Author Topic: TOTW 18/07: Do you think classic cowboy icons like the "Marlboro Man" were proto  (Read 58526 times)

Offline Penthesilea

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Hello my fellow BetterMostians!  :)

This week I'm happy to announce that we have again a topic which was suggested by a BetterMost resident. And the same goes for next week  :D. But I won't tell anything about next week yet. You'll have to come back to this place and see yourself then.

This week's topic was suggested by Amanda (atz75). Thank you Bud!


Do you think classic cowboy icons like the "Marlboro Man" were prototypes for the way Ennis looks?



The topic centers not exclusively around the Marlboro Man, but he is a very good example, since he is so highly iconic.  James Dean in Giant may be another one. But there are surely more figures which may have played some role in the inspiration of the way Ennis is visualized. If you think of a character from movies, TV or other sources (like ads), please add them here (pics would be awesome, but are naturally not required).
To give you an impression, I'll post some pics of the Marlboro Man and James Dean in the next two posts.

Also we'd like to know if the influence also goes the other way round: did BBM make you rethink or reevaluate classic icons of the cowboy or the western?



Offline Brown Eyes

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Hey Bud!

Thanks so much for your interest in this topic and for choosing to feature it!   :-*

Yes, I definitely think there's a lot to be said about ways that BBM makes audiences think about the genre of the western and the classic image of the cowboy.  And, when I first started thinking about this topic I was mostly focusing on the image of Ennis and this immediate connection that's always been in my mind between Ennis and the Marlboro Man.

This is most striking to me at the very beginning of the movie.  The fact that one of the first things we see of Ennis is him smoking a cigarette. But, the fact that he's unwilling to finish even one cigarette... pinching it off and saving it in his pocket... wanting to save it for later, etc. seems very significant.  There seems to be a lot said here about issues of class and rural poverty lurking beneath the surface of iconic images such as the Marlboro Man... in addition to issues of sexual difference.

One thing that's so striking to me about Ennis is how his character embodies the idea that the demeanor of a classic, tough, stoic, loner-type cowboy can be simultaneously the demeanor of a closeted gay man who is constantly in fear of the the "people on the pavement" who might be able to detect his secret. 

I think a discussion of Heath's methods in portraying Ennis here are also very important.  I recall interviews with Heath where he discussed very conscious decisions about his posture, gait in walking, etc. to convey a sense of Ennis's repression and internalized anxiety.

And, with the James Dean connection... I think it's just so striking how much Heath resembles James Dean to begin with.  So, I wonder how much of the casting decision here was very deliberate.  And, so I'm really wondering how does James Dean's image or mystique inform the character of Ennis?

Anyway, I'm really hoping that this will turn into a discussion about visual aspects of BBM and how it relates to other famous cinematic images or advertising images, etc.  So, like Chrissi said, the Marlboro Man is just one example of an image that seems to relate to BBM, and hopefully folks will be able to bring their own examples here to this thread.  And, in presenting these comparisons with other media images, I'd really like to hear what people thing those other sources mean... or how those other sources may help in expanding an understanding of BBM.



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Offline Katie77

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I've got to agree with both of you on the similarities and likenesses to the Marlboro Man and James Dean.

If they are who,Heath used to form his peronna of Ennis, well, he did a very good job of it.

He also captured the innocence of James Dean....although so very handsome, there was no sign of vanity, the pouting bottom lip....shows a kinda of "sulking" for the hard life that was dished up to him, the seriousness on his face, shows a maturity beyond his years, capturing the fact that he had to grow up fast to survive on his own.

I dont know if anyone else felt this, but when the scenes of Ennis and Alma were on their honeymoon, skiing, Ennis was so completely different in appearance and personality than he was as the Ennis we met on the mountain.He was not the cowboy we had just met on Brokeback, he was a typical young man of the sixties, enjoying a holiday in the snow....maybe this was used to show how worlds apart his beginning with Jack was, compared to his beginning with Alma was....

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Offline Brown Eyes

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I've got to agree with both of you on the similarities and likenesses to the Marlboro Man and James Dean.

If they are who,Heath used to form his peronna of Ennis, well, he did a very good job of it.

He also captured the innocence of James Dean....although so very handsome, there was no sign of vanity, the pouting bottom lip....shows a kinda of "sulking" for the hard life that was dished up to him, the seriousness on his face, shows a maturity beyond his years, capturing the fact that he had to grow up fast to survive on his own.

I'm hoping that some more-skilled Heathens than I can jump in here with some quotations from Heath about his thoughts on acting style and method for portraying Ennis.  And, I wonder how much of the Dean connection was Heath's idea and how much was some kind of deliberate casting decision.  Chrissi pointed out that the STS book specifically mentions James Dean in Giant as visual inspiration for one particular shot of Ennis.  It's on page 60 of the script in STS- "ENNIS stands in the back of a hay truck, looking much like James Dean in Giant.  Throws open bales of hay out to the cows."  I don't know how much of the Dean comparison comes simply from the fact that Heath looks a lot like James Dean... or if there's something more interesting that the filmmakers are trying to do with this visual comparison.

Here's one photo of James Dean that kind of blows my mind in how much it looks like Heath in general (and not even specifically Ennis).

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/midsize/3047747-3f8.jpg" border="0" />


Quote
I dont know if anyone else felt this, but when the scenes of Ennis and Alma were on their honeymoon, skiing, Ennis was so completely different in appearance and personality than he was as the Ennis we met on the mountain.He was not the cowboy we had just met on Brokeback, he was a typical young man of the sixties, enjoying a holiday in the snow....maybe this was used to show how worlds apart his beginning with Jack was, compared to his beginning with Alma was....

I agree that Ennis changes a lot in appearance as time goes on.  I find it interesting that he abandons his felt cowboy hat after the Brokeback summer... and we later see him mostly in the straw cowboy hats and that sort of unattractive fisherman-style hat (or at least that's what it looks like to me).

So, if these relatively "glamorous" images of cowboys (the idealized Marlboro Man figure, James Dean, etc.) are models for young-Ennis... what, if any are the visual models or inspiration for older-Ennis?

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Offline delalluvia

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For the original question:

No.  They all dress like that in real life.  This is more art imitating life and not the other way round.

During one screening, I took my arch conservative redneck from West Texas friend and when I asked how realistic the costumes were, he drew my attention to the fact he was wearing the same tan jacket as Ennis.

Offline Brown Eyes

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For the original question:

No.  They all dress like that in real life.  This is more art imitating life and not the other way round.

During one screening, I took my arch conservative redneck from West Texas friend and when I asked how realistic the costumes were, he drew my attention to the fact he was wearing the same tan jacket as Ennis.

Well, I have to disagree with this.  I think that these images are carefully cultivated... especially when you look at the Marlboro Man examples.  They're not only carefully dressed... they're carefully posed in certain postures.  Often with the head down, etc.  I'm sure each of these ad shots took hours and hours to groom.  And the ad campaign that went on for so long evolved and changed with the times.  And, when you look at how perfect James Dean's hair is below his hat... you know that's not natural.

And, with film, the tradition and genre of the western has a complex history visually.  I think it does a dis-service to the BBM filmmakers and to Heath as an actor to think that there was no thought given to precedents and certain traditions.

To me the interesting thing is how to think about the iconic images (like the Marlboro Man and James Dean) as deliberate acts of constructing a certain image of masculinity.  And, then to think about how Ennis's character is conceived of either fitting directly in with the conventions of those images or de-stabilizing those conventions some how.  Or how Ennis possibly uses the image of an iconic cowboy as a mask to hide behind.

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Offline delalluvia

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Well, I have to disagree with this.  I think that these images are carefully cultivated... especially when you look at the Marlboro Man examples.  They're not only carefully dressed... they're carefully posed in certain postures.  Often with the head down, etc.  I'm sure each of these ad shots took hours and hours to groom.  And the ad campaign that went on for so long evolved and changed with the times.  And, when you look at how perfect James Dean's hair is below his hat... you know that's not natural.

And, with film, the tradition and genre of the western has a complex history visually.  I think it does a dis-service to the BBM filmmakers and to Heath as an actor to think that there was no thought given to precedents and certain traditions.

To me the interesting thing is how to think about the iconic images (like the Marlboro Man and James Dean) as deliberate acts of constructing a certain image of masculinity.  And, then to think about how Ennis's character is conceived of either fitting directly in with the conventions of those images or de-stabilizing those conventions some how.  Or how Ennis possibly uses the image of an iconic cowboy as a mask to hide behind.




Guess I'm not getting you atz???  The original question was:

Do you think classic cowboy icons like the "Marlboro Man" were prototypes for the way Ennis looks?

My answer was no.  They are not prototypes for Ennis' looks.  Instead, real cowboys were/are the prototypes for the Marlboro Man icon images.  That's why the icons look similar only better than the real thing.

Offline Katie77

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Was just thinking about the James Dean connection and wondered if it also is a bit of real life immitating art....or visa versa....

In a lot of stories written about James Dean since his death, there is the hint or connotation that he was gay, or at least had gay tendencies....so is the real life James Dean, the rugged, shy, sulky young man hiding his (supposed) gay secret, even more like Ennis, not only on the outside, but on the inside too....
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Well, I have to disagree with this.  I think that these images are carefully cultivated... especially when you look at the Marlboro Man examples.  They're not only carefully dressed... they're carefully posed in certain postures.  Often with the head down, etc.  I'm sure each of these ad shots took hours and hours to groom.  And the ad campaign that went on for so long evolved and changed with the times.  And, when you look at how perfect James Dean's hair is below his hat... you know that's not natural.

And, with film, the tradition and genre of the western has a complex history visually.  I think it does a dis-service to the BBM filmmakers and to Heath as an actor to think that there was no thought given to precedents and certain traditions.

To me the interesting thing is how to think about the iconic images (like the Marlboro Man and James Dean) as deliberate acts of constructing a certain image of masculinity.  And, then to think about how Ennis's character is conceived of either fitting directly in with the conventions of those images or de-stabilizing those conventions some how.  Or how Ennis possibly uses the image of an iconic cowboy as a mask to hide behind.



Del's point was that Marlboro man imitated the way men dressed in real life out west. and that is the simple truth...whether or not BBM conciously decided to imitate Marlboro or the original that the ad people copied is open to debate. I don't see how you could differentiate between copying the original or copying the copy.

I take pics at the rodeos and at reining competitions and team pennings...places where men that wear Carharts and western hats everyday as their clothes (not costumes) and they all hold their heads and themselves very similarly to how Ennis did. They all use that brim the way Ennis did to hide expression or avoid eye contact. Yes, the Marlboro man ads are carefully staged and costumed....to look like ranchers and cowboys...



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oh and the perfect hair thing?? wear a cowboy hat everyday for six months or so and see if your hair doesn't start having just the 'right' wave here and curl there...

Offline LauraGigs

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I think it's kind of a strange question: the Marlboro Man and the character of Ennis were each meant to look like ranchers, so they would inevitably resemble each other, right??

EDIT: ^Sorry, I must have been in a snarky mood when I wrote that. What I meant to say is that I understand the points made here about art imitating life, and copying the original/copying the copy. In other words, when you have a common point of origin for a character (such as the American cowboy), all imitators will have certain traits in common without necessarily having influenced each other.

