Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
getting hit hard by offhand revelations (story discussion)
injest:
social service pays for poor people...can't believe they could afford condoms but not a trip to the clinic. especially with young kids...you are in there all the time any way...
injest:
--- Quote from: latjoreme on December 02, 2006, 01:12:32 pm ---Jess, maybe I'm misunderstanding your point. But to the extent I think Ennis is a sad figure, it has nothing to do with him being poor or having a spartan lifestyle. In fact, one of many things I love about BBM is that we AREN'T asked to feel sorry for people because they're uneducated or poor. In most movies, characters' economic status is central to our understanding of them, and if a character starts out poor, their path to achieving economic success constitutes at least part of the plot. Wealth = happy ending. BBM is refreshing because it DOESN'T do that.
No, I think Ennis is a sad figure because his own internal conflicts keep him from grabbing his one chance at happiness. Even when Jack is alive, Ennis can't fully enjoy the relationship because of his guilt and shame, and in the end he's left alone, grieving, knowing he blew it.
Yes. But it's kind of a glass half full/half empty situation, right? Of course, he was lucky to have what he did with Jack (half full). But they didn't get to live happily ever after together (half empty).
--- End quote ---
but Katherine...if he had woken up on fresh linen sheets in his own ranch house...ate a good stout breakfast cooked by the maid...you wouldn't be so tore up about him being 'alone'
Noviani:
Hi All,
i am jumping in.
i guess Ennis' econimic state is like salt rubbed continuously to an open wound. i talked my 2 best buddies to watch the movies and one of them said in the end of the movie..trailer scene, "ooh.. how lonely"
living in a community where family is ALWAYS together, with large Balinese compounds, we can only imagine how it feels for Ennis having lost his other half and ends up downsizing his world to a trailer in a remote area.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: injest on December 03, 2006, 12:34:44 am ---but Katherine...if he had woken up on fresh linen sheets in his own ranch house...ate a good stout breakfast cooked by the maid...you wouldn't be so tore up about him being 'alone'
--- End quote ---
No, I'd still be pretty torn up about it. Material possessions are nice: they make life more comfortable, they give you one less thing to worry about. But they don't erase heartbreak.
Besides, Ennis isn't living lavishly, but he doesn't seem to be suffering intensely from his poverty. I mean if he were living in a cardboard box and scrounging for food in dumpsters, that would be different. But he seems to have enough to satisfy his own personal material desires, modest though they are.
--- Quote from: Noviani on December 03, 2006, 05:22:33 am ---i guess Ennis' econimic state is like salt rubbed continuously to an open wound. i talked my 2 best buddies to watch the movies and one of them said in the end of the movie..trailer scene, "ooh.. how lonely"
living in a community where family is ALWAYS together, with large Balinese compounds, we can only imagine how it feels for Ennis having lost his other half and ends up downsizing his world to a trailer in a remote area.
--- End quote ---
True. But it sounds like you're talking about feeling sorry for Ennis mainly because he's lonely and isolated, not because he's poor.
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: injest on December 03, 2006, 12:26:22 am ---social service pays for poor people...can't believe they could afford condoms but not a trip to the clinic. especially with young kids...you are in there all the time any way...
--- End quote ---
As a matter of fact, the story does say that when Francine ("the second girl") was born, "Alma wanted to stay in town near the clinic because the child had an asthmatic wheeze."
So I presume they were getting what health care they had from the clinic, and I wonder if it was a free clinic? Would a free charity clinic in that time and place dispense prescription-medicine birth control pills? I've never had to pay for birth control pills ;D , but I bet condoms are a lot cheaper.
Q: What's going on with the story chronology here? We are told that when the Hi-Top, the ranch where Ennis was working, "folded," they moved to the apartment over the laundry in Riverton. Then we are told that they had the second daughter, and Alma wanted to stay in town near the clinic because the baby had asthma. Then we get Alma whining about "no more damn lonesome ranches," and, "Let's get a place here in town?" Then we are told they stayed in the apartment because Ennis wanted it that way.
So is Alma's whining here a "flashback" to before they moved to the apartment, or does this take place in the apartment, and maybe she's talking about getting a house, or something?
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