According to wikipedia, "yin" is black and represent a passive, dark, femenine dowright seeking personality. The "yang" (white), is active, light, masculine, upward-seeking and corresponds to the day. Yin is often symbolized by water, while yang is symbolized by fire. So I reckon, Jack, who wears the black hat is yin and Ennis is yang. However, Jack isn't exactly passive in the relationship, but quite the contrary.He isn't downright either but quite upright; always dreaming; Ennis is the exact opposite.
Yin & Yang is actually quite a complex notion that westerners (like me) mistake for weak/strong when they apply it to female/male or passive/agressive. This is not quite accurate, particularly with regard to passive/agressive, instead it would be more acurate to say Jack is receptive (Yin) while Ennis is giving (Yang) - and I mean this in an emotional sense not sexual. There really isn't anything "passive" about Yin, at least not in a wussy sense.
Cool, isn't it?
It could be since Ang Lee is Chinese or Taiwanese! Not that there is any difference.
According to wikipedia, "yin" is black and represent a passive, dark, femenine dowright seeking personality. The "yang" (white), is active, light, masculine, upward-seeking and corresponds to the day. Yin is often symbolized by water, while yang is symbolized by fire. So I guess, Jack, who wears the black hat is yin, and Ennis is yang. However, Jack isn't exactly passive in the relationship, but quite the contrary. He isn't downright either but quite upright; always dreaming; Ennis is the exact opposite.
I also never saw any cherry-cake, let alone the one cherry in it.
Someone, somewhere (maybe Katherine, I don't quite remeber) once noticed how Jack's room contains all sorts of reminders of the Brokeback summer.
Interesting, downright/upright. There was a thread sometimes back talking aobut how Jack is often in the reclining versus Ennis' upright. For example, the "Tent don't look right" scene, Jack is reclined playing his harmonica, while Ennis is upright. Or Jack is reclined while trying to open the can of beans, while Ennis sits upright tending to hygiene.
Quote from: Penthesilea on May 28, 2006, 01:57:37 pmQuoteI also never saw any cherry-cake, let alone the one cherry in it.
Thank you, Penth, for saying this!!! Me neither! And, blurry with tears as my eyes may have been, I have looked for it.
Oh well, this is a topic for another thread. It doesn't have anything to do with yin and yang. ... Unless ... that one cherry, on the white half of the cake, with the other half dark, is supposed to be ...
No. Can't be.
It probably just represents the one tiny bit of love in the otherwise bleak white household.
*Looks at picture again*
Good Lord, it IS a tiny ying/yang, rectangular like the barn door image, and lacking a corresponding dot on one side! Are we insane to be noticing these things? ::) ;D
I like your interpretation, though, Katherine...a little bit of heart's warmth in a cold, bare place. :(
I can't help thinking that the cake was purposefully done that way. In a film, there'd be a prop master that saw to that detail. Would any person cutting the cake thought it'd look weird with only one cherry showing?
at this point in the film, the yin is without his other half. There is no yang. The circle is incomplete now.This is a good point. The cake reminded me of the yin-yang symbol, too. But I thought it can't be, because it's only one half of it. But you're completely right: the other half is gone. Sad again.
at this point in the film, the yin is without his other half. There is no yang. The circle is incomplete now.
Sometimes I ask myself, whether we are beginning to see ghosts, respectively symbols where there aren't any.
But how do you know that there wasn't another full moon between Jack's first night with the sheep and the first tent scene? All we know is that it's at least a month before the first tent scene. Could be longer.
(It's got to be at least two weeks before the bear encounter, because Ennis only brings a grocery order down once a week, and he sent at least one order with powdered milk and potatoes. So if the 1st tent scene is in June's full moon, they've got to shoot the elk and dry the jerky and switch jobs and move the sheep in those two weeks. Which is possible, but still... there's a lot of stuff in those two weeks.)
(No, wait, if Jack was being literal about "That's more words than you've spoke in the past two weeks," meaning they've been up on the mountain only two weeks... then Jack is sick of beans before the first week is out and their first grocery supply is already short? Maybe that's possible. Jack sure doesn't like those beans, then, huh?)
(And I also wonder, sometimes, if May isn't a bit early to head up to treeline. I'm trying to think about the work I've done in Wyoming... I know we worried about going up too high even in June, though I never had a problem with snow when I was up there. I know that here, quite a ways further south, there's still snow up near treeline where I've seen sheep herds, even right now.)
But how do you know that there wasn't another full moon between Jack's first night with the sheep and the first tent scene? All we know is that it's at least a month before the first tent scene. Could be longer.
(It's got to be at least two weeks before the bear encounter, because Ennis only brings a grocery order down once a week, and he sent at least one order with powdered milk and potatoes. So if the 1st tent scene is in June's full moon, they've got to shoot the elk and dry the jerky and switch jobs and move the sheep in those two weeks. Which is possible, but still... there's a lot of stuff in those two weeks.)