(I would also point out that Billy Crudup and Joaquin Phoenix were each considered for the part of Ennis, and Ledger was initially considered for the part of Jack. So I might hesitate to conclude that there was a strong physical James Dean/Ennis connection in the minds of the filmmakers, at least in the early stages.)

Anyway, it has been written that if there is any iconic cowboy imagery that directly affected the creation of Ennis' exterior, it would be this, from Richard Avedon's In the American West :

« Last Edit: December 11, 2007, 03:40:11 am by LauraGigs »

Offline LauraGigs

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In fact, Annie Proulx wrote a short article about this photo series in the Guardian :  http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/features/story/0,11710,1648674,00.html

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This is Richard Wheatcroft. His portrait was taken by Richard Avedon in June 1981 for his series of portraits "In the American West."

Look at his expression and attire, I see Ennis.

Edit: Oop's I didn't see Lauragigs post! She beat me to it!

Offline Brown Eyes

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Hey Friends!

Yeah, that Avedon example is great.  I remember seeing it mentioned here and there in discussions about Ennis before.

The Marlboro Man and James Dean were, I think, meant to be starting-points in examples of how Ennis particularly, or even other elements of BBM, fit in to the genre of the western or into the long-standing tradition of western art/ photography or into the use of the cowboy as a kind of cultural icon.  Those images also, I think, were meant to be starting points for thinking about other images from cinema or other media that may have inspired certain elements of BBM.  And, again, I think the Avedon photo is a great example.

The thing I'm curious about with this question is, since BBM now stands as a really important, contemporary example of a western... how does it impact this major cinematic tradition?  I personally believe that all art is influenced by other art (even when the artist vehemently denies that any kind of previous influence exists... it's essentially inevitable that a piece of art is either conforming to or rejecting/ challenging some previous model in art... or sometimes doing both simultaneiously).

You're all definitely correct that a type of realism in looking at the dress and demeanor of real ranchers is the basis of all of these things. But sometimes this image is used in different ways. I would think that BBM in the depiction of Ennis is actually significantly more concerned with realism than something like the Marlboro Man ads, for example.  In lots of photos and art the idea of the cowboy is significantly manipulated to construct certain ideas... while still having a representation of a "real rancher" as the starting-point for the image.

And, yes, it's also definitely true that other actors were in mind for Ennis before Heath... but there's that explicit reference to James Dean in the script (I don't know when that reference would have been added to the screenplay), but someone at somepoint was consciously thinking about James Dean and even specifically James Dean in Giant in relation to BBM.

Has anyone seen Giant?  I haven't and now I'm really curious about what elements of that film might have meaning for BBM. 

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/3109268-ffb.jpg" border="0" />


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Offline Brown Eyes

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An interesting image with Larry McMurtry in mind...


<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/3109507-700.jpeg" border="0" />


And with Robert Duvall in mind...  These are from Broken Trail, which came out in 2006...

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/3109271-575.jpg" border="0" />

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/3109270-ad9.jpg" border="0" />



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the first question I would have to settle in my mind is "Is Brokeback Mountain a western movie?" There are none of the other things I would think of as being in a western movie. (other than horses and sheep)

the time is wrong, the action is wrong,

to me this movie is a love story not a western

Offline tampatalon

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the first question I would have to settle in my mind is "Is Brokeback Mountain a western movie?" There are none of the other things I would think of as being in a western movie. (other than horses and sheep)

the time is wrong, the action is wrong,

to me this movie is a love story not a western

Jess, I like to think of it as a love story with a Western flair  :)

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Offline delalluvia

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Yeah, count me in.  I don't consider BBM a 'Western'.  It's simply a love story with a rural/western setting.

Westerns are usually really basic morality tales.  One white hatted guy, one black hatted guy and the story is about their conflict.  In good Westerns, you learn things about each and the situation that has caused them to come into conflict.  Love interests and the plight of society are usually peripheral to the story.

The most recent Western I can think of is 3:10 to Yuma.  That was a Western, no more and no less.

In BBM, there is no simple good guy/bad guy story.

I saw Giant.  It's considered a classic, so one summer I watched it. 

It's a big soap opera.  A slice of life in the stories of these people lives.  I didn't find anything much deeper than that.  James Dean's character was angry bad boy made rich boy but still unhappy bad boy.
 

Offline Penthesilea

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the first question I would have to settle in my mind is "Is Brokeback Mountain a western movie?" There are none of the other things I would think of as being in a western movie. (other than horses and sheep)

the time is wrong, the action is wrong,

to me this movie is a love story not a western

I can see your point and you are right, it depends of your definition of Western. BBM is clearly not a classical Western. This topic interested me enough to look up what wikipedia says about Westerns (all following quotes in navy are from this page:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_%28genre%29#)

In genereal, I think there are more things in BBM which are typical for Westerns than horses and sheep:
  • the setting in the rural american West
  • clothing
  • equipment (they type of tent on Bokeback, the canvas buckets, the guns, etc. I would even put the pickups into this category, as a modern version of typical means of transportation in rural West)
  • type of work which is done (and no, I don't mean selling combines  ;))
  • the hero as stoic, taciturn loner
  • the hero as standing somewhat outside society, being in conflict with military, law, or society in general
  • the vast landscape becomes more than a vivid backdrop; it becomes a character in the movie

Wikipedia lists different sub-genres of the Western:

- Contemporary [Western] films: Contemporary Westerns are films that have contemporary American settings but nevertheless utilise Old West themes and motifs (a rebellious anti-hero, open plains and desert landscapes, and gunfights *). For the most part, they still take place in the American West and reveal the progression of the Old West mentality into the late twentieth century. This sub-genre often features Old West-type characters struggling with displacement in a "civilized" world that rejects their outdated brand of justice.

Examples include Tommy Lee Jones' The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada; Sam Peckinpah's Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974); John Sayles' Lone Star (1996); Robert Rodríguez's Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003); Ang Lee's controversial film about gay cowboys, Brokeback Mountain (2005); and Wim Wenders' Don't Come Knocking (2005).


* = in BBM, we have part of these examples:
  • Ennis as anti-hero (think about the fireworks scene, which ends itself with a classical Western shot where Ennis looks much like the archetype of a cowboy - yet it's not a heroic situation for him, his family is terrified by his behaviour). The rebellious thing is quite interesting: while I don't see Ennis as rebellious by character at all (in contrast, he tries hard to blend in), he is still rebellious enough to let a love-affair between him and Jack happen and let it continue for 20 years. Given his character and his crippling fears, this is almost a little wonder.
  • We do have open plains, but no desert landscapes.
  • No gunfights though, but at least a (kind of) fistfight between the two. And we have a kind of indirect gunfight: Jack missing the coyote, whereas Ennis shoots the coyote and hits the elk.


Quote
to me this movie is a love story not a western

To me, it's both.

Offline Penthesilea

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The German wikipedia lists more characteristics of non-classical Westerns, of which some are true for BBM:

- bigger (regarding screen-time and importance) roles for women
- critical attitude towards its heroes
- non-traditional sexuality

Offline Brown Eyes

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Yes, I also agree that BBM is largely a love story.  But, lots of westerns have a love story as, often a secondary, theme. 

In investigating the romantic possibilities between the pair of main cowboys (instead of a protagonist cowboy and a female character... who is almost always featured as a secondary character) BBM is tweaking this longstanding aspect of westerns I think.  Also, it's foregrounding a tension (attraction between the two main cowboys) that's usually just below the surface in traditional westerns.  I recall from an award ceremony (the Oscars maybe?) in consideration of BBM, they played a montage of old westerns where there are obvious sexual or romantic innuendos going on between the featured cowboys.  Does anyone else remember this montage? 

And, in making this a modern western... and in heavily highlighting things like rural poverty and the non-glamorous aspects of small-town living... BBM is certainly concerned with a kind of modern realism. 

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Offline Penthesilea

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Del's point was that Marlboro man imitated the way men dressed in real life out west. and that is the simple truth...whether or not BBM conciously decided to imitate Marlboro or the original that the ad people copied is open to debate. I don't see how you could differentiate between copying the original or copying the copy.

I take pics at the rodeos and at reining competitions and team pennings...places where men that wear Carharts and western hats everyday as their clothes (not costumes) and they all hold their heads and themselves very similarly to how Ennis did. They all use that brim the way Ennis did to hide expression or avoid eye contact. Yes, the Marlboro man ads are carefully staged and costumed....to look like ranchers and cowboys...



You and Del have a very valid point here. Especially about the non-existing(?) difference between copying the original and copying the copy (like the way you put it, so simple and logical).

Yet I do think the depiction of Ennis has role models not only in real-life (like Richard Avadon's book), but also in art. I even think I can remember Ang Lee directly referring to the Marlboro Man and I think it was in the Charlie Rose interview. Does anyone know this for sure (or can falsify it)? Otherwise I'll check it and report back.

Offline Brown Eyes

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You and Del have a very valid point here. Especially about the non-existing(?) difference between copying the original and copying the copy (like the way you put it, so simple and logical).

Yet I do think the depiction of Ennis has role models not only in real-life (like Richard Avadon's book), but also in art. I even think I can remember Ang Lee directly referring to the Marlboro Man and I think it was in the Charlie Rose interview. Does anyone know this for sure (or can falsify it)? Otherwise I'll check it and report back.

I actually do think there's a difference between copying the original and copying a copy.  Because the copy has been layered with meaning beyond the original.


If there was any kind of concsious effort to evoke James Dean and something like the Marlboro Man... then the filmmakers are choosing particularly glamorous/handsome/appealing/sexy examples of the cowboy-image as a baseline for Ennis in addition to the more realistic image of a skinny, hard-living, perhaps-impoverished cowboy as suggested by the Avedon image.  These two contrasting ideas of the cowboy are combined in Ennis I think.

There are other types of cowboy images (very famous) that BBM seems to have avoided for the most part.  I'm thinking of famous old-time media cowboys like Gene Autry (as one quick example).

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/3109701-028.jpg" border="0" />

Staying with the Marlboro Man, for example... the advertisers chose to use a baseline image of a rancher/cowboy (real people, observed in real life), but they chose the image of a rancher for a particular reason.  Perhaps wanting to show that their cigarettes are an attribute associated with a  glamorous form of masculinity. The men in these ads are always handsome, their clothing is often perfect and there's a uniformity in how they're posed. The advertisers know that cowboys are a component of fantasy for lots of men (not sexual necessarily)... the ideal of rugged, western living is, I think, a fantasy for lots of men (straight and gay) from the time they're little boys and this idolization is perpetuated in media. This fantasy doesn't necessarily reflect the reality of real ranchers' lives.  If this particular type of image was in mind for Ennis, then I think BBM is making a comment on complex social realities lurking beneath the surface of images of glamorous cowboys.

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/midsize/2979998-d71.jpg" border="0" />
« Last Edit: December 14, 2007, 09:14:05 pm by atz75 »
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Offline LauraGigs

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Quote
If this particular type of image was in mind for Ennis, then I think BBM is making a comment on complex social realities lurking beneath the surface of images of glamorous cowboys.

Damn.  Your points (and Chrissi's) are fascinating and well-put.

Offline delalluvia

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Yes, I also agree that BBM is largely a love story.  But, lots of westerns have a love story as, often a secondary, theme. 

