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

Actors' restraint

(1/4) > >>

bbm_stitchbuffyfan:
So, I'm sure that a lot of you know that, allegedly, Ang Lee told his actors to restrain in this movie. You probably noticed while watching the movie.

Now here is what I would like to know: why do you think he wanted it that way?
It sure keeps the performances and the film itself from going anywhere near over-the-top. And which scenes do you think Jake, Heath, Anne, or Michelle restrained in? (I can think of at least one or two examples for each.)

Thoughts/comments?

www.jlodown.com

YaadPyar:
Restrained for two reasons:

1.  Because the cultural mileu of the time and place is a restrained one.  Folks in the rural west are taciturn and stoic, not prone to talking about feelings or experiences.  The characters had to be true to that reality, and so talking for the sake of conveying anything non-essential had to be kept to an absolute minimum.  Otherwise the audience loses the honesty of the experience.

2.  Ang Lee seems very intersted in the audience being fully engaged in the emotional experience of the characters, and wants the viewer's to be placed squarely in the middle of the story.  For this reason, the actors must never so fully experience and express their emotional nature that nothing is left for the audience to feel.  Melodrama can create emotional experience, but not the kind that lingers or lives on.  With the very restrained performances in BBM, the audience finished the story and felt the emotions of the characters fully, and far beyond the theater experience. 

I think that's why we walked out feeling something, but needing days, weeks or even months to understand it - just as it took Ennis so long to understand what he felt. 

silkncense:
Yaadpyar -

Great post.  And the directing is then also true to the authors vision:  "It is my feeling that a story is not finished until it is read, and that the reader finishes it through his or her life experience, prejudices, world view and thoughts." -- Annie Proulx

opinionista:

--- Quote from: yaadpyar on April 09, 2006, 12:11:41 pm ---Because the cultural mileu of the time and place is a restrained one.  Folks in the rural west are taciturn and stoic, not prone to talking about feelings or experiences. 

--- End quote ---

Jake Gyllenhaal said in a interview he had a lot of trouble with this. That he is a very expressive person who like to talk about almost everything and the fact that Ang Lee wanted him to restrain himself, made the experience harder for him that it was for Heath, for example. He says Heath is less expressive than he is. 

However, I think the fact that he is so expressive was what made him play Jack so well. I don't know him and have never seen him in person, but he strikes me as someone who makes a lot of eye contact. And in my opinion that characteristic of his played an important role in his performance as Jack. At the confrontation scene, for instance, when Ennis is telling Jack about wanting to kill him for having been to Mexico, Jack is quietly listening. But the expression on his face tells much more that words would. You can tell by his eyes how much Ennis' words are hurting Jack. Jake managed to convey so much feelings through his eyes, that it made me wonder if Jake himself felt hurt by those words.

bbm_stitchbuffyfan:
Some excellent replies!

It's truly astonishing how even the directing of this film echoes the writing style of the original story. Ang Lee really is a genius. Like yaadpyar was explaining, I agree that it helped us feel the characters' emotions and that is what I think worked so, so brilliantly.

I can see Jake Gyllenhaal being a very expressive person but I am not trying to be presumptuous or anything, considering I've only seen him in interviews. Next time I watch the movie, I'll look at his eyes when Ennis threatens him about Mexico. I agree that Jake used his eyes to an excellent benefit in his performance; he made some expressions that were just amazing.

www.jlodown.com

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page