(No, wait, if Jack was being literal about "That's more words than you've spoke in the past two weeks," meaning they've been up on the mountain only two weeks... then Jack is sick of beans before the first week is out and their first grocery supply is already short? Maybe that's possible. Jack sure doesn't like those beans, then, huh?)
(And I also wonder, sometimes, if May isn't a bit early to head up to treeline. I'm trying to think about the work I've done in Wyoming... I know we worried about going up too high even in June, though I never had a problem with snow when I was up there. I know that here, quite a ways further south, there's still snow up near treeline where I've seen sheep herds, even right now.)
From nakymaton
And I know that a later start plus a two-month lag before the first tent scene makes the relationship painfully short... but that would make it make Ennis's reaction when they have to come down make even more sense.
Yee haw Meryl! Thanks, that's exactly the shot I was talking about!
Also, thanks for re-posting the great old imdb observation by surf (who is surf, by the way... is he/ she here?). I absolutely remember that old imdb thread and was amazed by the level of detail people were able to research. I have to say, it seems very smart to look into the actual dates of the full moons for 1963. And I agree with that old post too... I want the first tent scene to happen early, at least in June, so that I can go on believing that they had a good amount of time together as lovers that summer. The "never enough time, never enough" problem with this story/ movie is just too brutal.
:-\
Anyway, more on timelines... was the imdb thread about the dates of the full moons also the one where people figured out (or tried to figure out) the exact timeline of our boys' entire relationship (based on as many background clues as possible)? That was really a smart topic. I also remember another thread about whether or not Lureen was pregnant already when she hooked up with Jack (I recall that there were some solid arguments about that one).
Timelines may deserve their own thread around these parts.
Nature speaks little.
Squalls do not last the morning
Nor downpours the day.
What stirs them up?
Heaven-and-earth!
Whoever acts spoils;
Whoever grasps loses.
The sage does nothing.
He grasps nothing;
Therefore he loses nothing.
Nothing beneath heaven
Is softer and weaker than water.
Nothing is better
To attack the hard and strong,
And nothing can take its place.
Whoever acts spoils;
Whoever grasps loses.
The sage does nothing.
He grasps nothing;
Therefore he loses nothing.
Whoever acts spoils;
Whoever grasps loses.
The sage does nothing.
He grasps nothing;
Therefore he loses nothing.
Of course, when I asked all these questions, I didn't let on that the whole reason I was inquiring was so that I could try to figure out the relationship of yin and yang to BBM and Ennis in particular. :-\ ::).
The invitation to me of the Tao Te Ching is to consider how to return to the essence of life at every turn. To strip away too much thinking and too much feeling and too much doing, and just let the original, eternal quality of a thing emerge. And I think that's what so much of BBM is, and why it's such a simply crafted movie. Instead of adding layers of complexity to the story for depth, Ang Lee and Annie Proulx both, continually strip away everything that isn't the essential story. And the more you strip away, the more the force of love emerges because it's not clouded over by everything else.
Y'know...it's like the end of the movie. Ennis has nothing, is nothing, and all that's really left of him, for him, is his love for Jack. Strip away everything else, and the underlying generative force is all that's left...
Do you really think Ennis wasn't giving his whole heart in the second tent scene and the reunion?
You're very chameleon-like in your choices. What would you say is your essence as a filmmaker?
Ang Lee: I would have to say repression. (Laughs) I always use, but I try not to. I try to be a partygoer. But at some point I don't know why I'm doing it and fall back. I've been using repression, the struggle between behaving as a social animal. You're seeking to be honest with your free will, less conflict. I think that's an important subject with me. That's who I am, how I was brought up. I think I use that a lot. I mistrust everything I think. Things you think you can trust, believe in, or hang on to, changes. That's the essence of life. That's kind of Taoist. At a certain age, many Chinese think that way. When things change, we must adapt to it. That's our faith and belief.
I'll take a cup of coffee, but I can't eat no cake just now. (wouldn't it be great if that exchange become the equvialent to 'how are you')
My latest yin/yang sighting:
I have a new favorite scene, and it may surprise you... Recall the scene late in the movie where Ennis and Jack are walking their horses down the middle of a stream? I always thought that they had kind of glum looks on their faces because of dissatisfaction with the relationship...but as I look at it again, I'm thinking they are at peace and in harmony with each other. The reason for this change in thinking...I got to looking at the horses. Ennis is riding a beautiful black horse with a lovely diamond-shaped white star on its...forehead? (Is that what it's called). And Jack is riding an equally beautiful light-colored horse (a bay mare?) with a black shock of mane between its ears. The yin/yang sign was there all along, and I didn't even see it!! I started to see that scene differently...they are in equilibrium. Makes me think they did find some sort of peace and happiness together at last.