In investigating the romantic possibilities between the pair of main cowboys (instead of a protagonist cowboy and a female character... who is almost always featured as a secondary character) BBM is tweaking this longstanding aspect of westerns I think.  Also, it's foregrounding a tension (attraction between the two main cowboys) that's usually just below the surface in traditional westerns.  I recall from an award ceremony (the Oscars maybe?) in consideration of BBM, they played a montage of old westerns where there are obvious sexual or romantic innuendos going on between the featured cowboys.  Does anyone else remember this montage? 

And, in making this a modern western... and in heavily highlighting things like rural poverty and the non-glamorous aspects of small-town living... BBM is certainly concerned with a kind of modern realism. 



Yes, and I wish I had taped it.  I thought it was hilarious.  I wouldn't put too much stock in that montage without seeing the material it was taken from.  Too much was probably taken out of context.

I guess this topic is a bit confusing to me.  While Ang might have chosen cowboy icons to base BBM, he also depended a lot on realism.  So to me, having grown up in Texas and been around cowboys my whole life, I don't see that Ang did a whole lot of artistic stretching to dress BBM.  All he seems to have done - seeing that BBM is so amazingly realistic - is go to a western town and simply copy the people.  As one costume designer one time said about BBM, 'the "clothing" hasn't changed."  What cowboys were wearing in the '60s is what they're still wearing today.

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right, the outfits were what people wear/wore. so I think Lee was just being his usual careful meticulous self for recreating the era. I am going back to the quote about if you believe that pot then you believe the story. I think he was being very careful to present what IS/WAS to NOT distract from the story....to give us clues and aids to believe and buy into the story completely.....

Offline ifyoucantfixit

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          I dont usually participate in these discussions, but I felt compelled to make my
ideas known.  I think that the entire term cowboy is an iconic image.
          It deals with a person or persons that do certain things.  Mostly having to do with
riding a horse.  Tending stock, and spending a great deal of the daily chore out of doors.
If we are discussing Brokeback Mountain as a genre.  To me it fits completely on the side
of a western.  The time is not as we typically think of as  "western" in the past. 
The elements are all there however.  The hero, in this case there are two heros.  The protagonist.  In this case its not just one person.   Then society in general, is the antagonist.  Not just a single black hat baddie.  The leader of
that pack, as per the ones in the older "westerns" started as Aguirre.  He is also related
to the squeeler in the old westerns.  The one that give the hero a difficult task to perform.   Making the choices he has to employ in order to continue to live. Stopping a bad guy from hurting the innocent, or unprepared. and makes him feel
in danger.  From whatever source his danger derives.
            Just because it is written in the modern time, doesnt make it any less a "western."
The love story is an integral part of the movie, as in most "westerns it is."  It just so
happens that it is between two men.  Thus giving new impetus to the story.  The hero, and his love, fighting the inevitable foes that they encounter .  Wherether real or imagined, that is  the foe, nonetheless.
             As to the Marlboro Man or the James Dean characterization.  Giant was not in the
least a "western" in my opinion.  It was as Del mentioned more of an epic soap opera.
Dean's character drawing on the typical gear and outfit of the rancher and cowboy, as
norm in dress and demeaner of the men. Having little education, and little to call their own.
I believe the downfacing way has more to do with the kind of people that are and were
drawn to that life style.  The shy introverted type. The James Dean character that is shown on the movie cover, is totally different from the one in the beginning of the movie.  He was the very epitome of the Ennis we recognize.  But following the money making time he became rich, his personal look more polished and having a great deal of confidence.  He showed upward facing charisma.   I think that the advertising world knows
and understands the mystique of the legend and charisma of the "cowboy."  Every
little boy, and many little girls also want to be a cowboy.  They want a pony for Christmas.
Its an easy way to sell a product.  Starting im sure with the popularity of the so called
"cowboy movies."  People wanted to be one.  Wanted to feel that they are living a
romantic iconic life instead of being a clerk, or a bean counter.  Therefor they could lose
themself if only for a time, inside the darkened room.  Pretend and be a cowboy.  I think its basically the chicken or the egg question.  I personally think the man, the gear, and clothing came because of the convenience of it to the job they did.  Plus the funds that they could use.   Then the Marlboro Man or some other advertisement took advantage, and
romanticised that visual.  Then used it to sell a product.  We would have to then ask
Heath where or not he used those as his prototypes...I believe he did to a great extent.
I think Ang Lee also made that his choice in the Ennis confine as well.




     Beautiful mind

Offline delalluvia

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We would have to then ask Heath where or not he used those as his prototypes...I believe he did to a great extent.  I think Ang Lee also made that his choice in the Ennis confine as well.

I believe Heath said he based his Ennis on the cowboys he had seen in Australia.

Offline Brown Eyes

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Yes, and I wish I had taped it.  I thought it was hilarious.  I wouldn't put too much stock in that montage without seeing the material it was taken from.  Too much was probably taken out of context.

Del, I think you're totally right that those clips were probably really out of context, but I think that montage was also hitting on something really significant about the tradition of those films.  It was meant to be funny, and it definitely was, but at its core I think there was something pretty serious there to consider.

I would love it if someone here knew which films were in that montage... or knew of a source on the internet where it happened to be saved or discussed.


          I dont usually participate in these discussions, but I felt compelled to make my
ideas known.  I think that the entire term cowboy is an iconic image.
          It deals with a person or persons that do certain things.  Mostly having to do with
riding a horse.  Tending stock, and spending a great deal of the daily chore out of doors.
If we are discussing Brokeback Mountain as a genre.  To me it fits completely on the side
of a western.  The time is not as we typically think of as  "western" in the past. 
The elements are all there however.  The hero, in this case there are two heros.  The protagonist.  In this case its not just one person.   Then society in general, is the antagonist.  Not just a single black hat baddie.  The leader of
that pack, as per the ones in the older "westerns" started as Aguirre.  He is also related
to the squeeler in the old westerns.  The one that give the hero a difficult task to perform.   Making the choices he has to employ in order to continue to live. Stopping a bad guy from hurting the innocent, or unprepared. and makes him feel
in danger.  From whatever source his danger derives.
            Just because it is written in the modern time, doesnt make it any less a "western."
The love story is an integral part of the movie, as in most "westerns it is."  It just so
happens that it is between two men.  Thus giving new impetus to the story.  The hero, and his love, fighting the inevitable foes that they encounter .  Wherether real or imagined, that is  the foe, nonetheless.
             As to the Marlboro Man or the James Dean characterization.  Giant was not in the
least a "western" in my opinion.  It was as Del mentioned more of an epic soap opera.
Dean's character drawing on the typical gear and outfit of the rancher and cowboy, as
norm in dress and demeaner of the men. Having little education, and little to call their own.
I believe the downfacing way has more to do with the kind of people that are and were
drawn to that life style.  The shy introverted type. The James Dean character that is shown on the movie cover, is totally different from the one in the beginning of the movie.  He was the very epitome of the Ennis we recognize.  But following the money making time he became rich, his personal look more polished and having a great deal of confidence.  He showed upward facing charisma.   I think that the advertising world knows
and understands the mystique of the legend and charisma of the "cowboy."  Every
little boy, and many little girls also want to be a cowboy.  They want a pony for Christmas.
Its an easy way to sell a product.  Starting im sure with the popularity of the so called
"cowboy movies."  People wanted to be one.  Wanted to feel that they are living a
romantic iconic life instead of being a clerk, or a bean counter.  Therefor they could lose
themself if only for a time, inside the darkened room.  Pretend and be a cowboy.  I think its basically the chicken or the egg question.  I personally think the man, the gear, and clothing came because of the convenience of it to the job they did.  Plus the funds that they could use.   Then the Marlboro Man or some other advertisement took advantage, and
romanticised that visual.  Then used it to sell a product.  We would have to then ask
Heath where or not he used those as his prototypes...I believe he did to a great extent.
I think Ang Lee also made that his choice in the Ennis confine as well.

Thanks for this awesome and insightful post Janice!  I'm glad you decided to jump in here!  :D

Based on some of your great observations, one thing that I find interesting about BBM is the anxiety that it produces in certain viewers and critics.  And, I think this goes beyond the issue of sexuality... I think it has a lot to do with exposing aspects of western culture... modern western culture often glossed over by the cultural ideals (whether depicted in movies, ads, toys, etc.).  BBM in a way seems to be about the end of an era in western culture or about exposing things like the impoverishment and struggles of small towns in the economic climate of the '60s, '70s and '80s.  Ennis and Jack are presented as glamorous (in the casting of handsome actors, primarily)... but, as you note really well, they're definitely not heroic in the typical, hollywood glamour type of cowboy.  They're definitely not Clint Eastwood.

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/thumb/3120055-94f.jpg" border="0" />

I mean Ennis is posed in the classic Marlboro Man pose at the beginning, but he can't even afford to smoke one full cigarette.  Something about this gesture of snuffing out the cigarette and carefully saving it is just so significant... like a clue that the icon here is different or going to be challenged in this film.

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/midsize/3014728-fa2.jpg" border="0" />

I think it's very, very unsettling for some audiences to have their icons challenged or questioned.  And BBM does this in multiple ways (and again, not just having to do with sexuality).  I mean Ennis is presented as very macho and strong and tough... but through the narrative of the film we know how much fear, anxiety and worry he carries around constantly.  The idea that the toughest-guy-in-town (demonstrated by Ennis in the fireworks scene) might simultaneously be a very frightened, closeted gay man involved in a serious love affair with another man, I think is tremendously treatening to a mainstream ideal when it comes to the western or cowboy icon. 

The simple fact that he's not as confident as he appears is enough to be threatening (without any of the other elements).  The idea that the cowboy-image may be a facade (masking over lots of different social realities)... and probably always has been a facade... could be a deeply troubling.

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/midsize/3119324-116.JPG" border="0" />





******
As a footnote to the Clint Eastwood topic... I thought this comparison was cool.

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/thumb/3120054-d3b.jpg" border="0" />

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/3120051-261.jpg" border="0" />



I always thought that Clint Eastwood giving Ang Lee/ BBM the Golden Globe for best picture (I think it was the Golden Globes... I often mix up the award ceremonies) was an amazing passing of the torch in the best possible sense.

« Last Edit: December 14, 2007, 11:08:59 pm by atz75 »
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Offline Brown Eyes

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Was just thinking about the James Dean connection and wondered if it also is a bit of real life immitating art....or visa versa....

In a lot of stories written about James Dean since his death, there is the hint or connotation that he was gay, or at least had gay tendencies....so is the real life James Dean, the rugged, shy, sulky young man hiding his (supposed) gay secret, even more like Ennis, not only on the outside, but on the inside too....

Sorry for the double posts Buds... but this point made by Katie way back at the beginning has also been on my mind a lot as I think about this thread.

Katie I think you're definitely on to something when it comes to the whole James Dean topic. I think James Dean is a very important icon/heart-throb, etc. for the gay community as much as he is for the straight community. It also seems important to realize that Rock Hudson was also in Giant.  The idea of complex sexuality hiding just beneath the public surface is extremely significant.

