Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Why is the "dozy embrace" in the film?
Mikaela:
Lots of interesting thoughts - thanks everyone. :)
The fact that the story description (Jack's thoughts on how Ennis couldn't face him) is left in the screenplay doesn't mar the moment scene for me. Just looking at the film scene on stand-alone basis I'd *never* have figured that any such point was being made about Ennis there, and this is one time when the film scene is so perfect that I can't manage to worry about script or story. I'll take the film scene and leave it at that. :)
And what the film scene does do is give us the last image of Jack and Ennis together. As the story's progressed there's been so many tense scenes, painful scenes, scenes where one or the other is walking away..... the lakeside quarrel that hurts a person's heart to watch. But the last time we get to see the two of them together, we get the dozy embrace - and that is what remains imprinted on our retinas and in our minds until we get to the shirts a little later on. The scene summarizes the entire film, Jack and Ennis's story: "Hey, *this* is what their relationship is and was all about. Don't you ever lose sight of that!" Making the contrast to the older Jack's sad and bitter face in the here and know all the more poignant, and the upcoming blow of Jack's death all the more devastating.
An iconic scene, deceptively simple, beautifully expressive, brimming with shared love and with the shy wondering at having found such love - revisiting that at the end, to contrast the pain and longing of their otherwise so separate and difficult lives after they left the mountain. Was the dozy necessary in the film? You bet!
(It also happens to be my computer's wallpaper. Can't ever tire of that image, seemingly.)
jpwagoneer1964:
--- Quote from: Mikaela on July 25, 2006, 06:41:07 pm ---Lots of interesting thoughts - thanks everyone. :)
The fact that the story description (Jack's thoughts on how Ennis couldn't face him) is left in the screenplay doesn't mar the moment scene for me. Just looking at the film scene on stand-alone basis I'd *never* have figured that any such point was being made about Ennis there, and this is one time when the film scene is so perfect that I can't manage to worry about script or story. I'll take the film scene and leave it at that. :)
And what the film scene does do is give us the last image of Jack and Ennis together. As the story's progressed there's been so many tense scenes, painful scenes, scenes where one or the other is walking away..... the lakeside quarrel that hurts a person's heart to watch. But the last time we get to see the two of them together, we get the dozy embrace - and that is what remains imprinted on our retinas and in our minds until we get to the shirts a little later on. The scene summarizes the entire film, Jack and Ennis's story: "Hey, *this* is what their relationship is and was all about. Don't you ever lose sight of that!" Making the contrast to the older Jack's sad and bitter face in the here and know all the more poignant, and the upcoming blow of Jack's death all the more devastating.
An iconic scene, deceptively simple, beautifully expressive, brimming with shared love and with the shy wondering at having found such love - revisiting that at the end, to contrast the pain and longing of their otherwise so separate and difficult lives after they left the mountain. Was the dozy necessary in the film? You bet!
(It also happens to be my computer's wallpaper. Can't ever tire of that image, seemingly.)
--- End quote ---
Very well put. And with the change in camera angle midway it was a long one.
dly64:
I am so glad to hear all of your thoughts! I think there is a lot that I have not yet considered.
--- Quote from: ednbarby on July 25, 2006, 01:25:05 pm ---I think it's absolutely necessary for the same reason Ruthlessly thought it was - because that was the moment when Jack first realized he was in love with Ennis. Having him remember that as he watches Ennis drive away, as it turns out for the last time, then flash forward to the present of him standing there with all the life and hope drained out of his eyes and his jaw set shows us not exactly that he was resolute in quitting Ennis, like Ruthlessly (and I for a long time) thought, but that he realized he couldn't go on with things the way they were going. I think this is the moment when, as Jake has said, Jack realizes he can't be with Ennis. Jake never said when he thought that moment was - for a long time after reading that, I wondered if he thought it was at their meeting in Riverton after the divorce.
--- End quote ---
I still think that moment occurs when Jack drives 14 hours to see Ennis after the divorce and is turned away. It is at that moment when Jack knew the “sweet life” he had hoped for would never happen. It’s not that he gives up Ennis … but he modifies his hopes. Jack tries to get Ennis to move to Texas … at least they could be closer than 14 hours. But, as usual, Ennis is unwilling.
--- Quote ---But now I think that that moment and all the other moments when he hopes so much for Ennis to be ready to/want to be with him the way he wants him to be and then has those hopes dashed in the blink of an eye are pieces of him falling away. I think that last shot is when he's been dealt the final blow. That is the moment Jack dies. If he were fully able to quit Ennis, all hope would not be lost. There'd at least be a shred of it left in that if it wasn't going to be Ennis (or Randall, for that matter), he'd get on with it and eventually be with someone who would be able to be with him fully and openly. But it's because he can't fully quit him, now, that all hope is lost.
--- End quote ---
That is an interesting POV. The look on Jack’s face, IMO, is one of sadness because he knows what they could have had. He remembers the time when they were young and their whole lives were before them. Jack longs to be with the man he loves. As an older man, however, he is fully aware that this will never happen. Is this why Jack says, “… so what we got now is Brokeback Mountain! Everything’s built on that. It’s all we go boy, f—king all …”?? I don’t know.
--- Quote ---I actually think the dozy embrace not only is necessary but is perhaps the most important scene in the whole movie. Without the flashback, we would never see the sexless hunger they felt for each other which is really what true love is, and thus we would never fully understand all that Jack lost when he knew he couldn't be with Ennis.
--- End quote ---
I agree with you completely about this.
twistedude:
"See you ion the morning," is what erither of my parents said to me, just before they closed the door after saying goodnight. I cannot imagine a more cop\mforting, promising thing.
Obviously, the interpretation of the scene in the movie is not the same as that in the story. As for looking into Jack's face, Ennis is doing about as good a job of it as is possible from behind, where he is standing as a sort of pillar for Jack to lean against. There is nothing devisive about the scene, nothing.
Ang has leached all the devisiverness out of it, and put it in the final shot, where a bitter and worn-out Jack watches Ennis drive away, whatever, which was probably nothing, was decided between them in the words we don't hear after "I just can't stand it no more, Jack."
Samrim:
I haven't done with this wonderful string, but it's bedtime and I'm tired, but.....
<<we would never see the sexless hunger they felt for each other which is really what true love is>>
I've never seen that comment written down before, and I thank G*d for it, edmbarby; I've always felt, in my long life THAT about the nature of love. It's the need to be WITH someone, two to become one, in an almost primeval fashion, even though not primarily sexually.
Love to all you Brokies
sam
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