Least Favorite Character in BBM

[Lumière]

The 2 dads (Twist & del Mar) are my top two.  Ennis' life was forever shaped by his abusive father.  His whole struggle with his sexuality and his love for Jack all go back to what happened in his childhood.  Then we come to John Twist, he was a bastard too, but luckily, Momma Twist had so much love and compassion that her son was not permanently scarred by his father's mean ways.

I think Ol' man del Mar is top of my list, followed by John friggin' Twist!

 

[Ellemeno]

Of course Ennis's father is criminal, but I would vote for:

My least favorite character in the movie is Fayette Newsome.  I have empathy for most of those others, in one way or another.  But a grandmother who can only talk about how many cans of baby formula she brought, when she first beholds her only grandchild, feh.  Could you add her to the list?

And those Texas "pissant"-talkers.  How crappy to talk about Jack like that in front of his wife.

[ednbarby]

That's a good point, Clarissa.  However, Fayette redeemed herself in my eyes a tad when she smiled at Jack when he stood up for her daughter at Thanksgiving.  The first time he shuts off the TV, before he and L.D. have at it, she flashes a subtle little grin his way as if saying "Thank you."

But if we're talking about people who piss us off for being insensitive, I gotta go back to Jimbo.  And really he's more sinister than his little scene allows, because he and his pool-playing buddies are the foreshadowers of what's to come 20 years later.  I really wanna smack his smug little face for looking at Jack like that in that bar.  Hard.

[Ellemeno]

That's a good point, Clarissa.  However, Fayette redeemed herself in my eyes a tad when she smiled at Jack when he stood up for her daughter at Thanksgiving.  The first time he shuts off the TV, before he and L.D. have at it, she flashes a subtle little grin his way as if saying "Thank you."

But if we're talking about people who piss us off for being insensitive, I gotta go back to Jimbo.  And really he's more sinister than his little scene allows, because he and his pool-playing buddies are the foreshadowers of what's to come 20 years later.  I really wanna smack his smug little face for looking at Jack like that in that bar.  Hard.

I've never noticed that smile, Barb.  I'll watch for it next time.  That would be redeeming. 

As for Jimbo, my take on him has always been that Jack was right about him - that he is gay.  But Jack was foolish enough to do his flirting right in front of the bartender, and Jimbo himself felt at risk of being outed and harmed.  It always seems like he plays all his lines for the bartender's benefit, to make clear that he ain't queer. 

And it looks to me that Ang Lee deliberately made Jimbo's conversation with his pool buddies deliberately ambiguous.  You could look at it and see him telling them what Jack had just said, and then you can watch it again, and they are all just talking about any old something innocuous.  Very effective.  And just the sort of head-messing confusion that gets Ennis so paranoid later on (maybe rightly and maybe needlessly, we never find out).

[ednbarby]

I've never noticed that smile, Barb.  I'll watch for it next time.  That would be redeeming. 

As for Jimbo, my take on him has always been that Jack was right about him - that he is gay.  But Jack was foolish enough to do his flirting right in front of the bartender, and Jimbo himself felt at risk of being outed and harmed.  It always seems like he plays all his lines for the bartender's benefit, to make clear that he ain't queer. 

And it looks to me that Ang Lee deliberately made Jimbo's conversation with his pool buddies deliberately ambiguous.  You could look at it and see him telling them what Jack had just said, and then you can watch it again, and they are all just talking about any old something innocuous.  Very effective.  And just the sort of head-messing confusion that gets Ennis so paranoid later on (maybe rightly and maybe needlessly, we never find out).

Excellent point about Jimbo, Clarissa.  Of course - he is playing all those lines for the bartender (who actually seems quite sympathetic to Jack when he first asks to buy him a beer, I've noticed), isn't he?  So many layers.  Just like real life, huh?  God, I love these people.

And speaking of that, I didn't even notice Fayette's little smile until roundabout my sixth viewing (and first DVD viewing at home).  All those times on the big screen, and I never saw it.  Maybe because I was so busy watching the color rise up Jack's/Jake's neck to his face and then to his temples as he gets madder and madder at L.D.  An understandable distraction.  Yes, do watch for it next time - she does it the very first time he shuts it off when he's saying, "Finish your dinner.  And *then* you can watch the game."  I think it's when he's coming back to the table from doing that, actually, that she looks in his direction and gives him just the tiniest look of approval.