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/midsize/3119631-605.jpg" border="0" />


***

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/thumb/3109699-f19.gif" border="0" />

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/1668336-440.jpg" border="0" />


***

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/3119632-86d.jpeg" border="0" />
Liz Taylor and Rock Hudson in Giant

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/midsize/3121411-4da.JPG" border="0" />

[Does anyone have a better image of the back of the BBM dvd cover?]
« Last Edit: December 15, 2007, 03:05:54 am by atz75 »
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Offline Front-Ranger

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I appreciate very much your insights, dear sister mod. As well as yours, Janice. Yes, the term cowboy has a long tradition. A very, very long tradition. Ranging back to ancient Crete, where the cow and bull were worshipped. There was a cadre of young men and women who went to Crete to perform in the ancient rodeos. The first bull lived in a labyrinth and the   bullriders had to find it in order to ride it.

"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline Penthesilea

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There's another movie that has similarities with BBM in many aspects. I was a bit hesitant to include it in this thread since it has nothing to do with any iconic cowboy images, but Amanda as the thread opener (well, technically it was me, but you know what I mean) said she wants to broaden the aspects of (possible) visual influences on BBM.

The movie I'm talking about is My Own Private Idaho (MOPI). It's a 1991 movie from Gus Van Sant with River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves in the lead roles. They play two male hustlers (a far way from cowboys  ;D) But especially Phoenix's character, Mike, shares some traits with Ennis, as well as some similarities in biography and appearance. The movie plays for a great deal in the (modern) American West. It was also considered as controversial due to its gay theme (and the fact they're hustlers).

Here's MOPI's imdb page: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102494/ *

Here are some pics of MOPI, of which I think they have so much in common with images from BBM:

Campfire scene (sorry, I couldn't find a larger version of the pic). This campfire scene is a crucial one in the movie. Mike talks a bit about his upbringing and in this scene it becomes clear that he is gay and in love with Scott (Reeve's character).




Same scene, I think Mike looks much like Ennis at their first trip, directly after the reunion



The vast empty landscape, the downcast head, the colors, the tall, lean figure. Put a cowboy hat on this guy and change the boots to cowboy boots, then you have Ennis. Additionally, River has often been compared to James Dean and I think you can see a resemblance in this pic.



Only right pic: postcard (and dirty fingernails)



The next two are dream-images of Mike. Remind me of the Twist farm






What do you think of the resemblances between the images?


* Plot summary from imdb:
Surreal character study focusing on the friendship between two male hustlers, Mike and Scott, in Portland, Oregon. They live on the streets, do drugs, and sell themselves to men and women. Mike (River Phoenix) is quiet, gay and suffers from narcolepsy. Abandoned as a child, he is obsessed with finding his long-lost mother. Scott (Keanu Reeves) is the rebellious son of a high-ranking family, who lives this life mostly to embarrass his father. Mike is in love with Scott, who still maintains he is straight and insists that his wild lifestyle on the streets is only temporary. Together, they embark on a quest to find Mike's mother, traveling from Portland to Idaho to Italy, with Scott picking up a beautiful girl along the way.

Offline Brown Eyes

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I'm reviving this thread after some conversations in chat recently that really struck me... about the similarities between Heath (and particularly his appearance as Ennis) and James Dean.  Now of course, the fact that they both died so young and so tragically only magnifies this.  Just unbelievable
 :'(



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Offline delalluvia

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I'm reviving this thread after some conversations in chat recently that really struck me... about the similarities between Heath (and particularly his appearance as Ennis) and James Dean.  Now of course, the fact that they both died so young and so tragically only magnifies this.  Just unbelievable
 :'(

Ummm, well, that's pretty much all they have in common, atz.

Their movie characters were light years different from each other.  And in real life, James Dean was single, trying out his new sports car and was killed in a car accident.

Heath was a father, in the middle of two movies, about to start the publicity on a 3rd, was sick and over did it trying to medicate himself and died in his sleep.

Offline Brown Eyes

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Ummm, well, that's pretty much all they have in common, atz.

Their movie characters were light years different from each other.  And in real life, James Dean was single, trying out his new sports car and was killed in a car accident.

Heath was a father, in the middle of two movies, about to start the publicity on a 3rd, was sick and over did it trying to medicate himself and died in his sleep.

My point is more general.  They're both iconic film stars who died tragically young (the details notwithstanding).  And, the fact that the BBM filmmakers modeled the look/ some of the aura of Ennis after James Dean, just makes this seem a little haunting.

This is just how I see things.  Others are free to agree or disagree.

the world was asleep to our latent fuss - bowie

Offline serious crayons

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From Wikipedia:

James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955) was a two-time Oscar-nominated American film actor. Dean's status as a cultural icon is best embodied in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause, in which he starred as troubled high school rebel Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his star power were as the awkward loner Cal Trask in East of Eden, and as the surly, racist farmer Jett Rink in Giant. His enduring fame and popularity rests on only three films, his entire starring output. As with Buddy Holly, Bruce Lee, and Marilyn Monroe, his death at a young age helped guarantee a legendary status. He was the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and remains the only person to have two such nominations posthumously.

From Crayonipedia:

Heath Andrew Ledger (April 4, 1979 – January 22, 2008) was a two-time one time Oscar-nominated American film actor. Ledger's status as a cultural icon is best embodied in the title of by his role in his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause, Brokeback Mountain, in which he starred as troubled high school rebel Jim Stark closeted gay ranch hand Ennis Del Mar. The other two roles that defined his star power were as the awkward loner Cal Trask in East of Eden troubled young prison guard in Monsters Ball and as the surly, racist farmer Jett Rink in Giant failed alcoholic skateboard empresario in The Lords of Dogtown. His enduring fame and popularity rests on only these three films and a couple of others. , his entire starring output. As with Buddy Holly, Bruce Lee, and Marilyn Monroe, his death at a young age helped guarantee a legendary status. He wasmay become the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and remains the only person to have two such nominations posthumously for his performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight.


« Last Edit: February 19, 2008, 01:58:26 am by ineedcrayons »

Offline delalluvia

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My point is more general.  They're both iconic film stars who died tragically young (the details notwithstanding).  And, the fact that the BBM filmmakers modeled the look/ some of the aura of Ennis after James Dean, just makes this seem a little haunting.

This is just how I see things.  Others are free to agree or disagree.



OK, but I think the details can matter.  IMO, James Dean became iconic because he was now a member of the "Live Fast, Die Young" club and what better way to achieve such a status than by dying in a sports car crash?  Heath's death is tragic in a more familial way.  A sad, quiet way.  I'm not sure Heath will achieve the same iconic status because he wasn't the wild child, burning the candle at both ends.  A couple of months prior, he was a stay at home family man.

[shrug]

Just MO.

Offline serious crayons

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I'm not sure Heath will achieve the same iconic status because he wasn't the wild child, burning the candle at both ends. 

I don't know if Heath will achieve the same iconic status, but it sounds like burning the candle at both ends was exactly what he WAS doing.


Offline Brown Eyes

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From Wikipedia:

James Byron Dean (February 8, 1931 – September 30, 1955) was a two-time Oscar-nominated American film actor. Dean's status as a cultural icon is best embodied in the title of his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause, in which he starred as troubled high school rebel Jim Stark. The other two roles that defined his star power were as the awkward loner Cal Trask in East of Eden, and as the surly, racist farmer Jett Rink in Giant. His enduring fame and popularity rests on only three films, his entire starring output. As with Buddy Holly, Bruce Lee, and Marilyn Monroe, his death at a young age helped guarantee a legendary status. He was the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and remains the only person to have two such nominations posthumously.

From Crayonipedia:

Heath Andrew Ledger (April 4, 1979 – January 22, 2008) was a two-time one time Oscar-nominated American film actor. Ledger's status as a cultural icon is best embodied in the title of by his role in his most celebrated film, Rebel Without a Cause, Brokeback Mountain, in which he starred as troubled high school rebel Jim Stark closeted gay ranch hand Ennis Del Mar. The other two roles that defined his star power were as the awkward loner Cal Trask in East of Eden troubled young prison guard in Monsters Ball and as the surly, racist farmer Jett Rink in Giant failed alcoholic skateboard empresario in The Lords of Dogtown. His enduring fame and popularity rests on only these three films and a couple of others. , his entire starring output. As with Buddy Holly, Bruce Lee, and Marilyn Monroe, his death at a young age helped guarantee a legendary status. He wasmay become the first actor to receive a posthumous Academy Award nomination for Best Actor and remains the only person to have two such nominations posthumously for his performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight.


Heya K!  Thanks for this.  This comparison is really fascinating. 

For me, now thinking about this Dean/Ledger comparison is actually quite comforting... at this point, well beyond the sort-of aesthetic discussion that had been going on in this thread prior to Heath's tragic loss. 

Now that we're dealing with this awful, unchangeable fact that Heath passed away so young and so unexpectedly, I'd say that James Dean is pretty profound comparison/company to keep when considering how much respect Dean earned in his short career and when considering how enduring his cultural impact has been.  It's amazing to think about how well-known Dean has remained for generations of both serious film scholars/aficionados and for more casual film buffs.  I think Heath stands a very good chance (as good a chance as any in a long, long time) of developing exactly this kind of legacy.  Which, given the tragic state of things with Heath, seems positive or at least somewhat reassuring to me. 

One other interesting link between Dean and Heath is that they both attracted very large followings of fans within the gay community.  Clearly, they're both "heartthrobs" for large gay audiences.  But, Heath of course, by playing Ennis, pushed this to another level by providing this particular audience with a powerful, significant story/character/message (etc.)... making a gay story important and serious.  So that Heath's contribution goes well, well beyond what Dean stood/stands for within the gay community (which is much more at the level of pure "heartthrob" I think).  The always-present, but usually- subtle gay following for Dean I think was one of the motivations for pushing the Dean image (at least a little bit) in BBM... with the intention of foregrounding some usually-unspoken underlying ideas about his fan base and earlier trends in cinematic culture.  I mean the fact that Dean was acting with Rock Hudson in Giant is all sort of part of this much more convoluted subtext and following for Dean.

I don't know if Heath will achieve the same iconic status, but it sounds like burning the candle at both ends was exactly what he WAS doing.

Yes, absolutely... they were both "burning the candle at both ends" and both died in accidents that seem completely unnecessary.  Thus magnifying the tragedy.

One final thing about this comparison... with the early deaths of both of these actors, the tragedies are augmented by the loss of huge amounts of potential (in terms of the idea that each probably would have gone on to produce decades more amazing work).
 :(

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For the original question:
No.  They all dress like that in real life.  This is more art imitating life and not the other way round.
During one screening, I took my arch conservative redneck from West Texas friend and when I asked how realistic the costumes were, he drew my attention to the fact he was wearing the same tan jacket as Ennis.
Since this thread is revived, I gotta say I agree with the above. Having grown up in 'cowboy country', Ennis (Heath) pulls off the traditional cowboy.  I don't think, other than the pose for the shots, the real Marlboro man has ever been on a horse. I don't think James Dean has been on a horse either. Heath grew up on a horse. Not to say he was a cowboy, but despite the skateboard, he knew more about cowboys and ranching then Dean or the Marlboro man by a long shot. I live with and love a true cowboy. He doesn't dress the part like donning a costume. The real American cowboy isn't an act.
This is my man, not at Halloween, but caught off guard and pissed I took his picture. The other shot is him on our house puttin' up Christmas lights. One could say he's dressing like MarlMan or JamesD, but he's just dressing like he was raised. Dressing like himself.





