Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
It could be this way...
Katie77:
--- Quote from: Lynne on May 24, 2009, 12:10:30 am ---This is unquestionably one of my very favorite scenes in the movie. The look of contentment and awe as Ennis gazes up 'into the heavens', Jack's hopeful proposal...For a minute (or less), all seems right and like it could stay that way. Then it becomes one of my very least favorite scenes, when Ennis dashes Jack's dream, telling the story of Earl and Rich. Jack reaches out to Ennis, though...he understands how damaged Ennis was by that childhood trauma.
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Isn't that the truth........Actually, when you think of it, it was Jack who was always positive and Ennis who was always negative.
Brown Eyes:
Thanks for these great responses Buds!
--- Quote from: Lynne on May 24, 2009, 12:10:30 am ---This is unquestionably one of my very favorite scenes in the movie. The look of contentment and awe as Ennis gazes up 'into the heavens', Jack's hopeful proposal...For a minute (or less), all seems right and like it could stay that way. Then it becomes one of my very least favorite scenes, when Ennis dashes Jack's dream, telling the story of Earl and Rich. Jack reaches out to Ennis, though...he understands how damaged Ennis was by that childhood trauma.
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I very much agree with your reactions to the scene. This is how I tend to think about it too.
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on May 23, 2009, 06:22:40 pm ---I don't have the movie with me, but as I recall, Ennis was layin' back, looking up at the stars and smiling, and I imagine Jack was just ecstatic at the simple happiness of it all...just the two of them by the fire with the roaring water beside them. So when he said, "It could be like this, just like this, always" I thought he was referring to them being together like they were on top of Brokeback. They always used pronouns instead of verboten words like love, destiny, forever, and together. No instruction manual needed. They both knew what "it" meant.
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And, I also agree that the meaning of Jack's emotions and sentences here seem very easy to understand on some kind of gut level for most viewers.
But, I'm still struck a-new at how the actual words of his sentence (just simply looking at the vocabulary used) hardly say anything. "It"... "could".. "this" and "way"... are all such undefined terms. They're either conditional ("could") or refer to something outside the sentences themselves. Pretty amazing writing when you think about it... that combined with the acting and sentiment of the story, that something so vaguely written could convey something so powerful and somehow seemingly concrete.
I don't think many of us have much doubt about what Jack means here, and it's pretty incredible that that's the case given the actual structure of the writing.
fernly:
--- Quote from: atz75 on May 23, 2009, 06:07:33 pm ---And, it also occurs to me that Jack's sentences here are very poignant since, the actual scenario of this particular reunion camping trip is how it ends up being for Jack and Ennis on a more or less permanent basis. The meeting-up in secret in the middle of nowhere... means like it will be "like this always" for the relationship... obviously well-short of what Jack really hopes for.
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So, and so sadly, true. Thank you for a stunning new insight on this pivotal scene. The collective impact of the dreams shattered in this scene...Jack's expressed dream, Earl's and Rich's too-short-lived dream, and Ennis never-hardly-dared dream...is now added to by the awful prescience of Jack's words. That the wish rejected by Ennis, is actually granted (at least the painful literal meaning of it). What's the saying...don't wish for something, you might just get it.
Brown Eyes:
Thanks Fernly. :)
It's interesting how much this proposal by Jack relies on the viewer's imagination to fill in the blanks. It also indicates a level of perceived certainty on Jack's part when it comes to having a sense of Ennis's feelings and level of interest in the relationship. We as viewers see so little of their romantic interaction on Brokeback in '63 after the "happy tussle"... that we as viewers begin to make assumptions and imagine how things must have been between the two of them once they became lovers. And, clearly, beyond the reunion kiss and motel rendez-vous, Jack has nothing more to go on (beyond what they established in '63) to have a sense about Ennis's emotions. And, yet, he seems so confident in this "it could be this way..." proposal. I think that confidence in understanding the nuances of the relationship transfers to the viewer. But, still given the total ambiguity of the sentences themselves, each viewer could be assuming (with a lot of certainty) something completely different from other viewers.
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