Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum

Smokes and Fire

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serious crayons:

--- Quote from: nakymaton on October 16, 2006, 02:40:06 pm --- But Ennis smoking while dancing with Cassie seems like a sign of disinterest.
--- End quote ---

What is that line from the "cowboy etiquette" thread? Something like, "If you should find yourself dancing with a woman, keep her at arm's length and smoke furiously until the situation subsides."

 :laugh:

Mikaela:

--- Quote ---Going back to the warshing scene, I was struck last time I saw it how the smoke from Jack's exhalation swirls around the out-of-focus image of naked Ennis in the background, further obscuring him (dang!) just at the time when we hear the swishing of the warshrag in the bucket of water. It's a potent image.
--- End quote ---

I just wanted to agree with this. It really is!  :P And this discussion has managed to make more sense of the prominently placed cigarette in that scene.



--- Quote ---Ennis smoking while lying in bed with Jack is hot enough to make the whole damn motel spontaneous combust (or  maybe that was just the audience).
--- End quote ---

This has to be the time for an illustration on the thread:


My excuse is that I absolutely love Ennis's expression here, and the way he holds the cig here is just perfect.  (Not that I don't love the entire scene and everything in it....... )


Getting back to the discussion at hand..... there is less smoking in J&E's scenes together towards the end. And then they share that joint. In a way, more intimate because they're actually sharing the one joint, but on the other hand.... is this indicating that their fire is struggling, in danger of going out; and so those ordinary cigs don't suffice anymore? That it's getting more desperate in a way, more in need of an artificial boost? Probably rather far-fetched, but still..... it's a thought.

Front-Ranger:
Hey, meryl, that was a good observation about TS2, shot with the campfire in the background between their two faces. I almost missed that post where you pointed that out!

Also, Mikeala, you bring up a good point: how they hold their cigarettes. In my neighborhood, there were two ways: with the fingers over the cigarette, which was the "rural" or "cowboy" way and with the cigarette perched between the index and middle fingers, which was the citified way. The latter hold was good for use while driving a car, but the cupping hold was better if you were on a horse or out in the wind, to protect the flame from going out. Well, I'll just have to watch the movie again to see how they hold'em and then we can extrapolate the meaning from it.

Brown Eyes:

--- Quote from: nakymaton on October 16, 2006, 10:54:03 am ---Thinking back to that half-smoked cigarette at the beginning of the movie... I've always looked at it as a very subtle way of showing us how poor Ennis is. But to play along with the fire-as-sexuality symbolism here, the fact that Ennis puts out his own cigarette, deliberately, by squashing it between his fingers, could also say something about the way that Ennis has repressed his sexuality. (And then he hides it in his pocket!) Maybe pushing a symbol too far, though. I dunno.

Jack lights up on the steps before he introduces himself to Ennis, doesn't he? (He lights up figuratively, too, with a great open smile during the "Your folks just stop at Ennis?" line.)

On Ennis's first night going up to the sheep, Jack is also smoking, isn't he? He stands there, smoking, while Ennis rides away?

--- End quote ---

These are some fine observations here, Bud.  I like the new interpretation of the half-smoked cigarette especially. 

Also, those stills posted above of Ennis getting ready to mount the horse and Jack approaching really make the "cigarette-choreography" stand out.  The play of Ennis taking a drag mirrored by Jack taking a drag in the distance is great.  And, those stills really make it look like Jack is cruising Ennis... if there was ever any doubt.  Somehow it seems more obvious in these still images though than it does in the film as it plays.

Mikaela:
Somehow I feel this picture might fit this thread.

The cigarettes and the way both men hold them seem part of a very deliberate set-up. Which can surely be read more ways than one - but one seems to be in the studied and somehow disinterested way they handle their smokes: They're smoking mainly to have something to do, to make time pass, to hide any awkwardness behind. There's not much urgency in those cigs, small fires banked low and certainly not about to blaze out of control there and then. Could be taken to infer something about their upcoming relationship, I suppose.  (And I  also figure that potentially something could be made of the positions of those cigs and the way the men hold them - but I'm not giving that one a go.)

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