A. Proulx lives and writes cowboy. McMurtry and Ossana brought her words to screen. I don't think they based anything on James Dean or the Marlboro man.

Brad

Offline serious crayons

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I think we're debating the chicken-and-egg question, or not seeing the forest for the trees, or something like that. In my mind, there is absolutely no question that Annie Proulx was aware, when creating the characters of Jack and Ennis, that she was messing around with an American archetype symbolizing rugged manhood -- that very fact is part of what makes the story so interesting. Proulx was playing with our assumptions about what constitutes masculinity. The Marlboro man, along with John Wayne, are the most famous manifestations of that icon, so of course those images are going to be intertwined in readers/viewers minds when they think of Ennis and Jack. And yeah, for that same reason, it's definitely a Western. Not a traditional Western, like 3:10 to Yuma, but an anti-Western. A revisionist Western.

Proulx could have made Jack and Ennis accountants or social-studies teachers or oil-field roughnecks or anything else on the face of the earth. She made them cowboys (OK, sheep herders; let's not get into that!  ;D) because that is the image Americans most associate with rugged masculinity. Yes, she often writes about cowboys anyway. But so what? That just made her particularly qualified for this job. The fact that they're cowboys is also a big reason homophobes find the story so disturbing. Ernest Borgnine, in declaring that he wouldn't watch BBM, said, "If John Wayne were alive, he'd be rolling over in his grave."

It's impossible for me to believe that Annie would have spent all that time and energy working all those Biblical allusions and classical myths and all the other subtle imagery into her story ... but not have meant anything particular when she chose cowboys as her characters. It's also impossible for me to believe Ang Lee went to all the trouble to set up an image of Ennis posed against a backdrop of exploding 4th of July fireworks without having it cross his mind that his movie is playing around with American myth. Or that either Ang or Annie -- who were so careful about establishing elaborate metaphors involving buckets and snow and bears and water and laundry and so on -- would not have given any thought to American feelings about cowboys and what they represent.

Of course the costumes are authentic because that's what people in the West actually dress like. Did Ang Lee hand the costume designers pages of old cigarette ads to copy and instruct them not to consider any other models? Of course not. But like the advertising people who invented the Marlboro man, Ang was very careful about creating images that invoked cowboy stereotypes. I'm thinking of Ennis leaning against the trailer, hat pulled down. Or Jack propping himself against the back of his pickup. Or Ennis sitting on his horse looking down at the dead sheep. You may not look at these and consciously think "Marlboro man," but at some level you look at them and think, "classic American cowboy," which is exactly the intention the advertising people had in mind in creating the Marlboro man.

BTW, do you all know that Marlboro was originally designed to be a "woman's cigarette"? Here's some background from Wikipedia:

Quote
Philip Morris, a London-based cigarette manufacturer, created a New York subsidiary in 1902 to sell several of its cigarette brands, including Marlboro. By 1924 they were advertising Marlboro as a woman's cigarette based on the slogan "Mild As May".

The brand was sold in this capacity until World War II when the brand faltered and was temporarily removed from the market. At the end of the war, three brands emerged that would establish a firm hold on the cigarette market: Camel, Lucky Strike, and Chesterfield. These brands were supplied to US soldiers during the war, creating an instant market upon their return.

During the 1950s Reader's Digest magazine published a series of articles that linked smoking with lung cancer. Phillip Morris, and the other cigarette companies took notice and each began to market filtered cigarettes. The new Marlboro with a filtered end was launched in 1955. In the early 1960s Philip Morris invented "Marlboro Country" and distilled their manly imagery into the rugged cowboys known as the "Marlboro Men." Philip Morris quickly gained market share and saw their sales increase 5,000 percent within 8 months of the ad campaign's premiere. It emerged as the number one youth-initiation brand, largely on its reputation as a full-flavored brand considered delicious by many smokers.

The brand is named after Great Marlborough Street, the location of its original London Factory. Richmond, Virginia is now the location of the largest Marlboro cigarette manufacturing plant.

And on a personal note, back in my smoking days I smoked Marlboros.

Cool photo, Brad, of your man on the roof. At first I thought it WAS Ennis. That should be your Christmas card next year.




Offline Brown Eyes

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Thanks for this great post Crayons! :)

Yes, I don't think there's actually a conflict between the idea that Proulx/McMurtry/Ossana were creating Ennis's image using realism (ideas about real ranchers) AND simultaneously using cultural archetypes.

I think questioning or tweeking an understanding of the archetype is actually what makes BBM particularly interesting in a very general sense.

In the Story to Screenplay publication of the BBM screenplay, there's a direct reference to James Dean and one particular scene with Ennis.  So, there's a concrete launching pad for that idea in the screenplay (so I'm guessing McMurtry and Ossana were very conscious of the Dean idea).

As far as McMurtry goes, I think all his cowboy imagery (in Lonesome Dove, etc.) is based on a deep, deep literary and cultural history.  To me, it's simply impossible that it's based only on realism or "real cowboys".

This has a lot to do with how I view art... I think all art bounces off of other art (in all cases, paintings, film, photography, etc.).  Most serious artists have a pretty deep understanding of the tradition in which they work.  And, I think Ang Lee, Proulx and McMurtry are all examples of artists who are so serious, that they have to be trying to make a contribution to a particular genre or tradition.

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Offline serious crayons

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From Diana Ossana's essay "Climbing Brokeback Mountain":

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That evening, I asked Larry how he would feel if any staunch Lonesome Dove fans turned against him for being involved with a film that subverts the myth of the American West and its iconic heroes.



Completely OT, but in rereading that essay just now, I just noticed that she says Larry took The New Yorker issue with the story upstairs, and came back down in 15 minutes. Did he take an Evelyn Wood speed reading class, or what??




Offline delalluvia

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I don't know if Heath will achieve the same iconic status, but it sounds like burning the candle at both ends was exactly what he WAS doing.

James Dean was living fast - racing a sports car - pushing the edge - for thrills.

Heath was pushing the edge - so he could sleep and get back to work on his 3 movies.

There is a difference.

Go do a Google search on James Dean images.  He's an icon because people want to emulate him:

Brooding loner, in cowboy hats, trench coats, t-shirt, pegged jeans and leather jackets out for thrills.  He looked ultra cool and slightly dangerous.

Now remember all our lovely pics of dear Heath - in goofy suits, mismatched clothes, silly hats, quirky sunglasses and godawful hoodies with unwashed hair and unlaced sneakers, spazzing out doing interviews and assuming the 'teapot' position.  He looked like a geek and a goober.

Anything iconically 'cool' about Heath that people are going to want to emulate?
« Last Edit: February 20, 2008, 02:07:07 am by delalluvia »

Offline serious crayons

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James Dean was living fast - racing a sports car - pushing the edge - for thrills.

Heath was pushing the edge - so he could sleep and get back to work on his 3 movies.

There is a difference.

Sure, there's a difference in their lifestyles. But what I said still holds. Burning the candle at both ends means working too hard and not getting enough sleep (the idiom refers to burning the candle because it's dark -- that is, late at night and early in the morning) and there's no question that was one of Heath's issues.


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I think we are just looking for similarities with Dean. Wikipedia is hardly (in my mind) the go to source for facts.....who knows who wrote those entries? It could have been the same person feeling a bit lazy.

Dean was famous because of his roles and his death were so fitting. Now if Heath had died being thrown off a horse while herding sheep MAYBE I would consider them similar...

I agree with the 'chicken and egg' comment. I defy anyone to get on a horse and look down and not look 'like the ads'....are you posing? come on. Put on a hat and lean on a building and you are aping an ad? Not every cigar is a penis. sometimes it is just a cigar.

I don't understand this idea....that someone in an ad agency uses an image that is COMMON in an area and suddenly the IMAGE is what is being copied by the people that the ad guy copied!!

and now my head hurts...that is insane logic.

movie guy gets script: needs to dress a poor country boy....does some investigating...

"hat, carhart jacket...ok that is what poor country boys wear....let's get Ennis a carhart and a hat"

movie fan:

"Oh look! that country boy is wearing a carhart and a hat...he must be imitating Ennis!!"

 ::) ::)

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"Oh look! that country boy is wearing a carhart and a hat...he must be imitating Ennis!!"


Or imitating the Marlboro Man or James Dean.

I don't understand this idea....that someone in an ad agency uses an image that is COMMON in an area and suddenly the IMAGE is what is being copied by the people that the ad guy copied!!
and now my head hurts...that is insane logic.

But Jess, this is what people who live in town think, and they don't get it. My point was that it isn't an image. Images are Hollywood as is James Dean. One puts on 'airs' in an attempt to garner 'image'. Some are simply what they are. Your son and his (boyfriend) come to mind. They aren't adopting or imitating or costuming. They are just them, just like Ennis and one Jack Twist. Of course some out there will attempt to lump them into fake image and ads, but that is okay cause', well,  they just don't get it.

Brad



 



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Cool photo, Brad, of your man on the roof. At first I thought it WAS Ennis. That should be your Christmas card next year.

Actually, it was Ennis Brad taking a pic of Jack Steve. Maybe I'll crop in two feet of snow (which we had a week later), then maybe a Christmas card for next year  ;)

Brad

Offline delalluvia

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Sure, there's a difference in their lifestyles. But what I said still holds. Burning the candle at both ends means working too hard and not getting enough sleep (the idiom refers to burning the candle because it's dark -- that is, late at night and early in the morning) and there's no question that was one of Heath's issues.

Was he working too hard or just having trouble dealing with his roles so that he couldn't sleep?  Or, in the end, was he actually physically recovering from being sick with a cold/pneumonia?

Naw, I don't associate 'burning the candle at both ends' with someone just working too hard.  Otherwise, anyone could fit that role,

Boy howdy that orthodontist is burning the candle at both ends...reminds me of James Dean, eh?   How about you?

IMO, such people are also playing too hard.  James Dean wasn't working hard when he died.

injest

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Was he working too hard or just having trouble dealing with his roles so that he couldn't sleep?  Or, in the end, was he actually physically recovering from being sick with a cold/pneumonia?

Naw, I don't associate 'burning the candle at both ends' with someone just working too hard.  Otherwise, anyone could fit that role,

Boy howdy that orthodontist is burning the candle at both ends...reminds me of James Dean, eh?   How about you?

IMO, such people are also playing too hard.  James Dean wasn't working hard when he died.

good point.

Offline serious crayons

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Naw, I don't associate 'burning the candle at both ends' with someone just working too hard.

Well, you may not. But that is what the term is generally understood to mean. Here's one definition, from :"GoEnglish.com: pocket English idioms":

Quote
Burning The Candle At Both Ends ( working for many hours without getting enough rest ... )

"burning the candle at both ends" You are burning the candle at both ends when you are working long hours without resting. Example: "Would you like to go to a party tonight?" Reply: "I can't. I'm way too tired. I've been burning the candle at both ends all week."

Your energy is burning down, and you are growing more and more tired, when you are burning the candle at both ends. Example: "Are you still working day and night?" Reply "Not anymore. Now I work nine hours a day, and I get a good sleep almost every night. No more burning the candle at both ends."

