Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
You shut up about Ennis - this ain't (all) his fault
dly64:
--- Quote from: fernly on July 03, 2006, 09:00:32 am ---Barb, to comment on just a couple of your points (and I agree with all of 'em) - I assume it wasn't by accident that you said "tied up", twice, cause how else could Ennis contain all those absolute contradictions and intense emotions other than by tying himself up in knots (and Jack called him on it before they even went up the mountain). Heath even moved, at almost every point in the film, as if he were tied up like a hobbled horse (those heart-breaking, shuffling steps).
And I, too, just can't see Ennis being with anyone else. The "bitter longing" Annie noticed in the expression of that aging ranch hand as he watched young cowboys one night in a bar, I believe that longing on Ennis' face in later years would be not for the men he saw before him, but for the one man they were shadows of.
--- End quote ---
I think we are all in agreement here. Ennis loved Jack, but he did not see himself as gay. Nor do I (and from what I have read, nor do any of you) think that Ennis would end up having a relationship with another man.
Okay ... so now I am going to open another can of worms …. the whole “dozy embrace” flashback. Both the short story and the screenplay state the following:
“Nothing mars this moment for Jack, even though he knows that Ennis does not embrace him face to face because he does not want to see or feel that it is Jack he holds …. “
I have my own take on this, but before I give my dissertation, I would like to hear all of your opinions!!! ;)
welliwont:
--- Quote from: dly64 on July 03, 2006, 09:52:55 am ---Okay ... so now I am going to open another can of worms …. the whole “dozy embrace” flashback. Both the short story and the screenplay state the following:
“Nothing mars this moment for Jack, even though he knows that Ennis does not embrace him face to face because he does not want to see or feel that it is Jack he holds …. “
I have my own take on this, but before I give my dissertation, I would like to hear all of your opinions!!! ;)
--- End quote ---
OMG! Not this one! This is truly a can a worms to behold! what are you tryin' to do, crash the BetterMost server? Ok, here is my, literal, superficial, non-freudian explanation. I am sure I should be seeing waaaay deeper in this murky pond, but however.....
That sentence, the first time I read the story and became aware of its existence, was at first glance THE most WTF sentences of this story. I hated its very existence, could not understand that after all we (Jack & Ennis & I) had been through, that sadist Annie Proulx throws that four sentence paragraph in there, just to mess everything up....
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 nor feel that it was Jack he held. And maybe, he thought, they'd never got much farther than that. Let be, let be.
Anyway to make a long story short, I had a lot of trouble understanding the first and the second sentences, the third sentence I hated, and the fourth, well, "Let be"? ...that's a bit vague, hmmm, let what be?? I hated it, and I was mad at AP for ever writing it and spoiling my illusion that Ennis did love Jack.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Now, now that I have been enlightened by you fine folks, you BetterMostians you, here is what it means: Ennis did love Jack, but he still did not believe himself to be gay, that is why he could not embrace Jack face to face. AP's second and third lines in that paragraph are meant to be implied and to be understood by depiction of the dozy embrace. Does that make sense? I hope someone else can understand it, I barely can myself!! :laugh: :laugh: :laugh:
ednbarby:
I agree, Diane. And it made perfect sense to me.
I think Ennis *can* embrace Jack from the front later, as he does in the reunion and ever after, not because he now accepts that he's gay, but because he cannot contain the passion he feels for Jack any longer after that agonizing four year absense. He still refers to it as "this thing" after the reunion because he hasn't fully come to terms with it. But this thing - his love and his passion for him that he does not - that he cannot - give the proper words - does take hold of him whenever he sees Jack after an absense. The fact that he can't give it the proper words doesn't make it any less powerful - in fact, it may only make it moreso.
And I think you can have a favorite memory of a loved one that, truth be told, is marred in some way by realizing that they did not quite embrace the mutual feeling the two of you shared as fully as you did. That's what Annie is writing about there, I think. That that's Jack's favorite memory of Ennis in spite of his knowledge that *at that particular time* Ennis did not - could not - fully embrace the idea that he was in love with Jack, even though Jack knew that to be true. And he realizes that probably Ennis never could fully embrace it, hence the "And maybe, he thought, they'd never got much farther than that." Then the "Let be, let be" is his telling himself not to go there - to just enjoy the memory and not let that knowledge mar it.
nakymaton:
*pokes head into thread* Hi, and welcome, ruthlesslyunsentimental. Nice thread.
--- Quote from: dly64 on July 03, 2006, 09:52:55 am ---I think we are all in agreement here. Ennis loved Jack, but he did not see himself as gay.
--- End quote ---
I agree with this, but I just want to add that I think Katherine's out of town and away from computers at the moment, and I don't think that she agrees with this. (There are a lot of subtle differences in interpretations about what Ennis's essential conflict is -- everything from "Ennis doesn't realize he loves Jack" to "Ennis doesn't accept that he loves Jack" to "Ennis doesn't realize that he's gay" to "Ennis doesn't accept that he's gay" to "Ennis is afraid of how other people will react if they know he is gay." I think it's a spectrum of interpretations rather than two clear sides, and it's hard to pin down the source of Ennis's inner turmoil, given how he keeps it all tied up inside himself. Perhaps all of us find some open space between what we see on the screen and what we try to believe, and it's a little different for each of us.)
Now, to the question at hand: It seems a bit strange that the screenplay keeps the story's line about Ennis being unwilling to "embrace him [Jack] face to face because he does not want to see or feel that it is Jack he holds". I think ednbarby explains the story line really well.
But does it fit the movie?
It's interesting, because I think that's the line in the story that really pulls Ennis's internalized homophobia into perspective (and it's interesting that it comes into focus in one of the few moments that's purely from Jack's POV, as if Ennis doesn't even see the conflict clearly enough for the reader to understand Ennis from his own POV). But the scene doesn't seem to be played that way in the movie -- it's one of the few moments when Ennis doesn't appear to be conflicted. (I would argue that, beautiful as the 2nd tent scene is, that Ennis's face never looks as peaceful as it does during the dozy embrace. Both men are just so beautiful in the dozy embrace scene.) But perhaps the movie audience didn't need more evidence of Ennis's inner battles (whatever their source) -- Heath's performance is just so pitch-perfect; Ennis's struggles are written in perfect ambiguity in his every expression. So the movie scene seems more to remind the audience of Jack's (perhaps idealized) memories, to cast the memories of the mountain in an even more idyllic light than they were originally portrayed, to provide a contrast with the argument beside the lake, and to give us two contrasting views of Jack before he dies: young and hopeful and in love, and middle-aged and resigned... and yet still in love?
Anyway. The screenplay takes the directions directly from the story, but the implications of the lines Diane quoted are spread throughout the movie, not used directly in the dozy embrace scene. At least, that's how I view it.
louisev:
When the thread name changed to "You shut up about Ennis" I had to stop in and like so many others, read Ruthlessly's commentary with great interest! FINALLY! Someone has put into words what I had been trying to enunciate all along... and wrestling hopelessly against a rising tide of militant Jackaholism that blamed Ennis for the entire 20 year debacle, knowing there was something wrong with this picture.
Thank you so much!
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