But behind all those maskes is the one constant,his love for Ennis.His greatest joy and ultimately his undoing.
that made me wanna cry all of a sudden. Beautifully put. Sometimes it does feel as if it would have been better for both of them of they´d never met.Thankyou for your lovely comments.
I liked your conclusions about jack´s hang-ups being his dreams and his reality because he never managed the melt the two together. And like you say, when he realises that himself his spirit dies and shortly afterwards his body.
Thankyou for your lovely comments.Beautiful post,Optom¡ It's what most of us have felt sometimes watching BBM,but indeed you've put it into words much better... :'(
Is that not the beauty of it though.We are lost in the tragedy of their meeting.We the viewer ache to shout and scream at them as we watch it unfold before us.Yet at the same time are simultaneously rendered speechless, by the hold they have over us and our emotions.What a paradox.For the first time ,the film led me to truly understand the phrase,dumbstruck.It is like those terrible nightmares you sometimes have, when you open your mouth and no sound is emitted.That is how I felt when I first watched the film,with tears streaming down my face.
It was like a moving,living, breathing version of that painting,the scream,watching dreams become nightmares.
He was forever the optimist,and as long as you have your dreams,that can make up for many a shortfall in reality.Take away the dreams and reality then bites hard.
Jack in the last meeting with Ennis surely feels the last remnants of his dream,get blown away on the wind.It is at this point that that his dreams maybe become his biggest hang-up.Hence his explosion,reality sucks.So could it be that Jacks dreams,once his greatest comfort,finally become his greatest hang-up, ultimately,the shattering of which,leads to his death.For Jack I do believe up until then,hope had always sprung eternal.
He has I believe already died emotionally,when his dreams of a sweet life with Ennis died.All that remains is the physical death,which seems almost a forgone conclusion.Unbeknown to him,Ennis by trying to protect his lover has in fact done completely the reverse.Therein lies the horrendous tragedy which haunts,Ennis and will continue to do so,and also us the viewer.Never has the phrase,we always hurt the one we love most,resonated more devastatingly.
behind all those masks is the one constant,his love for Ennis. His greatest joy and ultimately his undoing.
We are lost in the tragedy of their meeting.We the viewer ache to shout and scream at them as we watch it unfold before us.Yet at the same time are simultaneously rendered speechless, by the hold they have over us and our emotions.What a paradox.For the first time ,the film led me to truly understand the phrase,dumbstruck.It is like those terrible nightmares you sometimes have, when you open your mouth and no sound is emitted.That is how I felt when I first watched the film,with tears streaming down my face.
It was like a moving,living, breathing version of that painting,the scream,watching dreams become nightmares.
Jake acts it so brilliantly as well,now I look at it from that angle,all doe eyed and silent pleading.Yes part of it is love,but that is inextricably bound up with wanting approval.The two go hand in hand.
I have always wondered about what kind of conclusion Jack and Ennis came to after the last lake scene, and if it was the end of Jack's dreams.
The emotional outburst from Ennis, was the first time he had ever let his true feelings and insecurities out, he was telling Jack, in a round about way, that "its because of you, Jack, I'm this way"......he was finally telling him that he loved him (in a round about way), telling him that its because of what there is between the two of them, that has controlled his whole life.
I have always thought, that instead of being the end of Jack's dreams, it would have been some reassurance that Ennis felt exactly the same way about him as he did....
We don't know what happened between the two of them, after the grasping clutch on the ground, or what was said in reply to what Ennis said, but the one consolation we do have, is that Jack did not die wondering.......he did know how Ennis felt.
The posts here are really great and really sum Jack up perfectly.
I have always wondered about what kind of conclusion Jack and Ennis came to after the last lake scene, and if it was the end of Jack's dreams.
The emotional outburst from Ennis, was the first time he had ever let his true feelings and insecurities out, he was telling Jack, in a round about way, that "its because of you, Jack, I'm this way"......he was finally telling him that he loved him (in a round about way), telling him that its because of what there is between the two of them, that has controlled his whole life.
I have always thought, that instead of being the end of Jack's dreams, it would have been some reassurance that Ennis felt exactly the same way about him as he did....
We don't know what happened between the two of them, after the grasping clutch on the ground, or what was said in reply to what Ennis said, but the one consolation we do have, is that Jack did not die wondering.......he did know how Ennis felt.
I hope he knew he was loved,even if he had given up on his dreams.
I think I preferred to idealize Jack. I think the way that Jack just kept loving Ennis, and trying to give him what he needed, even when it hurt him... when it kept hurting him, constantly.. is both beautiful and necessary to Ennis's development. Jack was Ennis's 'ministering angel'. His love had a sacrificial quality to it. And BBM is essentially Ennis's story, and for that story to unfold as it does it is necessary for there to be a Jack, and for Jack to act as he did.
But how do we reconcile that with a human Jack who.. well, maybe, held on too long, and neglected himself and his own needs? I think Jack is guilty of that... he cut himself off from part of what he needed, and maybe even denied the need itself, in order to be with Ennis. He forced himself to be satisfied with whatever little bits of life Ennis could share with him. And when dissatisfaction drove him to find consolation in other things and people, I think he ... well, I think he did it quickly and with his eyes closed, without acknowledging to himself what his life with Ennis was costing him, until that last camping trip when the shock of Ennis's cancellation of August forced the admission out of him in the form of anger.
Who acts like that? Maybe someone who doesn't have the self-esteem or the faith to try and find in this world what he really needs, or who, as someone has already said, has a problem with reality?
Oh, I don't know. I guess what I really think is that Jack, having found companionship and love with Ennis, having found and recognized a person with whom he 'clicked' and matched, was afraid of never having that feeling again, if he let go of Ennis. I think he was afraid of his life feeling unreal and unconnected, to such a degree that he kind of manifested that very thing... a life that could never really come together for him, a life in which there was no true stable center, where even in death he couldn't be in one place.
I think the fact that he's a bull rider is very important to the notion that Jack very easily throws off fear and will go ahead and do something that he loves even if he knows that it's dangerous. He knows that he could get killed riding a bull, but he loves it and pursues it (even if he isn't very good at it always). And, he has an awareness that there are dangers in the world for gay men (how could he not... dealing with Ennis all the time), but he loves Ennis and is willing to risk it.
Anyway, one of the main things I wanted to post here was something I was lying awake thinking about last night in bed. I was thinking about the end segments of BBM and how strong, powerful and important the metaphor of the closet is in contexts involving both Jack and Ennis almost in equal measure. The fact that the closet is an almost over-determined symbol for gay people concealing their identities or hiding what's important to them goes without saying. Clearly at the very end we know that Ennis is keeping his most precious things in his closet (his daughter's sweater and his shrine to Jack). And, earlier the profound secret that Jack kept even from Ennis was concealed in his childhood closet (and I guess on a broad level we could say that his secret was how long he was deeply in love with Ennis... and how long he was completely and consciously aware that what he felt was love and was profound enough to save and preserve carefully). Somehow the fact that we know both Ennis and Jack are/were tied to their closets in super important ways creates an equivalence between them. It is true that Jack's daily life was dominated by activities and people that had very little to do with his true desires and identity. So, in "faking" his life in Childress Jack is conceding that he's willing to hide or even fells the need to hide his identity like Ennis does.
Of course the argument can also be made that Jack only "fakes" his life in Childress in response to the constraints placed on their relationship by Ennis. The ultimate consequence of his short leash.
Of course the argument can also be made that Jack only "fakes" his life in Childress in response to the constraints placed on their relationship by Ennis. The ultimate consequence of his short leash.