Burning the candle at both ends is not a healthy life because you are working from early to late and not getting enough rest. Example: "Ever since this new project started I have been burning the candle at both ends. I can't take much more of it."

Quote
Otherwise, anyone could fit that role,

Boy howdy that orthodontist is burning the candle at both ends...reminds me of James Dean, eh?   How about you?

Sure an orthodontist could be burning the candle at both ends. Why not? But what does that have to do with James Dean? I don't particularly think of James Dean as burning the candle at both ends. I don't know why this has become a point of contention anyway. I just said Heath was burning the candle at both ends. And he was, if he was only getting a few hours of sleep a night because he was so embroiled in his work, as pretty much all accounts agree.


As for the Marlboro Man image, it seems we really are overthinking this, or trying to stretch the idea further than it was meant to stretch.

I don't understand this idea....that someone in an ad agency uses an image that is COMMON in an area and suddenly the IMAGE is what is being copied by the people that the ad guy copied!!

I may be wrong, but I don't think anyone is saying this. Yes, regular people dress like that. And no, of course they aren't imitating an ad.

Quote
movie guy gets script: needs to dress a poor country boy....does some investigating...

"hat, carhart jacket...ok that is what poor country boys wear....let's get Ennis a carhart and a hat"

Yes. Again, I don't know that anybody's saying poor country boys don't really dress like that.


But Jess, this is what people who live in town think, and they don't get it. My point was that it isn't an image. Images are Hollywood as is James Dean. One puts on 'airs' in an attempt to garner 'image'. Some are simply what they are. Your son and his (boyfriend) come to mind. They aren't adopting or imitating or costuming. They are just them, just like Ennis and one Jack Twist. Of course some out there will attempt to lump them into fake image and ads, but that is okay cause', well,  they just don't get it.

If I understand this correctly, this is exactly what I'm saying. You might say that regular people don't keep images in mind when they choose what to wear. (Though I could even potentially debate for that -- most regular people are fully aware of traditional cultural images when they pick their clothing -- otherwise, why do people from the West, or people who want to look like people from the West, wear cowboy hats, for example? Because they're simply the most comfortable headwear? Or because they're how people in Western culture traditionally dress? But never mind.)

But if you are saying that Ang Lee -- who doesn't just live in town, he's from Taiwan, for Pete's sake -- directed this movie without ever considering cultural icons like the Marlboro man and other cowboy images, well then, I disagree. To me, cultural icons and images are, if not the whole point of the movie, at least one big big big point of it. The movie, in my mind, is about how cultural assumptions -- of what cowboys are like, of what gay men are like -- are not always as true as people think. So how is it possible to make that point without using the visual trappings of those cultural assumptions? They could have had Ennis dress throughout the whole movie like he was dressed when he was laying pavement, but that wouldn't have worked as well.


Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Completely OT, but in rereading [Diana Ossana's essay "Climbing Brokeback Mountain"] just now, I just noticed that she says Larry took The New Yorker issue with the story upstairs, and came back down in 15 minutes. Did he take an Evelyn Wood speed reading class, or what??

He probably didn't have to read the entire story to realize it had great potential for a screenplay.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline serious crayons

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He probably didn't have to read the entire story to realize it had great potential for a screenplay.

Well, she says that when he came down he told her it was the best short story he'd ever read in The New Yorker. Which implies he finished it. Plus, it was only then (according to her account) that she brought up the idea of a screenplay.



Offline Brown Eyes

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I think there's a very real degree to which "cowboy" or ranch clothing is fully based in fashion or image.  There are even notable differences between types of cowboy/ranch clothing region to region and especially when we think about chronological differences.

I mean, a cowboy hat in Texas in 1930 might be very different from a cowboy hat in Wyoming in 1983.  Things evolve regionally and for practical reasons.  Economic factors play a huge role too.  A rich ranch owner in Texas with fancy clothes and an expansive amount of personal property would look very different than an impoverished ranch-hand in a depressed central Wyoming town.  They would both arguably be "real cowboys", but they would look entirely different.

Ranch cowboys wear different clothing than rodeo cowboys.  Jack wears Wranglers (because he identifies as a rodeo cowboy) and Ennis wears Levis.

There are both aesthetic and practical aspects to all of these decisions.

Wearing a cowboy hat in Pittsburgh now (or probably ever) would be seen as very costume-y.  Whereas a cowboy hat in Denver doesn't seem out of place.

I think when it comes to contemporary dress, there's a huge awareness of the fact that cowboy clothing bears certain iconic cultural ideas and connotations.

And, we don't need to stick simply to the two examples of the Marlborough Man or James Dean.  These were meant to be starting-point examples to think of ways that Ennis (and Jack, etc.) may have been constructed visually.  The examples that Chrissi provided from My Own Private Idaho / River Phoenix are also relevant here.  That's another entirely different way to visualize/contextualize a more contemporary idea of the new west (compared to something ostensibly more timeless like the Marlborough Man probably aspires to be). 

There's no question that Ennis and Jack are constructed images. There's no way they sprang fully formed purely out of one source or simply by grabbing some random wardrobe selections with no real thought behind those selection. We know that the kinds of clothing (colors, etc.) that Ennis and Jack wear are very deliberate. They aren't real people and they were created by a large group of people (Proulx, Lee, McMurtry, Ossana, Ledger, Gyllenhaal, etc.)... and none of these creators are cowboys.  They are basing their ideas about cowboys on role models... because that's really what all artists do (whether they're writers, actors or painters). And one factor in constructing these characters is an awareness of a type of realism or "real cowboys" (but, since there isn't simply one kind of "real cowboy" it's hard to pinpoint exactly what that means).  But, just as much a factor are other artistic, cinematic and cultural depictions of the west.  Those two things aren't in conflict.

Katherine's question earlier about why specifically cowboys are the protagonist vehicles for the story of BBM (instead of accountants or, say grocery store owners in Riverton, etc.) seems very important.

To me the idea of questioning a cultural icon or adding a new interpretation to the idea of a cultural icon like "the cowboy" makes BBM extremely interesting.



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Offline Artiste

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I did meet Avedon as we were in the same photo making, and I know that he does NOT AT ALL look nor dress nor act like ANY Malboro Man!! He loves creating imagery of men as gay: femme. Wish I would have asked him why he took that pic of that male cowboy jock, which is TOTALLY unusual for Avedon to do!! ?? 

Maybe gay men... as I do (even if I act very masculine), dream of being a Marlboro Man!!

Surely Ennis and Jack wanted to be such Marboro Men!! But changed somewhat...

hugs!!

Offline serious crayons

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And, we don't need to stick simply to the two examples of the Marlborough Man or James Dean.  These were meant to be starting-point examples to think of ways that Ennis (and Jack, etc.) may have been constructed visually.

That's exactly right. It's not like the costume crew from BBM busily thumbed through old magazines or looked at old TV commercials so they could specifically copy The Marlboro Man without paying any attention to how people dress in real life. It's that, on a cultural level, both Ennis and the MM are images representing something larger, something more than just how country boys in the West happen to dress. In both cases and others, that style of clothing and behavior means something to people across the country and in other countries, and the makers of BBM were deliberately referencing those meanings.

Quote
There's no question that Ennis and Jack are constructed images. There's no way they sprang fully formed purely out of one source or simply by grabbing some random wardrobe selections with no real thought behind those selection. We know that the kinds of clothing (colors, etc.) that Ennis and Jack wear are very deliberate. They aren't real people and they were created by a large group of people (Proulx, Lee, McMurtry, Ossana, Ledger, Gyllenhaal, etc.)... and none of these creators are cowboys.  They are basing their ideas about cowboys on role models... because that's really what all artists do (whether they're writers, actors or painters). And one factor in constructing these characters is an awareness of a type of realism or "real cowboys" (but, since there isn't simply one kind of "real cowboy" it's hard to pinpoint exactly what that means).  But, just as much a factor are other artistic, cinematic and cultural depictions of the west.  Those two things aren't in conflict.

Exactly.


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It might be worth bearing in mind that Proulx has insisted over and over again in interviews and articles that Ennis and Jack were not cowboys...they wanted to be cowboys, but they came together as sheepherders on the mountain (the low end of the totem pole in the ranching culture in which they lived). Jack didn't even remain on the land but became a small-town gentleman-salesman of not insubstantial wealth (or at least with links to that wealth).

Proulx's argument seems to be based on strict delineations derived from types of work (and we know that Ennis did work with cattle at various points in his life), but I think a deeper implication of her statements is that Ennis and Jack did, however subconsciously, model their style and behavior on a cowboy ideal that may not have existed in their world anymore. The open range had closed by the late nineteenth century, and the golden age of the cowboy had become a thing of the past, preserved mainly in stories and media representations, such as the movies. It is certainly conceivable, thinking along these lines, that Jack and Ennis were influenced by the actors they may have seen in Westerns or the images they may have encountered in magazines and books, so that the rough equivalent of the "Marlboro Man" may have helped shape their sense of identity (not to mention the kind of man they mutually found attractive).

On the issue of Brokeback Mountain's genre, even if it is not strictly speaking a Western, it derives much of its totemic force from the tradition of the Western. The closing image, for example, is a subtle nod to the final shot in John Ford's 1956 classic The Searchers.

Offline Front-Ranger

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Yes, Scott, when I heard her talk the first time she said, "If I had wanted them to be COWboys, I wouldn't have put them to work herding sheep!" and she sounded a mite peeved about it.

"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline serious crayons

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Ennis and Jack did, however subconsciously, model their style and behavior on a cowboy ideal that may not have existed in their world anymore. The open range had closed by the late nineteenth century, and the golden age of the cowboy had become a thing of the past, preserved mainly in stories and media representations, such as the movies. It is certainly conceivable, thinking along these lines, that Jack and Ennis were influenced by the actors they may have seen in Westerns or the images they may have encountered in magazines and books, so that the rough equivalent of the "Marlboro Man" may have helped shape their sense of identity (not to mention the kind of man they mutually found attractive).

Excellent point, Scott. I also think that's what Proulx meant, why she was careful to draw that distinction. And part of how I understand Jack's character is as sort of a "cowboy wannabe," signaled by things like his deliberate posing outside the trailer, his riding bravado, the toy horse and rider in his room, his rodeo aspirations. And that Ennis more closely embodies the idealized cowboy characteristics -- he's a better shot, possibly a better rider, etc. -- is part of Ennis' appeal for Jack.

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On the issue of Brokeback Mountain's genre, even if it is not strictly speaking a Western, it derives much of its totemic force from the tradition of the Western.

Absolutely.


Offline Brown Eyes

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It might be worth bearing in mind that Proulx has insisted over and over again in interviews and articles that Ennis and Jack were not cowboys...they wanted to be cowboys, but they came together as sheepherders on the mountain (the low end of the totem pole in the ranching culture in which they lived). Jack didn't even remain on the land but became a small-town gentleman-salesman of not insubstantial wealth (or at least with links to that wealth).

