Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Brokeback's filmic structure a palindrome ?
Sason:
--- Quote from: Meryl on August 21, 2016, 01:24:49 pm ---I'm glad you brought attention to this thread again, Sonja! I just re-read it and loved the feeling of being back on the mountain.
That old, cold time on the mountain, when they owned the world and nothing seemed wrong.
--- End quote ---
You're welcome, Priestess!
Yeah, I miss those intense feelings from early on, too.
Front-Ranger:
Bumping this for Palindrome Day!
serious crayons:
Speaking of palindromes, forgive me if I've already mentioned this, but a week or so ago Clarissa messaged me on FB that a public book club in Seattle read Brokeback Mountain and in February participants will be going to see the movie together and then discuss both as a group. She invited me to attend and stay at her house. Unfortunately I can't make it, I said, but ...
--- Quote ---How fun would it be to sit in the book-club discussion saying things like "Obviously the kettle and coffee pot are a metaphor for Jack and Ennis" and "I'm sure everybody noticed how Jack is always associated with wind" and "It's obvious what the bear represents, right?" and "It was interesting that Ennis says, specifically, 'the people on the pavement' and earlier he'd had a discussion while spreading pavement with a guy who says 'broke my back' figuratively and Ennis then gazes off wistfully into the distance," and "Of course, that's also connected to the fact that the entire movie as an inkblot structure, as most of you probably noticed, with the center point when Ennis is seen in a mirror image getting his toothbrush at the exact midpoint of the film, and from then on everything that happens mirrors something that happened in the scenes going back from that moment all the way to the very beginning and the very end."
And then we could add, "This movie was really good! I'd see it a second time!"
--- End quote ---
Front-Ranger:
Love the quote! I can imagine the people in the book club just staring at the speaker with their jaws dropped!
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Front-Ranger on February 04, 2020, 11:50:19 am ---Love the quote! I can imagine the people in the book club just staring at the speaker with their jaws dropped!
--- End quote ---
Thanks! Wouldn't that be fun? I feel like all of us here have basically earned a master's if not a PhD in Brokebackology. And yet, what can we do with it?
Unfortunately I don't think teaching is an option, as few college literature or film departments offer a degree for Brokebackologists -- even adjunct wouldn't really be available. (Though I will say that when my son, several years ago, took media arts and culture classes in college, he for the first time asked to watch my DVD of BBM.)
When I describe my love for the literary aspects of BBM, my son insists that all the coffee pot/wind/bear/inkblot etc. things are present in most acclaimed arty films.
If that's true, they probably aren't as engaging as BBM in other ways. But I would also question whether the metaphor/symbolism/subtext stuff -- even if they do indeed have some -- is as complex and granular.
Lee, when you bumped this thread I went back and read its beginning -- maybe you did, too -- and it was fun to admire the lofty level of discussion back then.
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