Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
fffffffzzzzzzzzzzzzzap! (lightning and electricity references)
Mikaela:
This may be a far stretch, but I'll include it anyway...
I've never really noticed the Newome signpost in the film (too busy looking at Jack, I suppose ::) ) but in this picture it looks like an electric sign, it strikes me with the company name and motto it in a way represents Jack: It harnesses electricity, probably presenting a muted-down light at night - just like Jack has been reined in and muted down by becoming part of the Newsome family and company.
LauraGigs:
The outer round shapes on the sign look like machine cogs, but the inner shapes look like spurs. Used to rein in horses. Horses can represent sexuality and the human spirit (they roam free in the summer on Brokeback but are confined for the rest of the film — most notably in the back of Ennis' truck in Jack's final scene).
Of course Jack would rather be on one of those horses than demo-ing that damn combine . . .
--- Quote ---I'm just going by the idea that when Annie Proulx and the movie make a point of saying it's Jack's second summer on Brokeback and Ennis' first, they're talking about more than sheep herdin.
--- End quote ---
Literary metaphor. Oh. I knew that . . . [slinks off]
Brown Eyes:
This is a fabulous topic for a thread!
So, why is the storm during the motel scene omitted in the film? There are some key indications of the arrival of wind (along with Jack) right as he gets out of his truck outside of Ennis's apartment, but there doesn't seem to be the same sense of drama to the weather here as in the story. The storm symbol in the book may be slightly overdetermined... as Mikaela notes... but I think a lot of the symbols in the film (and probably the book too) are overdetermined. But! For me, somehow they still work and are very evocative for me. Things like the large flame in the background between Jack and Ennis in TS2 might be a little bit much as far as symbols go, but I still think it works as an interesting symbol (and one that effectively stirs emotions) regardless. I like the storm in the motel scene myself... and it does become even more interesing if Alma gets thrown into the interpretation of the storm. Water in a violent rage... and then like Meryl said, it's also a clear indication of the sexual excitement between the two men. It's interesting that a symbol can function simultaneously as two things (if not more than two things).
So, what's electricity's relationship to fire? I think we're getting somewhere with the Newsome sign and the idea of Alma wanting Ennis to work for the electric company. Also, is there a distinction between natural electricity (lightning vs. electricity harnessed by people)?
nakymaton:
--- Quote from: atz75 on November 08, 2006, 10:59:18 pm ---So, why is the storm during the motel scene omitted in the film?
--- End quote ---
I think there may be a couple reasons.
One is that the focus in the motel scene is very tight on Jack and Ennis. It isn't just that there's no storm. There are no clothes scattered around the room, no belt buckle, no telephone ringing in the other room... it's a brief moment where only Jack and Ennis exist. And I think we need to see them like that, intimate and separate from the world, because we don't get to see them like that again, except for that very brief glimpse in the tent during the last camping trip. It gives us something to regret, something to keep wanting to come back to.
(And before Jack arrives, I think AL made the right choice in focusing very much on Ennis, on letting Heath's acting carry the tension at that moment. Or shifting the tension to the flicking lighter, rather than to lightning.)
--- Quote ---So, what's electricity's relationship to fire?
--- End quote ---
*raises eyebrows* Um, Electricity can start a fire? Lightning strikes can burn down an entire forest; bad wiring can burn down a house?
In terms of connecting the symbols directly in the movie, I don't know, other than electricity suggesting danger whereas a campfire seems warmer and homier to me.
(BTW, this made me think of the fire ecology of the lodgepole pines, in the ecosystem on Brokeback. Lodgepole pine cones only open when they are heated by a forest fire. So lodgepole forests tend to grow and mature, and then get wiped out completely by massive wildfires... caused in nature by lightning strikes. And then the cones open and germinate, and only then, after the destruction, are the new trees born. Kind of like a plant version of the phoenix. Don't know if that does anything for the symbolism, except that it's such a dramatic cycle.)
--- Quote ---Also, is there a distinction between natural electricity (lightning vs. electricity harnessed by people)?
--- End quote ---
Well, as with the water, we've got the lightning on Brokeback, compared to the tame electricity in their domestic lives. But toasters and televisions just don't pack the thrill of lightning, you know? (I mean... ok, well, I have sat and watched a toaster before, but it isn't the same as sitting and watching a lightning storm.)
Electric carving knives don't quite do it in the thrill department, either. ;) Poor Alma. She craves electricity in her life, but doesn't realize that there's more to the world than appliances.
Penthesilea:
--- Quote from: nakymaton on November 09, 2006, 01:00:18 am ---
But toasters and televisions just don't pack the thrill of lightning, you know?
--- End quote ---
I've nothing insightful to add at the moment, but wanted to let you know that this absolutely cracked me up. Toasters don't pack the thrill of lightning - ROTFL :laugh:
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