Proulx's argument seems to be based on strict delineations derived from types of work (and we know that Ennis did work with cattle at various points in his life), but I think a deeper implication of her statements is that Ennis and Jack did, however subconsciously, model their style and behavior on a cowboy ideal that may not have existed in their world anymore. The open range had closed by the late nineteenth century, and the golden age of the cowboy had become a thing of the past, preserved mainly in stories and media representations, such as the movies. It is certainly conceivable, thinking along these lines, that Jack and Ennis were influenced by the actors they may have seen in Westerns or the images they may have encountered in magazines and books, so that the rough equivalent of the "Marlboro Man" may have helped shape their sense of identity (not to mention the kind of man they mutually found attractive).

On the issue of Brokeback Mountain's genre, even if it is not strictly speaking a Western, it derives much of its totemic force from the tradition of the Western. The closing image, for example, is a subtle nod to the final shot in John Ford's 1956 classic The Searchers.


Great post Friend! :)

Looking at the evolution of how Jack and Ennis look and how their equipment looks (for example, canvas tent vs. fancier waterproof tents at end) even across the story's span (63-83) is instructive in thinking about how BBM visualizes the *idea* or a cowboy or western culture in the late 20th century.

I agree that for Jack in particular, his cowboy clothing becomes very much a fashion statement.  And, that even by the time of the reunion in 1967, his identity as a "real cowboy" (i.e. working with cattle... either within the rodeo context or ranch context) was behind him.  We know he'd retired from the rodeo by the time of the reunion and the "cow and calf operation" is at the level of fantasy for him when he suggests it to Ennis.

So, Jack's interest in continuing to wear cowboy hats, his big belt buckles, etc. does become (increasingly) an image thing.  I think the contrast between his first black hat and his larger last black hat is interesting.  By the time of the lakeside argument, he really looks like he's from Texas (at least to my eyes).

In many ways, I think BBM is about a meditation on the breakdown or at least huge changes in western culture (in response to economic realities, etc.) that have occured in the 20th century and particularly the late 20th century.

The idea that Jack and even Ennis are "wannabe" cowboys to certain degrees indicates how nostalgic the idea of the cowboy really has become.  I mean, even the Marlborough Man is a thing of the past now.

And, when it comes to Ennis... the idea that he's revealed to have many of the expected exterior characteristics of a stoic, tough, silent cowboy (visually the iconic package in many ways)... those characteristics are also exactly simultaneously characteristics that define a rather frightened, closeted gay man trying to survive in an environment that he perceives as hostile.

 
the world was asleep to our latent fuss - bowie

Offline Brown Eyes

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On the issue of Brokeback Mountain's genre, even if it is not strictly speaking a Western, it derives much of its totemic force from the tradition of the Western. The closing image, for example, is a subtle nod to the final shot in John Ford's 1956 classic The Searchers.

Is this the shot you mean.?




I just found this tidbit about the end of The Searchers doing a quick websearch...  I've never seen the film myself.

Quote
Pictured is the final shot from The Searchers, John Ford's masterpiece starring John Wayne as the former cavalry officer who spends years tracking down the niece abducted by the Comanche. When he returns to civilization at the edge of Monument Valley, he is like Moses, someone who can lead his people to the promised land but not enter himself. It's a haunting coda to the film, bringing resolution for some of the characters but not for Wayne's, doomed to be the eternal outsider.

The full context for this quotation and the image can be found here: http://blogs.phillynews.com/inquirer/flickgrrl/2007/10/alls_well_that_ends_well.html

The concept of the eternal outsider certainly seems relevant to Ennis... or to how Ennis probably felt by the end.




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moremojo

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If you can direct me to the results of your searches, Amanda, I'd be able to tell you if anything you found matches the closing shot of that film.

Offline Brown Eyes

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If you can direct me to the results of your searches, Amanda, I'd be able to tell you if anything you found matches the closing shot of that film.

Hey Friend,
I just altered my post above (I think as you were posting your reply!) to show the best match that I found in my quick little websearch.

Thanks!

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Yes, that screen capture is exactly it. In the context of the narrative, this is the moment when Ethan (John Wayne's character) has brought the captured Debbie "back home" to her original culture and people, and we have just seen the various characters enter the door to be swallowed up by the interior darkness and its implied "normalcy". Ethan stands outside, alone, and turns to confront and go out into the sunlit outer world, distancing himself from his family, his culture, and his own history.

Offline serious crayons

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The concept of the eternal outsider certainly seems relevant to Ennis... or to how Ennis probably felt by the end.

Quote
And, when it comes to Ennis... the idea that he's revealed to have many of the expected exterior characteristics of a stoic, tough, silent cowboy (visually the iconic package in many ways)... those characteristics are also exactly simultaneously characteristics that define a rather frightened, closeted gay man trying to survive in an environment that he perceives as hostile.

Ethan stands outside, alone, and turns to confront and go out into the sunlit outer world, distancing himself from his family, his culture, and his own history.

Yeah, that's another aspect of the cowboy archetype that BBM plays with and subverts. The cowboy, in American myth, is the ultimate individualist. Like Ennis, he's often a terse, stoic loner. But traditionally the cowboy goes his own way, refuses to conform to society's rules, is free to follow his own path. And that's the antithesis of Ennis, who is shackled by society's rules and does not feel free to live the way he wants to.


Offline Brown Eyes

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Yeah, that's another aspect of the cowboy archetype that BBM plays with and subverts. The cowboy, in American myth, is the ultimate individualist. Like Ennis, he's often a terse, stoic loner. But traditionally the cowboy goes his own way, refuses to conform to society's rules, is free to follow his own path. And that's the antithesis of Ennis, who is shackled by society's rules and does not feel free to live the way he wants to.



I think that's really profound.  The idea of Ennis (embodying visual aspects of an archetype and simultaneously subverting aspects of the archetype) makes the image of a cowboy in a cultural context seem to be a kind of a mask.  Ennis could comfortably slip behind the mannerisms of a stoic individualist cowboy... and sort of hide in plain sight (while the behaviors of being alone and quiet are also aspects of being an outsider or in his case a closeted gay man).  The inversion of the issue of freedom/independence vs. constraint/trying-to-fit-in-with-conventional-society in Ennis is pretty interesting.

I think the idea that the cowboy can mask lots of underlying realities is exactly what causes so much anxiety among folks who dislike BBM.

Crayons, at the moment this bit from one of your earlier posts really stands out as I'm thinking about this post...


The fact that they're cowboys is also a big reason homophobes find the story so disturbing. Ernest Borgnine, in declaring that he wouldn't watch BBM, said, "If John Wayne were alive, he'd be rolling over in his grave."



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The fact that they're cowboys is also a big reason homophobes find the story so disturbing. Ernest Borgnine, in declaring that he wouldn't watch BBM, said, "If John Wayne were alive, he'd be rolling over in his grave."
Ironic in light of the story (unverified, but still interesting as titillating gossip) that I seem to remember reading about director John Ford being caught by Maureen O'Hara giving good ole Wayne a smooch on the lips.  ::) (I seem to recall reading this way back in the day on an IMDb message board; has anyone else heard anything remotely like this concerning Wayne and/or Ford?).

One other contrast between the endings of The Searchers and Brokeback Mountain that seems relevant in light of Katherine's insights is that in the former we see Ethan turning away from the house, heading towards the outside and the unknown, while in the latter we see Ennis turning towards us, his back turned to the closet and the window with its promise of openness and freedom, and retreating out of view, ensconced in his little trailer--safe but sad.

Offline serious crayons

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Quote from: ineedcrayons on Yesterday at 10:27:15 AM

The fact that they're cowboys is also a big reason homophobes find the story so disturbing. Ernest Borgnine, in declaring that he wouldn't watch BBM, said, "If John Wayne were alive, he'd be rolling over in his grave."

 :laugh: I dutifully copied that quote from imdb but just now read it closely enough to see that it's a Yogi Berra-ism. If John Wayne were alive, he wouldn't have a grave to roll over in.


I think the idea that the cowboy can mask lots of underlying realities is exactly what causes so much anxiety among folks who dislike BBM.

Yeah, if Jack and Ennis were accountants BBM might still be good, I guess, but it might have slipped quietly into arthouse obscurity.


Offline Brown Eyes

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:laugh: I dutifully copied that quote from imdb but just now read it closely enough to see that it's a Yogi Berra-ism. If John Wayne were alive, he wouldn't have a grave to roll over in.

Sure enough!  :laugh: :laugh:

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I think that's really profound.  The idea of Ennis (embodying visual aspects of an archetype and simultaneously subverting aspects of the archetype) makes the image of a cowboy in a cultural context seem to be a kind of a mask.  Ennis could comfortably slip behind the mannerisms of a stoic individualist cowboy... and sort of hide in plain sight (while the behaviors of being alone and quiet are also aspects of being an outsider or in his case a closeted gay man).  The inversion of the issue of freedom/independence vs. constraint/trying-to-fit-in-with-conventional-society in Ennis is pretty interesting.

I think the idea that the cowboy can mask lots of underlying realities is exactly what causes so much anxiety among folks who dislike BBM.

Crayons, at the moment this bit from one of your earlier posts really stands out as I'm thinking about this post...




see this is where I have to take exception. Ennis is not 'slipping' into anything....that is who HE IS....he is not acting...he IS who he is, quiet, withdrawn, individualistic in HIS way...


Offline serious crayons

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see this is where I have to take exception. Ennis is not 'slipping' into anything....that is who HE IS....he is not acting...he IS who he is, quiet, withdrawn, individualistic in HIS way...

Because people associate being withdrawn and stoic and lonerish as classic cowboy traits, they don't question why he has them -- on the contrary, in that context they seem respectable and even cool. But in his case, being a rugged cowboy type isn't the whole explanation for his behavior. The traits serve as a convenient and acceptable mask for Ennis ' real reason for hiding. So, although he's not slipping into anything at 19 and beyond, and those traits are partly just inherent in his personality, I also believe that he developed them as a way of hiding aspects of himself in a culture where he knew very well those aspects weren't considered acceptable.


Offline delalluvia

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It might be worth bearing in mind that Proulx has insisted over and over again in interviews and articles that Ennis and Jack were not cowboys...they wanted to be cowboys, but they came together as sheepherders on the mountain (the low end of the totem pole in the ranching culture in which they lived). Jack didn't even remain on the land but became a small-town gentleman-salesman of not insubstantial wealth (or at least with links to that wealth).

I don't get this.  Well, perhaps that's what Proulx intended but that's not what the movie ended up being.

Granted they did meet while they were sheepherders, instead of real cowboys...

But to say Jack had aspirations of being a rodeo cowboy?

Um, he was a rodeo cowboy.

Not a very successful one, it was all penny-ante small town stuff, but he still rode the circuit.  I think he achieved being a rodeo cowboy, even if he wasn't successful and eventually retired due to injury.

By the end, he's a man of some means, but he isn't dressing like the Marlboro Man, he's dressing like rich cattlemen do - leather western blazers, nice boots, silver jewelry and expensive felt hat

As for Ennis, he was a sheepherder for one season.  Then he was a ranch hand, shucking feed to cattle, helping with the calving, then by the end of the movie he's got a job on the cattle drive.  If that isn't a cowboy, I'm not sure what Proulx considers a cowboy.

Offline Brown Eyes

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see this is where I have to take exception. Ennis is not 'slipping' into anything....that is who HE IS....he is not acting...he IS who he is, quiet, withdrawn, individualistic in HIS way...

