Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Post-Divorce Scene
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: Lynne on January 23, 2007, 07:20:18 pm ---bump
--- End quote ---
Hey, Lynne, thanks for bumping this thread. I gotta come back to it when I have a little more time. I think I ignored it first time around, and clearly a lot more happened on it than talk about zany Uncle Harold.
Considering some of the posts from Katherine and Mel that I just scanned through, this might be a place to discuss the peculiar reaction I had when I watched the post-divorce scene last time.
Jeff Wrangler:
OK. (Jeff takes a deep breath.)
Last time I watched the movie, about a week and a half ago, I had a very weird reaction to the post-divorce scene.
Let me first say that I still remember my reaction to this scene the first time I saw the film in the theater. My reaction wasn't so much to what was happening on the screen to Ennis and Jack. I was very familiar with the story, and I knew immediately that the entire scene had been concocted from one sentence in Annie Proulx:
"He called Jack's number in Childress, something he had done only once before, when Alma divorced him and Jack had misunderstood the reason for the call, had driven twelve hundred miles north for nothing."
And I remember thinking what a brilliant piece of screenwriting that was for Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana to concoct such a gut-wrenching scene out of one little sentence.
Anyway. ...
I know the Standard Received interpretation of what happens in this scene. To what we see on the screen, we have the backing of the stage directions (if that's the right term for it) in the screenplay in Story to Screenplay:
"ENNIS realizes now what has happened: JACK thinks, mistakenly, that ENNIS has come around, that this is their chance, finally, to be together."
Then:
"JACK looks at ENNIS ... and the smile leaves his face, too. Realizes now that he's made a terrible mistake: turns pale ... his body sags under the weight of disappointment. Humiliated, then devastated."
So what happened when I watched the scene?
Without intending it to happen, I found myself watching the scene as if I knew nothing but what I was seeing on the screen. Nothing about the screenplay, nothing about Annie Proulx, just what I was seeing Heath and Jake do on screen--mostly what I was seeing Jake do.
I saw Jack lookin' all perky as he drove up to Wyoming. I saw him get out of the pickup at Ennis's line cabin, all bright-eyed and breathless and repeating himself about getting the postcard. I watched all the famous, lubricious Gyllenhaal lip-licking and tongue action that goes on, and I think, maybe for the first time, I really absorbed Jack's little head-cock--as if to indicate heading off to the mountains.
And I shocked myself by finding myself thinking, "You horny bastard, you're not there to plan a life together, you're just there because you think Ennis's postcard is an invitation to come and get laid!"
That's coarse, I know, and I swear to God I have no idea where that reaction came from, after a year of living intently with this film, these characters. But there it was. :-\
I am sure not out to defend the indefensible, but after the heretical thought about why Jack was there presented itself, I have to admit that Ennis's response, essentially, "I can't go off to the mountains with you, I got my daughters this weekend," seemed more to the point.
And Jack's ultimate response, to go off and, I've always assumed, get fucked in an alley in Juarez (whether or not he paid for it, I don't know), seemed somehow less opprobrious. It even made a kind of perverted sense: You need it (because you can't make it on a couple of high-altitude fucks once or twice a year), you can't get it from Ennis for another month (remember: "See you next month, then"), so you go get it where you can get it.
And, yeah, I'd have been bawling in that pickup, too, as I drove away from Ennis's, if I'd made a fool out of myself as Jack just had. What on earth did he tell Lureen when he left Childress? And what on earth was he going to tell her when he slunk back home with his tail between his legs?
It was weird, I tell you, weird. :-\
Thanks, I really needeg to vent that! :P
Brown Eyes:
Jeff,
I don't think your interpretation here is off at all and I don't even think that it contradicts the perhaps more typical Brokie inclination (which is usually to see this scene in a more serious, tragic way... missing the opportunity for a life together, etc.). I think you're absolutely right that Jack is there hoping for sex with Ennis, of course he is. I think Jake tries very hard to convey this through subtle facial expressions, gesture, the lip-licking (all as you mention). And, you're right, Jack's spontaneous decision to go to Mexico is further indication that he'd been hoping for sex with Ennis [a graphic illustration of his frustration]. I think this whole scene is meant to be an illustration for the film audience of Jack's later statement that Ennis had "no idea how bad it gets."
But I don't think this contradicts the idea that Jack absolutely thought that this time the camping trip/ sex with Ennis would actually lead to something. It would be the beginning of living together... or the sex this time would be a celebration of beginning a new phase in their relationship signaled by Ennis's divorce. In this scene I think Jack fully expects both the immediate sex and the long-term life together.
I've said it before, and I still think it's valid. Ennis is very lucky here that Jack didn't hop out of the truck and announce that he too had just filed for divorce. I feel like Jack was that gleeful and not thinking clearly upon receiving Ennis's news. And, Jack's surprise trip to see Ennis was probably not the wisest way of dealing with Ennis (something he'd probably normally understand... but under less-excited circumstances).
But! I think Ennis responds here and seems to indicate (in even more-subtle fashion... typical of Ennis) that he understand this strong urge for sex right now (the kind of urge that could lead someone to drive 14 hours for a surprise visit). I think Ennis does this when he says that he's sorry and then says "you know I am" and gives Jack a sort of meaningfully intense look. He understands at least that immediate desire on Jack's part (even if he's not on-board the idea of living together at this stage), but he's paralyzed due to the fact that he has to have this conversation in front of his daughters. If the daughters weren't there, of course they would have hooked up at the very least (at least that's my sense of it). I think this is why it's so odd to some viewers that Jack leaves so abruptly and didn't wait around for a few days until Ennis's visit with the girls was over. At the same time, I think Jack's motivation to leave quickly (hurt at the rejection, a kind of humiliation, realization that Ennis hadn't made the radical decision he'd hoped for) are pretty easy to understand too.
Jeff Wrangler:
Thanks, Amanda.
After making a clean breast of it like I did, I was afraid I'd get shot by ... somebody, one. ;D
I'm glad you mentioned that Ennis and Jack have their conversation in the presence of Ennis's daughters; I think that's useful to remember. Another thing I felt when I watched the scene the last time was that the girls barely "registered" with Jack when Ennis introduced them.
I'd like to mention, too, that as I scrolled through this thread, after it turned away from zany Uncle Harold, somebody said something about the laconic nature of Ennis's postcard writing leading Jack to anticipate more from Ennis's divorce than actually happened, and somebody--I think it was Katherine?--saying this scene is more plausible by having Ennis just send a postcard than by telephoning, as he does in the story. Both I think are very good points!
Marge_Innavera:
--- Quote from: atz75 on January 24, 2007, 12:44:57 am ---But I don't think this contradicts the idea that Jack absolutely thought that this time the camping trip/ sex with Ennis would actually lead to something. It would be the beginning of living together... or the sex this time would be a celebration of beginning a new phase in their relationship signaled by Ennis's divorce. In this scene I think Jack fully expects both the immediate sex and the long-term life together.
--- End quote ---
At the beginning, I don't think Jack is all that unhappy with the arrangement. In the film he says "once in awhile? Every four f**king years?" in an impatient tone; but it obviously turns out to be once or twice a year. And Jack might be hoping for more than that all along, but at this point, Ennis and Jack are still only 23 or 24. When you're in your 20s, especially early 20s, the notion of meeting a secret lover "out in the middle of nowhere" for trysts has considerable romantic appeal. But skip forward to 1975, and now you've got two men in their early 30s who both have kids. That would be the logical point where Jack would start asking himself "is this all there is?" to the relationship - and after getting the postcard, he thinks that after this, it won't be.
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