Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Jack's adolescence is a blank page...
Penthesilea:
--- Quote from: Mandy21 on March 07, 2008, 12:32:11 am ---I think it was the right choice. Sorry for ranting.
--- End quote ---
Rant on as long as you want. Great posts everyone! :D
I think the most obvious reason to let the urinating scene out of the movie is the difficulty to film and to see it. You would have needed a small child to film it. I realize that filming a scene is very different to seeing the end product on a screen, and you could have probalby filmed it with clever cuts, but still ....
I personally am glad they didn't include it in the movie.
Additionally, there's the question where to include it? Same place as it is in the SS? No. I think it would have destroyed the perfection of the whole LF sequence. It would have distracted the viewer.
Ang Lee would have had to find a way to make it clear to the audience that it is a flashback of something Jack had told Ennis about. Alternatively, he could have shown Jack telling Ennis about it at one of their fishing trips. But somehow this could have come out like some sort of comparison with Ennis's story about his old man.
Mandy21:
I completely agree, Pent. To film it, you'd need some very innocent-looking 4-year-old boy, and I can't think of any other way to get the point across except to show a grown man's uncircumcised penis in close-up, and who wants to see that when they're paying $10 for a ticket??? LOL... Anyway, I am also glad they left it out of the movie. True fans were going to read the book anyway. I agree with your other points as well -- where to inject it in the story so that it's not Jack competing with Ennis as to who had the most disturbing childhood -- "I did", "No, I did", etc., AND so that the movie audience (at least) is still able to listen to what OMT has to say in the LF scene. If the audience had already seen him do that to Jack when he was a boy, they would have just cringed when seeing him as an old man, and probably not heard a word he said. And they'd have missed out on an important speech, one that I think is equally telling in relaying the bitterness and sickness of this old man. That actor played OMT to perfection, I thought, right down to the timing of the spit into the cup. If I was Ennis and walked into a room and had to sit down across the table from THAT -- eeeeeekkkkkk!!!!!! I can't believe he managed to hold it together and speak calmly and consolingly and humanely in the face of a monster like that at the other end of the table. But we know from the story that Jack had told Ennis of this at some point, so we as story-readers, can only presume that Ennis the movie version knows all about OMT.
Maybe Amanda and optom3 will have something to say from the opposing side? Any thoughts/suggestions as to how they would have adapted that scene to the screen? I'd be curious on your take. ::)
optom3:
--- Quote from: Penthesilea on March 08, 2008, 10:41:38 am ---Rant on as long as you want. Great posts everyone! :D
I think the most obvious reason to let the urinating scene out of the movie is the difficulty to film and to see it. You would have needed a small child to film it. I realize that filming a scene is very different to seeing the end product on a screen, and you could have probalby filmed it with clever cuts, but still ....
I personally am glad they didn't include it in the movie.
Additionally, there's the question where to include it? Same place as it is in the SS? No. I think it would have destroyed the perfection of the whole LF sequence. It would have distracted the viewer.
Ang Lee would have had to find a way to make it clear to the audience that it is a flashback of something Jack had told Ennis about. Alternatively, he could have shown Jack telling Ennis about it at one of their fishing trips. But somehow this could have come out like some sort of comparison with Ennis's story about his old man.
--- End quote ---
I jusy wonder if it could have been a flashback in the same way as we had with Ennis and the scene he witnessed.I am sure it could have been filmed just with the noise of a zipper from OMT( just as in TS1.)I agree that the circumcision part would have been difficult ,but that could have been part of a conversation between Jack and Ennis when,Jack states that from then on having seen his dad he knew the diference and there was no going back.
I would not have wanted to witnesss the scene in full graphic detail,I just think it could have bben alluded to.You dont even need to see the child unclothed which would be very wrong,but could instead see the mess made by the child,OMT zipper sound, then cut to child soaking wet and cleaning floor and clothes etc.All as flashback.
Then cut back to present with conversation between Jack and Ennis to fill in the gaps,re Jacks feelings on the matter and how it affected him.
However I am not a director and maybe it was thought a bridge too far for the public.Lee was after all taking a big risk in the first place.
Where it was placed in the film,I would have had it as another campfire scene,where they did most of their talking.Followed of course by another tender scene in the tent.
