Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Got What They Deserved?
dly64:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on June 25, 2006, 07:45:37 pm ---Now, there's an interesting thought! I think I have in the past discussed that the meaning of the dozy embrace memory has to be different in the movie than in the story with regard to the development of Ennis's character, because of TS2 (aka SNIT ;D), but "figuratively versus literally" is an angle I hadn't thought of.
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I am sure not everyone will agree with my analogy. IMO, however, that "dozy embrace" is symbolic of their relationship together. It was loving, but it was also plagued with Ennis' denial of his feelings .... his internal love for Jack.
ednbarby:
--- Quote from: dly64 on June 25, 2006, 08:23:35 pm ---I am sure not everyone will agree with my analogy. IMO, however, that "dozy embrace" is symbolic of their relationship together. It was loving, but it was also plagued with Ennis' denial of his feelings .... his internal love for Jack.
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I think you're right on the money, Diane. Even though, as we've discussed here, Movie Ennis takes great pains to at least look at Movie Jack's profile, he is still in keeping with Story Ennis in that at that point in their relationship, he would not (or could not) embrace Jack from the front and look him in the face as he did that. And in both cases, Jack's last thought about their relationship that we know about is that maybe they'd never come any further than that. I think he's right. Doesn't make me angry with Ennis. Just heartbroken for him.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on June 25, 2006, 04:53:20 pm ---True, perhaps it could have been stated a little more clearly, but no, the inclusion of the detail that Ennis would not at that time embrace Jack face to face is not a mistake.
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Good times, Jeff! As I've told you before, you're one of my favorite people to argue with, :) and it's been a while. (Until the past couple of days, that is!)
Annie's comment regarding the dozy embrace is not a mistake in the objective, factual sense that misstating Alma Jr.'s age is. It's a mistake in a literary sense. You say,
--- Quote ---we've seen that he changed between the night of the dozy embrace and the reunion.
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Yet the dozy embrace is mentioned much later in the story than the reunion. So it simply isn't effective story-telling to mention something near the end of the story that expressly contradicts something mentioned earlier, without further explanation, therefore making us go back and say, "What th'? But she said herself that in the reunion scene ..." and then requires us to try to invent our own theories how that might work: well, maybe Ennis matured as he went along and got over this aversion, although she gives no other sign of it, PLUS, wait a second, there's Jack saying at the end that things hadn't changed, so maybe he actually hadn't matured, but ... um ... what the hell?
Disagree with me all you want. Tell me that Annie is a subtle writer and that she expects us to figure things out for ourselves. I'm stickin to my guns. Writers can -- and should! -- leave some things unmentioned or ambiguous, giving readers leeway to think for themselves. But to out-and-out contradict their own story violates the rules. Annie is not only fallible in chronology, she is fallible in story-telling. (Yet still a brilliant story-teller!)
But even if she's not wrong, even if the image is meant to be taken figuratively, as Diane says, it still doesn't apply to Movie Ennis. Movie Ennis is just a different guy than Story Ennis, that's all. More internally homophobic, sure, but less so, apparently -- if you accept the dozy embrace reference -- in some of his actual behavior. Those two statements are not contradictory.
The big difference between Movie Ennis and Story Ennis is TS2 (the preferred terminology,at least at the moment, in the poll). The story doesn't have a TS2. Yet people conflate the story and movie, saying things regarding the movie to the effect of, Ennis was so unable to accept his love for Jack, he couldn't even embrace him face to face!
And yet, obviously, he could do just that. (I just finished posting elsewhere about the lovely moment in the reunion scene when Ennis strokes Jack's face and looks at him in that heavy-breathing besotted way, his face really close -- if that's not face-to-face embracing, what is?)
So the second part of that statement can't be used as proof of the first. It's an important distinction for those of us who think that Ennis was fully aware of his love for Jack from the get-go, and that the revelations at the end are about something else entirely. Unlike Diane, I think he could "face the reality" that it was a man he loved. He may not have been thrilled that it worked out that way, but he knew it to be true, and he faced it, all right -- literally and figuratively.
dly64:
--- Quote from: latjoreme on June 26, 2006, 05:08:40 am ---But even if she's not wrong, even if the image is meant to be taken figuratively, as Diane says, it still doesn't apply to Movie Ennis. Movie Ennis is just a different guy than Story Ennis, that's all. More internally homophobic, sure, but less so, apparently -- if you accept the dozy embrace reference -- in some of his actual behavior. Those two statements are not contradictory.
The big difference between Movie Ennis and Story Ennis is TS2 (the preferred terminology,at least at the moment, in the poll). The story doesn't have a TS2. Yet people conflate the story and movie, saying things regarding the movie to the effect of, Ennis was so unable to accept his love for Jack, he couldn't even embrace him face to face!
And yet, obviously, he could do just that. (I just finished posting elsewhere about the lovely moment in the reunion scene when Ennis strokes Jack's face and looks at him in that heavy-breathing besotted way, his face really close -- if that's not face-to-face embracing, what is?)
So the second part of that statement can't be used as proof of the first. It's an important distinction for those of us who think that Ennis was fully aware of his love for Jack from the get-go, and that the revelations at the end are about something else entirely. Unlike Diane, I think he could "face the reality" that it was a man he loved. He may not have been thrilled that it worked out that way, but he knew it to be true, and he faced it, all right -- literally and figuratively.
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Guess what? I disagree. Not that we will come to any concensus on this issue, but it is fun to debate it anyway.
I still think that Ennis could not admit to himself that he loved Jack. He did love Jack, but there is a difference between embracing that love and being in denial. Ennis did not see himself as homosexual. He blames Jack for that. He cannot admit that he is truly gay. I think the short story, the screenplay and the film are all in agreement with that. Ennis was homophobic, period. Even after their four year reunion, he describes his intensity of his feelings for Jack as "this thing". He still cannot face his authentic self, IMO.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: latjoreme on June 26, 2006, 05:08:40 am ---Disagree with me all you want. Tell me that Annie is a subtle writer and that she expects us to figure things out for ourselves. I'm stickin to my guns. Writers can -- and should! -- leave some things unmentioned or ambiguous, giving readers leeway to think for themselves. But to out-and-out contradict their own story violates the rules. Annie is not only fallible in chronology, she is fallible in story-telling. (Yet still a brilliant story-teller!)
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This is not a contradiction, it's just her way of telling the story. I'll even allow that you may be right that it wasn't wise for her to put this passage in the narrative where she put it, in the context of Jack's reminisence, though that was her decision to make. She has told us already, in the motel scene, that Ennis has figured out that he shouldn't have let Jack out of his sights (which I have always interpreted as meaning that Story Ennis, in contradistinction to Movie Ennis, is perfectly aware by 1967 that Jack Twist is the love of his life), and prior to that Ennis and Jack have mutually come together in that desparate kiss on the apartment landing. It is not a contradiction to show that at some point early in their relationship Ennis wasn't able to embrace Jack face-to-face. It just shows that Ennis has changed--remarkbly, I'd say, considering his homophobic background.
"You shut up about Annie. This ain't her fault"--if people conflate her story and the movie and can't see the differences. ;)
And just out of curiosity, do you also consider it a mistake that she doesn't mention Jack's drive to Wyoming following Ennis's divorce except in the context of Ennis's phone call to Lureen--and never elaborates on why that drive was for nothing?
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