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

Life and this movie are messy

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Brown Eyes:

--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on July 11, 2006, 04:31:09 pm ---I wanted to ask everyone, why was Ennis shown spitting (and rather violently at that) just when Jack is backing his truck out of the driveway (such as it is) in the post-divorce scene?

--- End quote ---

Heya Friend,

This is a good question.  I think, like Mikaela said that it's about frustration.  But, I think it's multi-leveled frustration. (Surprise, surprise).  First I think he's frustrated/ freaked out over being surprised.  I think he's frustrated with himself and feels awful about sending Jack off (his hung head... the concerned way he says "Jack" with that reall intense look in his eye).  And I think he's frustrated plain and simple that he can't hook up with Jack that weekend (even if he's not about to agree to live with Jack at the moment).  I'm sure he's sort of mad that he's got the girls that weekend (eventhough, at the same time, they provide a handy excuse for not running off into the sunset with Jack that very minute).

Luvlylittlewing:
Great posts, everyone.  We mentioned all the spitting, I touched on the unpleasant smells.  I'm really interested - any other messy things can you think of in this beautiful movie?

nakymaton:
I don't see any of the spitting (even John Twist's) as showing contempt or disgust. Within most of the scenes, I think they serve more as a sort of nonverbal punctuation than anything else. (Something a little more final than a period, less emphatic than an exclamation point.)

And I think the spitting serves to give a rhythm to scenes that, without dialogue, might otherwise seem static. (Maybe they spit because tap-dancing would seem out of place.)

The trouble with symbols (and non-verbal stuff) is that people read them very much based on their own experiences. So if spitting is considered rude or disgusting in your culture (and in this case, I would say that American women have a different culture than American men), it's easy to read it as a sign of disgust or contempt. (I keep thinking about the scene in Dune where the protagonists are ready to take offense when somebody spits in front of them, only to be told that in that culture, spitting symbolizes giving a gift of the body's water, and that it's a great honor for someone to spit in front of them.)

Meryl:

--- Quote ---By nakymaton
I don't see any of the spitting (even John Twist's) as showing contempt or disgust. Within most of the scenes, I think they serve more as a sort of nonverbal punctuation than anything else. (Something a little more final than a period, less emphatic than an exclamation point.)
--- End quote ---

I like that description of it.  Much of the time, the act of spitting adds emphasis to what has just been said.


--- Quote from: littlewing1957 on July 11, 2006, 09:44:39 pm ---We mentioned all the spitting, I touched on the unpleasant smells.  I'm really interested - any other messy things can you think of in this beautiful movie?
--- End quote ---

Blood gushing from a nosebleed onto two shirts.  :-\

serious crayons:
Tell you what, there have been so many times when I have initially dismissed something as not possibly having any symbolic significance. Front-Ranger's thread about buckets comes to mind, an observation about the meaning of buckets in various scenes corresponding to Ennis' situation at that point, that as the thread unfolded also entailed the symbolism of coffee pots, which represented Jack's situation, and I think eventually led to animals and maybe fans and ...

Anyway, I remember seeing the bucket thread title on the forum index for days and days and not reading it, thinking, "Yeah right ... buckets?! I think we're getting a little carried away here." And then I finally in a moment of boredome checked it out and ... oh. my. god. Every single example she mentioned worked perfectly as a metaphor for whatever it was in the  scene it was in -- all different but connected, all with undeniable significance -- waaaayyyy too much to be accidental. I think my first post on that thread started with the word, "Whoooeeeee." I couldn't believe it. But once I thought about it, it made perfect sense.

That was where I learned my lesson. I never dismiss an anything as just an anything until I really examine it closely. (Or, well, to be perfectly honest, I still do that sometimes -- and still usually realize later, once I look hard enough, that I was wrong.) Now, obviously there's plenty of room for argument. Nobody knows what the filmmakers' intentions were, and we can read all kinds of things all kinds of different ways. And it's even possible that sometimes it really does mean nothing, that something's just there because it's there.

So some people here say characters in the movie spit just because people spit in real life. So OK, as a test, can anyone think of a spitting instance in the movie in which the context of the scene demonstrably does NOT include contempt or dismissal or something pretty close? Anyone remember a time when someone spit when they were happy or cheerful, as they might easily do in real life?

In any case, no need to be evangelistic about this. Symbolism and metaphor is supposed to enhance your appreciation of the movie. If it doesn't work for you, that's perfectly fine ... obviously you enjoy the movie anyway or you wouldn't be here. But I would hesitate to discount what others see in them.

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