Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
On buckets, eagles, impatience, and...
Brown Eyes:
Heya,
I've just finished watching BBM tonight and am filled with observations tonight.
Remind me... is Jack the bucket or the coffeepot? I think there are different ways to interpret which cowboy is which object. Am I correct in thinking that Jack's more often seen as the bucket?
But, something I found very striking during this viewing is that when Jack and Ennis start arguing during the "maybe Texas" camping trip when Ennis is washing dishes in the stream... Ennis loses the bucket (specifically the bucket) which starts to float down stream. It's the bucket that he's chasing after in the stream as that scene concludes. It seems that this is very foreboding... and maybe an indication that things are slipping between Jack and Ennis... that Ennis's hold on Jack is becoming more tenuous or more problematic. Maybe it's a warning to Ennis that he needs to watch out or work harder to hold on to Jack, etc.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: atz75 on November 17, 2007, 09:13:31 pm ---But, something I found very striking during this viewing is that when Jack and Ennis start arguing during the "maybe Texas" camping trip when Ennis is washing dishes in the stream... Ennis loses the bucket (specifically the bucket) which starts to float down stream. It's the bucket that he's chasing after in the stream as that scene concludes. It seems that this is very foreboding... and maybe an indication that things are slipping between Jack and Ennis... that Ennis's hold on Jack is becoming more tenuous or more problematic. Maybe it's a warning to Ennis that he needs to watch out or work harder to hold on to Jack, etc.
--- End quote ---
Hi Bud,
I usually think of Jack as the coffee pot and Ennis as the bucket, because Ennis is more often shown with some kind of bucket interaction. But maybe the relationship is more abstract than that.
Maybe instead of vessel=character, it's bucket=relationship, coffee pot=love, or something of that nature.
When Ennis is standing in the stream, watching Jack ride up the mountain, is he washing a coffee pot or a bucket? Either way, this action seems very significant.
When Ennis goes shivering into the tent, he knocks over a bucket, which falls clanging to the ground, as if some kind of relationship equilibrium is being upset.
The next morning, the coffee pot and bucket are side by side, as they are again in the dozy embrace, right? The two are together.
When Alma storms off to work, signaling trouble in their marriage, Ennis kicks over a bucket full of ashes, I gather representing the ashes of their marriage.
And, yes, when Ennis loses his grip on the bucket and lets it float downstream, I think it's about him losing his hold on the relationship.
Front-Ranger:
Actually, you'll notice if you look carefully that everytime Jack appears on the mountain, there is some kind of bucket or pot near him. And Ennis seems to be more closely related to the coffeepot. But at certain crucial parts of the story/film, the symbols stand for the other person. Just the same as the animal symbols cross over. Altho Ennis's animal is definitely four-footed, at one point Jack is described as trembling "like a run-out horse." And tho Jack is definitely a winged animal such as the eagle whose feather he wears in his hatband, Ennis is described as lying "spread-eagled" on the bed. So it can be confusing, but also incredibly poignant that, as their stories become enmeshed, so do their symbolic references, and they entertwine like the acoustic and the slide guitars in the musical accompaniments.
Artiste:
Thanks Front-Ranger!
Wow, your points are surprising!!
Ennis is spread like an eagle, you say, and when was he??
Hugs!
Front-Ranger:
--- Quote from: Artiste on November 21, 2007, 07:46:40 pm ---Thanks Front-Ranger!
Wow, your points are surprising!!
Ennis is spread like an eagle, you say, and when was he??
Hugs!
--- End quote ---
Yup, Artiste, and he was half-tumescent too! hehe! That was when he and Jack reunited after four long years apart, in the story version, not the movie.
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