Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
A Ninth Viewing Observation
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: goadra on October 11, 2006, 11:28:20 pm ---I wish (really I do) that I could see this as a happy sequence, but...
It begins after Ennis’s bleak Thanksgiving (and the music for this sequence starts while Ennis is being beaten).
... There’s no easy banter as there was during the post-sheep scene or the “You’re late” sequence; in fact, they’re silent.
They ride past a lake that’s completely still.
As they ford the stream, their horses are briefly in step, but their expressions are...expressionless and Jack never once looks at Ennis.
--- End quote ---
This is exactly the way I've always seen it. I read this scene as illustrating the toll that their "separate and difficult lives" have taken on them. To me, the music sounds peaceful but also melancholy -- especially, as Barbara points out, because it starts during the beating scene. The first time I saw it, I expected Ennis to be all bruised and injured.
Their youthful exuberance is gone. They're not smiling or joking around, to me their expressions look outright glum. They're still together, still love each other, still feel more relaxed and comfortable together, out in nature, than they do anywhere else. But being together has gone from being an entirely joyful experience to serving as a reminder to both men of the painful trap they're living in.
Actually, in contrast to this I find the next scene, the "high-class entertainment" exchange, somewhat heartening. There, their behavior seems lighter and more affectionate. Even when Ennis asks about Jack's marriage and whether he worries that "people know," they seem close; Ennis is confiding in Jack and sincerely asking for support. It's only after Jack suggests the Texas move that the mood changes.
How funny that different people can see this same scene so 180-degrees differently!
Brown Eyes:
--- Quote from: latjoreme on October 12, 2006, 01:14:33 am ---How funny that different people can see this same scene so 180-degrees differently!
--- End quote ---
Well, I definitely think your right about the horse-wading scene and the potential to see it many ways. It's filled with a ton of ambiguity (isn't that one of our favorite Brokeback words)? Their facial expressions are very hard to read... and it seems to fit the overall tone of the film to have such a scene be simultaneously melancholy and peaceful. That actually sort of sums up the way I've reacted to the movie as a whole from early on. It's simultaneously sad and hopeful or uplifting (if not truly happy). I think keeping the 180 degree different opinions (or a spectrum of opinions) viable at the same time is a very, very cool idea and also very complicated.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: atz75 on October 12, 2006, 02:00:31 am --- I think keeping the 180 degree different opinions (or a spectrum of opinions) viable at the same time is a very, very cool idea and also very complicated.
--- End quote ---
Excellent point. And complicated is right. Imagine how hard that is to do. Here's a movie in which lots and lots of things are open to multiple interpretations. And YET, nothing in it is ever completely confusing or unclear. Unlike one of those movies that people don't "get" -- maybe "Mulholland Drive"? I haven't seen it but it has that reputation -- BBM is pretty straightforward. It's the interpretations and implications and motivations that are mysterious.
Brown Eyes:
As a story and in the way the film is constructed BBM is definitely more straigtforward than Mulholland Drive (it's a very good film and is deliberately confusing in its narrative and editing, etc.... the viewer's entire perspective/ access to information completely changes from one part of the film to another). After all these months of discussing Brokeback I think we've done a good job picking out ways that BBM is complicated in incredibly subtle ways. I know that some friends of mine upon first viewing the film, for instance, never thought to question how Jack died. And then when you point out to them that we have no concrete way of knowing how Jack died they're sort of stunned and then they realize... oh, I really had no idea how Jack died. I feel like almost every scene can lead to some kind of complicated question or un-resolvable issue. The narrative holds together in a way that you can watch it once and sort of miss all the little elements that add up to zillions of questions. This seems to be one reason that it seems fun and easy to watch BBM over and over again without getting tired of it.
The complexities of Brokeback kind of sneak up on you, whereas Mulholland Drive hits you over the head with the complexities.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: atz75 on October 12, 2006, 02:23:46 am --- I know that some friends of mine upon first viewing the film, for instance, never thought to question how Jack died. And then when you point out to them that we have no concrete way of knowing how Jack died they're sort of stunned and then they realize... oh, I really had no idea how Jack died.
--- End quote ---
Which do they think it is?
I love Brokeback's straightforwardness, but it is also, in a way, a liability. That's one reason why some perfectly intelligent people see it and think it's slow, or nothing happens, or, well, I liked it fine, but ... They haven't realized how much lies under the surface.
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