Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
getting hit hard by offhand revelations (story discussion)
nakymaton:
--- Quote from: Garry_LH on October 18, 2006, 05:39:13 am ---There's been all kinds of things written about Jack's death. But in one interview with Jake I caught, he said he felt Jack died when he realized there was never going to be a life with Ennis. That one sentence from Jake has been chewing on me for awhile. Cause it sure does shed a light on the change that comes over Jack after he drives that twelve hundred miles for nothing. Where in tears, he drives clear to Mexico to find physical release of a fix for the death of this hope, perhaps his soul, if not his love for one Ennis DelMar.
--- End quote ---
Yes. I've heard that as well (though I'm not sure if I've seen the interview... I'm on dial-up and I often skip over links to video). And the movie really shows that physically, as well... the mustache appears in the very next scene, and really is effective in covering Jake's smile, so that even when Jack looks a little bit hopeful (like in the "maybe Texas" scene), there's something missing. He's not quite the same Jack that we saw on the mountain, or after the reunion. There really is a light that goes out... goes out of both of them, actually, though Ennis hides his light so much in the first place that there isn't the obvious sudden change.
--- Quote ---Part of what attracts me to Mz. Proulx's writing is it is real. Nothing in life is a true perfect moment. Every expression we make, ever action we initiate, all of it flows from what has gone before in our lives. We think we fix one problem in our lives, just to find it has found a different way to express itself. With luck, that new way is healthier, and a bit less destructive.
--- End quote ---
Yeah. A lot of people have criticized her for being anti-romantic, or for being so incredibly hard on her characters. But there's a bitter truth to her writing, too. :(
Marge_Innavera:
--- Quote from: Garry_LH on October 18, 2006, 05:39:13 am ---There's been all kinds of things written about Jack's death. But in one interview with Jake I caught, he said he felt Jack died when he realized there was never going to be a life with Ennis. That one sentence from Jake has been chewing on me for awhile. Cause it sure does shed a light on the change that comes over Jack after he drives that twelve hundred miles for nothing. Where in tears, he drives clear to Mexico to find physical release of a fix for the death of this hope, perhaps his soul, if not his love for one Ennis DelMar.
--- End quote ---
The truck scene seems to be the point in the movie where things start to go downhill; to the point that the last scene by the lake has a very strained quality to it. IMO if they had met up in November that would have been a now-or-never turning point.
NavyVet:
It's so good to find a detail discussion/analysis thread, coz I seem to have come up with all kinds of questions about BBM. I'm sure they've been addressed somewhere, but there's hundreds of threads and thousands of pages and I'm so overwhelmed.
I'm afraid to admit it, but when I first read the short story last year, I was not impressed. (Don't throw tomatoes at me!) It was difficult to read, as I found it disjointed and full off run on sentences. I remember thinking I've read amateur fanfiction better than this and this author won a Pulitzer? Huh. But that's just me. And it was so tragic and sad and depressing, I wasn't going to see the movie. I don't handle sad endings well (maybe that's a PTSD thing for me) and so I never read 'character death' fics either. Anyway, I did go see the film and was profoundly affected.
Now to my first question. (I fixate on the weirdest details sometimes) :)
I noticed a part of the story that didn't make it into the movie was the bit about Jack being 5 years old and his father beat him and pissed on him. The scene established the fact that Jack was apparently circumcised.
Was it ever established in canon that Ennis was? Or is it a fanon thing that Ennis is uncut?
Just curious. Any thoughts?
nakymaton:
You know, when I read the story, my reaction was: somebody finally did it right. But then I glanced at BBM fanfic, and I thought: good grief. I have never read any fanfic in any fandom that is so embarrassingly awful.
And if people can say "the story isn't that good" and "fanfic is better" over and over and over again, I should be able to come out and say that I have the opposite opinion. The story is incredible, and the fanfic is... well, overdone, unsubtle, poorly characterized, and painful to read. I don't understand how a story and a movie that are so good can inspire people to write stuff that... isn't.
I would prefer not to have this thread used to sort out story details for comparison with fanfic. ::)
(Edit: I'm deleting my account on my own.)
NavyVet:
Um... okay ... I didn't mean to open a can of worms.
I only mentioned IMO that on first impression, the grammar and sentence structure surprised me. Her 'style', I guess, took some getting used to for me. I have reread it multiple times since then and it has grown on me. I was also speaking generally when I mentioned that I had read a few exceptionally good fanfic stories by talented authors, not specifically to the BBM fandom. Yes, there's lots of bad out there too, but there are always exceptions.
I didn't think I was going on and on (it was my first post), but I'll be sure not to bring it up ever again.
I did, and still do, have honest questions about story details, some involve comparison between the story and the movie. Now I wonder if maybe that's not allowed either. So, forget it. I'm afraid to ask.
Sorry, never mind.
???
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