My latest yin/yang sighting:
I have a new favorite scene, and it may surprise you... Recall the scene late in the movie where Ennis and Jack are walking their horses down the middle of a stream? I always thought that they had kind of glum looks on their faces because of dissatisfaction with the relationship...but as I look at it again, I'm thinking they are at peace and in harmony with each other. The reason for this change in thinking...I got to looking at the horses. Ennis is riding a beautiful black horse with a lovely diamond-shaped white star on its...forehead? (Is that what it's called). And Jack is riding an equally beautiful light-colored horse (a bay mare?) with a black shock of mane between its ears. The yin/yang sign was there all along, and I didn't even see it!! I started to see that scene differently...they are in equilibrium. Makes me think they did find some sort of peace and happiness together at last.
Now can you see it? I tried posting it a different way...sheesh you'd think I could do this by now!!
I've never thought too much about the yin and yang symbols (and especially how they might change) following Jack's death. I wonder if there are more examples of a "lopsided" yin and yang symbol. I'm usually too pre-occupied with looking for fans and wind by this part of the movie.
Two other symbols, the barn door at the Twist ranch (Page 1 of this thread) and the cherry cake (Page 2), are "lopsided." Both appear after Jack is dead.
So what's up with all the man-made stand-ins for the natural forms at this late stage? You know me... I'm all for going a little crazy with the symbol discussions.
'Nother yin-yang siting in the movie!! Watch carefully behind Jack as he and Ennis are parting after coming down from the mountain. You'll see two pieces of paper--one black, the other white--blowing across the background. I may be reading too much into it, but to me these resemble the slips of paper that Asians write prayers on, then they burn them or affix them to tree branches or statues.
The really wonderful thing is that we see these bits of trash AGAIN. Again, they are behind Jack as he bounds forward in his red jacket to embrace Ennis after four long years apart!! It made my heart leap to see them again!!
Hi Lee! Great observation! I've never noticed the white bits of trash before. I'll have to watch those scenes really carefully next time. But, I've definitely noticed the darker/ black bits of trash (maybe the darker colors just stand out more). I've always noticed them as devices that make the wind noticeable and even visible (thinking about the Jack-and-the-wind topic). It's really neat to be able to relate those details to the yin and yang topic too. And, I think you're definitely right that they're significant since they do appear (very clearly) at two crucial moments.It took me quite a long time to notice the trash behind Jack, because for the first dozen or so screenings, my eyes were affixed on Jack like glue!!
...we see these bits of trash AGAIN. Again, they are behind Jack as he bounds forward in his red jacket to embrace Ennis after four long years apart!! It made my heart leap to see them again!!
Final yin/yang symbol in the movie! Do you see it?
(http://www.divshare.com/img/midsize/3934620-10f.jpg) (http://www.divshare.com/download/3934620-10f)
Heya Sister Mod,Yes, you are right as you always are, friend Amanda! The sunlight bouncing off the blue curtain makes a blue reflection on the side of the closet, while the wall next to it is in deep shadow. I find the "blue light" extremely eerie and ethereal...you should see it on a high-definition DVD of the movie, as was shown at the BBQ. Oh, yes, you did see it there!! The colors were so saturated! Another interesting anecdote about that shot is that in the script, McMurtry and Ossana refer to a "milky cold white light" outside the trailer. I wonder why they described it that way?
Thanks for reviving this cool old thread! 8)
Well, are you referring to the bright patch of light on the wall contrasted to the dark/shadowy space between the patch of light and the curtain? (I recall folks in the past discussing that patch of light in depth... but I don't quite recall what the observations about it were).
Did you also notice that that spooky blue light is in the scene, just like in the last post you made way back when?? Cool!!
Um, if you guys don't mind me adding this. This is not in the movie but did you know in the interview with Oprah, Jake(and Oprah) were wearing black and white clothes(yin/yang symbolism maybe)? See Jake was wearing a black suit with a white shirt, but it was in a mostly dressy way. And Oprah was wearing a white long skirt, some semi-black and white shoe heels, and a black dressy vest, blouse shirt with white rims.
Black and white will be forever in style and go great together. In fact, they're my school's colors.
A somber yin/yang on the top of Heath's memorial. Photo courtesy of Bay City John.
(http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj282/SanFranciscoJohn/HL/Image2.jpg)
'Nother yin-yang siting in the movie!! Watch carefully behind Jack as he and Ennis are parting after coming down from the mountain. You'll see two pieces of paper--one black, the other white--blowing across the background. I may be reading too much into it, but to me these resemble the slips of paper that Asians write prayers on, then they burn them or affix them to tree branches or statues.
The really wonderful thing is that we see these bits of trash AGAIN. Again, they are behind Jack as he bounds forward in his red jacket to embrace Ennis after four long years apart!! It made my heart leap to see them again!!