Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum

The Laundry Room

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serious crayons:

--- Quote from: atz75 on July 05, 2006, 09:39:17 pm --- It seems important for the story/ film that Jack was Ennis's first love/ domestic partner despite the fact that he was technically engaged to Alma already.  I think this is why we hear the "opportunity" conversation... to be sure the audience knows that Jack is Ennis's first.  It makes Jack's "claim" on Ennis for the rest of the film seem appropriate... and unfortunately and unbeknownst to Alma it makes her seem like the usurper.

--- End quote ---

Very good point, Amanda. If we'd seen Ennis and Alma together before Brokeback, it would have cast a slightly different spin on which couple is more "right." Of course, eventually we would come to see that Jack and Ennis are right together, for all kinds of reasons. But whatever couple comes first establishes itself in the viewer's mind, giving the next couple -- even if it's the dramatically "right" one -- a little hurdle to jump. Often that hurdle jumping is accomplished by having the previous partner seem wildly inappropriate (a jerk, really boring, extremely mismatched or something like that). But that's not the objective with Alma; she's meant to seem a nice wife caught in an unfortunate marriage. So it's best to let Ennis and Jack as a couple capture our empathy before Alma enters the picture.

Anyway, what this all has to do with laundry is that Jack's laundry-doing sticks in our mind in a very memorable scene -- so to all the other reasons we've previously discussed as to why he might be doing laundry naked, add that it sure grabs attention and makes the scene stick in our minds! Then the first time we see Alma after she and Ennis have set up house, she's also doing laundry. But in a far more mundane, indoorsy, domesticated, fully clothed, "society" way.

jpwagoneer1964:

--- Quote from: atz75 on July 05, 2006, 11:28:47 pm ---Yes, I'm sure that Ennis would have done Jack's laundry too and that it was part of the "job" description... but I don't think that either of them thought about it as if it were a job... know what I mean? 
 ;)
Or, maybe it started out feeling like a job, but as time went by they began to feel like it was a little thrilling to have such 'intimate' access to each other's clothes... it especially would have seemed like much more than a job once they'd become lovers.  By the way... I love how Jack pounds away at Ennis's shirt in the stream (it's the shirt too, by the way) as if he's letting all his frustration and anxiety loose on it.

--- End quote ---
Yes I agree, very well put.

Front-Ranger:
Maybe when he is beating on the shirt he is thinking back, perhaps subconsciously, to that time when he as a small child was forced to take off all his clothes that had been soiled by his cruel father and wash them in the bathtub, and maybe that is why he is beating them with such force and shivering at the same time.

fernly:

--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on July 06, 2006, 09:50:28 am ---Maybe when he is beating on the shirt he is thinking back, perhaps subconsciously, to that time when he as a small child was forced to take off all his clothes that had been soiled by his cruel father and wash them in the bathtub, and maybe that is why he is beating them with such force and shivering at the same time.

--- End quote ---
Lee, that is such a great observation! I think this scene, like all the rest, is working on so many levels, from the very prosaic (anyone would probably be shivering) to simple character differences (Jack feels the cold more than Ennis) to all the implications discussed before of Jack washing clothes between TS1 and TS2.
And now your post illuminates the scene as another of those times when Ang, et al, use visuals instead of words to bring in elements of the story. That instance of abuse is so horrific, and would have been utterly impossible to put in overtly into the film, but is really important. It's always broken my heart that the last direct words from Jack in the story are about that - "No way to get it right with him after that." (and maybe those words resonate further too...)
Thank you finding this connection.

Front-Ranger:
Another thing that is relevant here is the passage at the end where Ennis dreams about Jack and when he wakes, sometimes the pillow is wet and sometimes it's the sheets. In the process of becoming wet, the fabric and the people go through a transformative process. It's a force of nature.

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