully disagree with every sentence in your post. But I realize this is probably THE big divide among Brokies (bigger even than the sorry/s'alright!) -- when, if ever, does Ennis realize he's gay; when, if ever, does Ennis realize how much he loves Jack; what exactly is it that he comes to understand at the end? Sounds like I am on the opposite side from you on all of these issues. But from what I gather, there are plenty of people on both sides.
dly64:
--- Quote from: latjoreme on June 24, 2006, 08:23:03 pm ---I'm sorry, dly, but I have to respectfully disagree with every sentence in your post. But I realize this is probably THE big divide among Brokies (bigger even than the sorry/s'alright!) -- when, if ever, does Ennis realize he's gay; when, if ever, does Ennis realize how much he loves Jack; what exactly is it that he comes to understand at the end? Sounds like I am on the opposite side from you on all of these issues. But from what I gather, there are plenty of people on both sides.
--- End quote ---
I can understand where you are coming from. But you are right ... we are on opposite sides. I see Ennis as being completely cut off from his emotions. He was taught to hate homosexuals ... in essense to hate himself. When Ennis comes up behind Jack in the flashback, the book and screenplay say:
"Later that dozy embrace solidified in his memory as the single moment of artless, charmed happiness in their separate and difficult lives. Nothing marred it, even the knowledge that Ennis would not then embrace him face to face because he did not want to see or feel that it was Jack he held."
IMO, Ennis could not face the reality that his one-in-a-lifetime love was a man until it was too late. When Ennis is at the Twist's and Jacks dick father (excuse my editorializing) talked about Jack saying "Ennis DelMar ... I'm goin' bring him up here one of these days ....." Ennis' expression is one of what might have been.
.... thus, begins the debate.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version