Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Life and this movie are messy
Front-Ranger:
Today I'm thinking about the prologue and it's interesting that Jack pees in the woods (with firelight glittering in the arched stream), while Ennis pees in a sink.
moremojo:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on December 05, 2006, 01:27:27 pm ---Today I'm thinking about the prologue and it's interesting that Jack pees in the woods (with firelight glittering in the arched stream), while Ennis pees in a sink.
--- End quote ---
In the short story, we read of both young men urinating in each other's presence on the mountain, with the liquid sparkling golden in the fire's light. In the film, interestingly enough, we only ever bear witness to Jack urinating (more inferred than actually seen), and it is indeed on the mountain. I think in both story and film, the act of urinating in the presence of the other might suggest the great comfort the two men feel with each other.
All acts of urination in the story seem to be tinged with an air of the illicit or the gauche: Ennis relieving himself in the sink (suggesting gaucheness or laziness), the two lads letting loose on Brokeback (illustrating freedom from restraint), and Old Man Twist's humiliating inundation of his young son (an abusive act redolent of contempt and sexual sadism).
Front-Ranger:
From the story's prologue:
[Ennis] gets up, scratching the grey wedge of belly and pubic hair, shuffles to the gas burner, pours leftover coffee in a chipped enamel pan; the flame swathes it in blue. He turns on the tap and urinates in the sink, pulls on his shirt and jeans, his worn boots, stamping the heels against the floor to get them full on.
This starts the story out on a depressing note. Ennis is a washed up guy who shuffles, settles for warmed over leftover coffee, pees in the sink, and hurriedly pulls on worn boots. The only thing that stands out here is the flame that swathes the coffee in its blue flame. Blue is a reminder of Jack, and the flame tells us that Ennis still carries the torch for Jack after all these years.
moremojo:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on February 14, 2007, 09:19:44 pm --- Ennis is a washed up guy who shuffles, settles for warmed over leftover coffee, pees in the sink, and hurriedly pulls on worn boots.
--- End quote ---
Notice how no mention is made of Ennis donning underwear or socks, just as years (decades) earlier, Jack noted their absence when Ennis undressed in preparation for bathing on Brokeback. This adds emphasis to Ennis's poverty throughout his life.
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on February 14, 2007, 09:19:44 pm ---Blue is a reminder of Jack,...
--- End quote ---
Blue is very much associated with movie-Jack, but is the story's character specifically linked to this color? (I'm sorry, I don't have the short story in front of me, and cannot recall such this specific element right now).
HerrKaiser:
Obviously, the short story came first, and in spite of the author's endorsement of the screenplay, had Larry McMurtry not done his Hollywoodization and had Lee not selected two young, very attractive men to play the roles, I think the love affair the the film, and Ledger and Gyllenhall specifically, would be much less.
neither man was as the book described them to be physically, in terms of standard sex appeal. So, it is hard to compare such aspects from the story vs the screenplay, in my opinion.
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