Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
A Ninth Viewing Observation
nakymaton:
About screwed up dates:
The ultimate example, for me, is the blue parka scene. At the beginning of the scene, the screenplay states that it is 1969. Then, three lines later, it says that Lureen is sitting in front of a calendar dated 1973.
Lureen may be on top of things, but I've never known anyone to put up a calendar four years early. ;D
(I suspect that the dates at the end of the movie were changed around so that Alma Jr. would be the same age during the "does he love you" scene as Jack and Ennis were when they met. Nice parallel, but nobody seems to have sat down with the screenplay and checked the timeline to see if it made sense.)
(Also, it seems that the movie as filmed is deliberately vague about the precise dates, even though they are stated in the screenplay. Most of the obvious time markers -- the calendar, for instance, or the drive-in showing of The Empire Strikes Back that was in an early script draft -- aren't in the final movie. And there aren't other obvious time markers, either... no JFK, no astronauts, no Nixon, no bicentennial. Just the vaguest reference to Vietnam ("...if the army don't get me") and to late-70's inflation. Actually, I kind of like it that way... I like the feeling of drifting along without obvious "here we are in 1975!" kinds of references.)
jpwagoneer1964:
--- Quote from: nakymaton on August 09, 2006, 10:59:32 pm ---About screwed up dates:
The ultimate example, for me, is the blue parka scene. At the beginning of the scene, the screenplay states that it is 1969. Then, three lines later, it says that Lureen is sitting in front of a calendar dated 1973.
Lureen may be on top of things, but I've never known anyone to put up a calendar four years early. ;D
--- End quote ---
Not only that but Jack drives to the campout in his 1977 Ford truck.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: nakymaton on August 09, 2006, 10:59:32 pm --- Actually, I kind of like it that way... I like the feeling of drifting along without obvious "here we are in 1975!" kinds of references.
--- End quote ---
And what more do we need for that than the sideburns? :laugh:
I agree. Besides, if you opened it up to the outside world in that way, then pretty soon you'd have to open it up in terms of politics and current events and culture. And you'd lose the value of concentrating on this one isolated group of people. We can extrapolate a lot of things from their story that apply to the larger culture, but I'm glad they mostly leave that to the viewer rather than make explicit connections themselves.
nakymaton:
--- Quote from: latjoreme on August 09, 2006, 11:20:50 pm ---And what more do we need for that than the sideburns? :laugh:
--- End quote ---
Tell you what... I've actually got a huge crush on the sideburns. I have no idea why. I have never had a thing for sideburns before, maybe because I associate them with polyester leisure suits. But those sideburns? Yowza.
*hides in embarrassment*
(And jpwagoneer -- is that 1977 truck the one that people keep mentioning as being an error? I am really, really bad at dating vehicles.)
serious crayons:
Whenever the sideburns appear, I think of that line from the famous "cowboy etiquette" thread that was something like, "If unable to grow sideburns, simply apply Brillo pad to side of face."
To this day, I am haunted by hilarious lines from that damn "cowboy etiquette" thread whenever I watch the movie.
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