But then I just wanted to see more of Jack and Ennis together,aka motel and TS2.After all they have more meetings over the years than we get to see in the film.
Of course that does leave a problem of length of film,which leads on to what bit to cut out to include the new scene!!!!! For me to see more of Jack and Ennis I would have beeen happy to see lesss of the sheep herding part.But I am sooo biased.In any case who am I to start mucking around with a film so perfect I must have watched it at least 50 times in just 2 months!!!!!!!!!
So thats my thoughts on the matter.I am beginning to wish I had not opened my mouth as I feel a foot in gob situation here!!!!
Feel free to disagree,I love to get other peoples opinions,sometimes it even makes me change my mind,or think more laterally about things,instead of literally.
elomelo:
--- Quote from: optom3 on March 08, 2008, 01:03:44 pm ---I jusy wonder if it could have been a flashback in the same way as we had with Ennis and the scene he witnessed.I am sure it could have been filmed just with the noise of a zipper from OMT( just as in TS1.)I agree that the circumcision part would have been difficult ,but that could have been part of a conversation between Jack and Ennis when,Jack states that from then on having seen his dad he knew the diference and there was no going back.
I would not have wanted to witnesss the scene in full graphic detail,I just think it could have bben alluded to.You dont even need to see the child unclothed which would be very wrong,but could instead see the mess made by the child,OMT zipper sound, then cut to child soaking wet and cleaning floor and clothes etc.All as flashback.
Then cut back to present with conversation between Jack and Ennis to fill in the gaps,re Jacks feelings on the matter and how it affected him.
However I am not a director and maybe it was thought a bridge too far for the public.Lee was after all taking a big risk in the first place.
Where it was placed in the film,I would have had it as another campfire scene,where they did most of their talking.Followed of course by another tender scene in the tent.
But then I just wanted to see more of Jack and Ennis together,aka motel and TS2.After all they have more meetings over the years than we get to see in the film.
Of course that does leave a problem of length of film,which leads on to what bit to cut out to include the new scene!!!!! For me to see more of Jack and Ennis I would have beeen happy to see lesss of the sheep herding part.But I am sooo biased.In any case who am I to start mucking around with a film so perfect I must have watched it at least 50 times in just 2 months!!!!!!!!!
So thats my thoughts on the matter.I am beginning to wish I had not opened my mouth as I feel a foot in gob situation here!!!!
Feel free to disagree,I love to get other peoples opinions,sometimes it even makes me change my mind,or think more laterally about things,instead of literally.
--- End quote ---
I agree that shedding light on Jack's childhood would've given that movie that much of an impact but then again, maybe, Ang Lee didn't want to overdo it since the overall theme of the movie was already a huge leap. But I have to say that Jack's abuse could have been less subtle and tie in with Ennis's equally traumatizing childhood.
But then again...yeah, it would be distracting and more painful than necessary to see such a scene which would require a small child. And where that scene would go? Hmm...maybe on a fishing trip? Or even on the mountain, as per the story? Hmm...
Brown Eyes:
I agree with the practical aspects of leaving the scene out and the ideas of "over-doing it" and the idea that the scene would be traumatic to watch are all good points. But, I think the scene with Earl, for instance, is just about as brutal as the scene with Jack and his father would be. They would be brutal in different ways... but probably equivalently brutal. And, they did include a child in the Earl scene. Granted, that child actor probably didn't really have to look at the image of the mutilated body of Earl. I think there would be creative ways to film a scene with Jack and his father that wouldn't be too traumatic to watch (or too traumatic for a child actor to be involved in). It could be done through suggestion... or even through Jack simply explaining it at some point (as he does in Proulx's story).
It's just such a major detail to leave out of the film. And, it seems to completely alter a viewer's potential response to Old Man Twist. A film viewer wouldn't know that he's not only a jerk, but a horribly abusive father. And, as others here have pointed out, it takes away an element of understanding why Jack and Ennis might have a really powerful bond (bonding over extremely traumatic childhoods and especially difficult fathers... even if they never discussed this explicitly... I think this type of bond is implied by Proulx).
Leaving Jack's side of this out a bit, makes the emphasis of the film more on Ennis as a clear protagonist. Maybe that was one motivation in this decision.
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