Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Jack and Alma
Brown Eyes:
--- Quote from: Rayn on May 03, 2006, 01:23:44 am ---It's actually rude of him not to spend a little more time with Alma. I mean, he's taking her husband from her for days, but the combination of urgency, fear and discomfort around Alma is greater than any need for "proper" manners.
--- End quote ---
I just re-read this thread and it struck me that this is a particularly good observation. Yes, it is pretty "rude" of Jack to avoid spending any time in the apartment. But, I think it's Ennis who's orchestrating that part, especially the "morning after" the motel. He can't even look Alma in the eye when he's running around packing. It's only at the very end of his packing when he kisses Alma Jr. and finally Alma that he brings himself to look at her.
It's interesting that Alma really wants Jack to come inside for the morning coffee. What is she expecting/ wanting to see happen if Jack actually did come in for breakfast? Would she have confronted them? I certainly doubt it. Did she really want to have morning "small talk" with Jack and Ennis knowing what she knows just happened that night? Really, why would she want Jack to come in and visit? Michelle's facial expressions during this morning scene, I think, are some of her best moments. Heartbreaking. What an amazing contrast to Ennis's state of mind at this point (complete joy and relief mixed with lots of guilt re: Alma). I love when Alma looks out the window and hears Jack and Ennis planning to go out for breakfast. A great detail.
I wonder what Jack and Ennis dining at a restaurant together would look like. There are lots of details like that, which I wish Lee would have let us see.
Welcome korgriff! Thanks for joining the thread.
:D
And, I think it is a good point about the daily things that Jack misses. He's very well aware that they were happiest when they were living together on Brokeback in their kooky form of a domestic partnership (doing chores for each other, etc.). He would give anything to get back to living like that again. I think Ennis gets this too, but can't begin to imagine how it would really work.
JfT:
Hi atz75. I too wonder what J&E at breakfast in a restaurant would look like.
Small talk, slight glances & "accidental" touching whilst passing the salt?
Lovely...
Brown Eyes:
It's interesting that this reunion visit/ meeting between Jack and Ennis is the one where Ennis seems the least worried about people seeing him out and about with Jack. He's probably so desperate to be with Jack at this juncture that he lets some of his anxieties fall by the wayside. But, during this vist he's willing to take the risk of kissing Jack outside, of introducing him to Alma, of checking into a motel with him and of eating breakfast out at a restaurant with him. That's a lot of out-ness for Ennis when we consider his behavior in later scene. I mean, in the post-divorce heartbreaker... he doesn't even want the person in the white truck driving by to see him talking to Jack. And, he seems unhappy that Jack asked "10 different people" where Ennis had moved.
Yes, I'm sure they were flirty and cute during their breakfast out. :D
Welcome to BetterMost JfT
TJ:
--- Quote from: JfT on May 04, 2006, 10:13:17 pm ---Hi atz75. I too wonder what J&E at breakfast in a restaurant would look like.
Small talk, slight glances & "accidental" touching whilst passing the salt?
Lovely...
--- End quote ---
Oh, that would not be too hard for me to imagine. The "small talk" could have some inside jokes or personal references in them that the other patrons in the restaurant or cafe would not even know what is going on.
I can say BTDT when I ate at a neighborhood old-style restaurant not far from where I live with a basically closeted young man who ate there more often than I did. One of the cooks in that place knew that I was openly gay and that Kaland had lived with me, too. In another part of town when he lived with me, we went to Denney's a whole lot.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: atz75 on May 04, 2006, 10:20:49 pm ---It's interesting that this reunion visit/ meeting between Jack and Ennis is the one where Ennis seems the least worried about people seeing him out and about with Jack. He's probably so desperate to be with Jack at this juncture that he lets some of his anxieties fall by the wayside. But, during this vist he's willing to take the risk of kissing Jack outside, of introducing him to Alma, of checking into a motel with him and of eating breakfast out at a restaurant with him. That's a lot of out-ness for Ennis when we consider his behavior in later scene. I mean, in the post-divorce heartbreaker... he doesn't even want the person in the white truck driving by to see him talking to Jack. And, he seems unhappy that Jack asked "10 different people" where Ennis had moved.
--- End quote ---
Yes, I think his uncharacteristic recklessness at the reunion is such a vivid demonstration of how much he missed Jack. He probably hadn't even dared to hope that he'd ever see him again, and is so overjoyed that his dreams have come true he can hardly believe it. (Though having his two lives come in contact with one another still does call for a lot of careful shirt-tucking.)
Post-divorce, I suppose he's probably even more paranoid than at any time when he was when married, now that people would have more reason to wonder about him.
And, yes, it would be fun to go to that breakfast. For that matter, if Ang had followed them around with a camera and filmed every minute they spent together over the entire 20 years (plus the two months on Brokeback), I would buy the 100-disk DVD set in a heartbeat.
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