Have I mentioned how much I love all these people?

[TJ]

While I think the Ang Lee Brokeback Mountain Movie is a very good movie in the "stand-alone" sense, I actually prefer Annie Proulx's original story (I refer to that as "the book").

I chose "L. D. Newsome" as one of my options here because while Lureen's father-in-law is talked about in the short story, he has no name in it. Lureen doesn't even have a last name in the book." Annie Proulx NEVER had Jack Twist work for his father-in-law's farm and equipment company. Jack worked for the company and had a vague managerial title and was a buyer after Lureen inherited it. Jack would not have enjoyed working for a man who hated his guts and according to Jack in 1967, he and Lureen were getting no financial help from her father at all.

K. E. Del Mar more than likely had a problem with his own sexuality and might have suffered from his father's hatred of queers, too, just like Ennis did. When Ennis and Jack were up on Brokeback Mountain, Ennis said that his brother lived in Signal and his married sister lived in Casper. Notice that the book did not say K. E. was married.

Cassie Cartwright - She was created for the movie because when the last time that Jack and Ennis were together, Ennis said "he'd been putting the blocks to a woman who worked part-time at the Wolf Ears bar in Signal where he was working now for Stoutamire's cow and calf outfit, but it wasn't going anywhere and she had some problems he didn't want." Signal and the Stoutamire ranch were not even in the same county as Riverton, Wyoming and the book says so. One "putts the blocks to" a vehicle to see its underside or the main-frame which is a "chassis" (pronounced "chassie". The screenplay writers used a play on words in that situation. I personally think that Ennis made the woman up to tell Jack, "I am a man; I'm still not no queer."

Jimbo, the Rodeo Clown, doesn't exist in the original story either. The guy who is the bull fighter clown in the movie when Jack is supposed to be riding a bull is not even built the same as the actor. The Alberta Rockies Gay Rodeo Association (ARGRA) assisted in the production of the movie's rodeo scenes.

Speaking of Rodeos and bull riders, Ty Murray, the president of the Professional Bull Riders Association (aka PBR), stated on a morning talk show on a major TV network that he like the movie. Bernie Taupin, the writer of the lyrics  of "A Love That Will Never Grow Old," is one of the stock providers for PBR rodeos in the west. Taupin is one of Elton John's song writers.

[Lumière]

Cheers for adding your 10 cents TJ! 

I just decided to remove K.E. del Mar from the list, he was just as messed up by their abusive father as Ennis was ...  I sometimes wonder about Mrs. del Mar, what was she like?  How did she treat her sons?  Was she basically living in the abusive shadow of her husband as well?  For all we know, she coulda been a battered wife, forced into subserviency.

[Arad-3]

God! ]what a horrible man. showing his two young boys Earls dead body. And then after that he couldnt even make the only curve in a 43 mile road. He was probley too busy scouting for gays

[Lumière]

He was probley too busy scouting for gays

LOL    ... Thats funny!

Poor Mrs del Mar though ... 

[TJ]

Cheers for adding your 10 cents TJ! 

I just decided to remove K.E. del Mar from the list, he was just as messed up by their abusive father as Ennis was ...  I sometimes wonder about Mrs. del Mar, what was she like?  How did she treat her sons?  Was she basically living in the abusive shadow of her husband as well?  For all we know, she coulda been a battered wife, forced into subserviency.

I wouldn't have been surprised if K.E. and Ennis's mother, Mrs. Del Mar, were to have been described by Annie Proulx (AP) being a mother somewhat like Jack's mother. Ennis's mother's denomination is not mentioned in the AP story; but, in the dozy embrace flashback scene, Ennis does something with Jack like his own mother did with him and said to Jack what his own mother said to him. In the movie, Ennis did say his folks were Methodist.

I have met a few Methodist mothers who were very spiritual and loving of their own children, too. I have been shown great hospitality by Methodists and I have a memory of good time in Methodist family's home the first Sunday I was living in the small town where I first taught school. I did not go there regularly though, I felt more at home in the American Baptist Church.