You could also look at it another way... Ennis is given these characteristics by the writers, costume designers and actor who all worked together to create the fictional character that we know as Ennis. 

Yes, Ennis is who he is within the narrative of BBM.  And, within the narrative of the story he was probably not deliberately assuming certain personality/character traits.  Although, some of his personality traits are somewhat within his control.  I do think he probably used his tough-guy stoic public image to his advantage when he wanted to.  And, in certain cases I think an argument could be made that he's being deliberate.

But, all of the things having to do with Ennis were entirely within the control of the artists who created him.  And, thinking about those choices... which characteristics the writers/director/actors decided to give Ennis vs. say, Jack or other male characters like L.D. or Monroe... are interesting.  To me this is a question about the meaning behind artistic decision making.  I mean, as on example, I recall an interview with Heath where he talked about how he thought about Ennis's posture... how the way Ennis holds himself when he walks reflects all the bottled up tension that he carries around.  And, to me, Ennis's posture can probably be read a couple different ways.  It can be read as tense, reserved/shy and defensive (someone who is scared) or it could be read as tough, rigid and rugged (someone you wouldn't want to mess with).  Little things like that are carefully crafted and thought through.

The fact that Ennis as a figure within the narrative of BBM absorbs both the qualities of what we've been calling an "iconic" cowboy and those of a closeted gay man so easily and seemingly naturally on his part (with probably little conscious effort) may go towards demonstrating the way, for Ennis those things could, in certain cases, be two sides of the same coin.  Which, again, seems to be a good reason why both of the main characters in BBM are threatening to certain resistant audiences... because they challenge some long-held myths about certain American/masculine icons.


It's impossible for me to believe that Annie would have spent all that time and energy working all those Biblical allusions and classical myths and all the other subtle imagery into her story ... but not have meant anything particular when she chose cowboys as her characters. It's also impossible for me to believe Ang Lee went to all the trouble to set up an image of Ennis posed against a backdrop of exploding 4th of July fireworks without having it cross his mind that his movie is playing around with American myth. Or that either Ang or Annie -- who were so careful about establishing elaborate metaphors involving buckets and snow and bears and water and laundry and so on -- would not have given any thought to American feelings about cowboys and what they represent.


I think this point is really central to all of this.  The image of Ennis in front of the fireworks... lashing out in frustration is such a great example.  Here we have one of the symbols of the American west for many generations (the cowboy) at an entirely American/patriotic celebration demonstrating a great deal of masculine prowess in his ability to lay both of the annoying bikers out flat.  So on the one hand... that's the ideal.  But, just below this is the fact that we know (as Brokies) that Ennis is a super-painfully shy and, at this point, extremely frustrated gay man.  The fuel behind his lashing out here is multi-layered.

With the explosions going off behind him it's almost a visualization of the "explosion" (so to speak) of certain myths or icons. 


And, back to Jack... and his identity.  By the time of the reunion Jack is no longer a working cowboy in any sense (he's retired from the rodeo and the cow and calf operation is a pie-in-the-sky fantasy).  So yes, he continues to wear gear associated with cowboys throughout the rest of the film.  And, these are fashion/ image choices on his part.  Yes, he wears expensive hats, nice watches, etc. by the end. 

When LaShawn says "we came out here thinking ranching was still big hats and Marlboros, boy, were we behind the times..."

She's right.  She's talking about how images and realities in the west and in Texas have evolved... and again I think BBM is a pretty nuanced study in the way the west has changed in terms of cowboy culture, etc. in the late 20th century.


 
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Offline Brown Eyes

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I'm posting again, because while glancing through the Story to Screenplay book tonight, I noticed yet another explicit and concrete example of a reference to a historic cowboy movie written into the screenplay (at least this published version of the screenplay).

Of course this one on p. 60 has already been discussed a lot on this thread:

"EXT: RIVERTON, WYOMING: RANCH: BACK OF HAY TRUCK: DAY: 1972:

ENNIS stands in the back of a hay truck, looking much like James Dean in 'Giant.' Throws open bales of hay out to the cows. 
       
        ENNIS
        Come on! Come on!"



And, this second reference actually comes right before the "maybe Texas" scene and is found on p. 70. It says:

"EXT: WYOMING MOUNTAINS: DAY: 1978:

JACK and ENNIS ride through the mountains, like Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea in 'Ride the High Country,' only more life-worn, more weather-beaten."


So, here are some images I found doing quick web searches for Ride the High Country (1962).

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/3843779-875.jpg" border="0" /> <img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/3843788-067.jpg" border="0" />

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/midsize/3843782-764.jpg" border="0" />

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/3843781-7e3.jpg" border="0" />

The most interesting component of the Ride the High Country reference, I think has as much to do with Randolph Scott as with the film itself.  In Hollywood there is longstanding and fairly well substantiated speculation that Scott may have had an affair with Cary Grant. They Scott and Grant lived together for many years.  So, again here we have an example of subtext hovering just below the surface of a famous western image.

Here's just a nice photo of Scott:

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/midsize/3843780-918.jpg" border="0" />

And here are two apparently, somewhat famous photos of him with Cary Grant taken at their home.  I found one on Wikipedia and one on Answers.com:

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/3843786-20d.jpg" border="0" /> <img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/3843787-0de.jpg" border="0" />

Here's a link to the Wikipedia page about Scott (it's a very large page on his film career, his military service, etc.  and then at the end there's a long section called "Rumored homosexuality"). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randolph_Scott

And, here's a link to the Answers.com page about Scott, which is almost a duplicate of the Wikipedia page in many regards, but this also has lots of nice thumbnails of many of his movie posters. http://www.answers.com/randolph+scott?cat=entertainment

Here's just a taste of the blurb from Answers.com
Quote
Rumored Homosexuality

Although Scott achieved fame as a motion picture actor, he managed to keep a fairly low profile with his private life. Off screen he became good friends with Fred Astaire and Cary Grant. He met Grant on the set of Hot Saturday and shortly afterwards they began rooming together in a beach house in Malibu that became known as "Bachelor Hall."

    They would live together, on and off, for about ten years, presumably because they liked each other's company and wanted to save on living expenses (they were both considered notorious tightwads).[3]

As Scott shared "Bachelor Hall" with Cary Grant for twelve years, it was rumored that the two actors were romantically involved, and that the name "Bachelor Hall" and the reported parade of women there were invented by the studio who wanted to keep their valuable actors away from any public scandal...


Anyway, just thought this was interesting.  Reading the direction notes in the Story to Screenplay book is actually pretty revealing about certain scenes.  And, of course it's fun to find the places where the screenplay differs (sometimes greatly) from what the finished film actually seems to show.


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If that isn't a cowboy, I'm not sure what Proulx considers a cowboy.
I certainly agree with everything you write here, del. I was just reiterating Proulx's assertion as a means to bolster the line of thinking that Jack and Ennis were influenced by the images and stories of what cowboys were and what they were supposed to be. I do think it nonsensical to describe the two men only as sheepherders and never as cowboys, since, as you point out, Jack rode the rodeo circuit as a rodeo cowboy and Ennis did work with cattle (the very definition of a cowboy). All these things are just as evident in the original story as they are in the film.

Offline serious crayons

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Here's what Proulx wrote in "Getting Movied":

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Both wanted to be cowboys, be part of the Great Western Myth, but it didn't work out that way; Ennis never got to be more than a rough-cut ranch hand and Jack Twist chose rodeo as an expression of cowboy. Neither of them was ever a top hand, and they met herding sheep, animals most real cowokes despise. Although they were not really cowboys (the word "cowboy" is often used derisively in the west by those who do ranch work), the urban critics dubbed it a tale of two gay cowboys. No. It is a story of destructive rural homophobia.

That last part has been discussed a lot, the part about the urban critics' term being unfairly reductive. But the first part is interesting, showing why Proulx distinguishes so sharply between sheep herders and cowboys. Apparently she felt it important to portray them as aspirational rather than actual cowboys.


moremojo

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Apparently she felt it important to portray them as aspirational rather than actual cowboys.
I actually see them as both. They were both honest-to-God ranch men who subscribed to the myth of the rugged Western male.

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So, here are some images I found doing quick web searches for Ride the High Country (1962).
Note the date of this film's release...one could imagine Ennis or Jack having gone to see this picture the year before their meeting.

Ride the High Country (incidentally, considered by many aficionados to be director Sam Peckinpah's masterpiece) is a melancholy, rather contemplative Western delineating the passing of an era, much as Brokeback Mountain alludes to changing economic and social circumstances. Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea were very famous and popular as old-time stars of the Western, and their double casting is widely seen as an allusion to the quiet closing of the curtain on a major genre and its influence on the wider culture. Ennis and Jack's story was unfurling when the myth of a myth was receding into history, and Brokeback Mountain could be understood as a post-Western Western, if it is approached as a Western at all.

Offline Brown Eyes

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Note the date of this film's release...one could imagine Ennis or Jack having gone to see this picture the year before their meeting.

Ride the High Country (incidentally, considered by many aficionados to be director Sam Peckinpah's masterpiece) is a melancholy, rather contemplative Western delineating the passing of an era, much as Brokeback Mountain alludes to changing economic and social circumstances. Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea were very famous and popular as old-time stars of the Western, and their double casting is widely seen as an allusion to the quiet closing of the curtain on a major genre and its influence on the wider culture. Ennis and Jack's story was unfurling when the myth of a myth was receding into history, and Brokeback Mountain could be understood as a post-Western Western, if it is approached as a Western at all.

Hey Bud!  I really like your point about BBM being a post-Western Western... and the point about Ride the High Country already being nostalgic or a signal of the end of an era.  I think you're right to note that the early '60s... 1962 for High Country and 1963 for the beginning of BBM... may be considered a very important transitional moment both in western culture and in the genre of the western film.  It would be interesting to know, if historically there are significant reasons for this focus on the early 1960s to be significant.



Here's what Proulx wrote in "Getting Movied":

That last part has been discussed a lot, the part about the urban critics' term being unfairly reductive. But the first part is interesting, showing why Proulx distinguishes so sharply between sheep herders and cowboys. Apparently she felt it important to portray them as aspirational rather than actual cowboys.



I think the notion of the "aspirational cowboy" or the "wannabe cowboy" must have been communicated to Jake Gyllenhaal pretty profoundly (either it's something he interpreted/figured out for himself... or it was actively explained to him via direction/screenplay or something)... because in that "bonus feature" interview with Jake, where he's semi in costume, he talks very eloquently about wanting to portray Jack as "trying all the time"... to portray Jack as "trying to be a good cowboy" but often falling short of perfection (in terms of aiming his gun, perfect horse riding skills, etc.). It's actually one of my favorite interviews with Jake on the topic of BBM.  Jake talks about this in relation to his own less than perfect horseriding (I think) technique and how he felt that was OK given the context of Jack.  Of course, I think the idea of Jack "trying all the time" can easily be extrapolated into his attitude towards his relationship with Ennis too... trying to get Ennis to come out of his shell... and trying to find a way for them to be closer, etc.

Ennis is different in this situation, because he is better at riding horses and better at hunting.  And, unlike Jack who quits the rodeo, Ennis remains a literal cowboy (in working with cattle... even at the end with the conversation with Junior he's still thinking about the next round up and easily refers to himself as a cowboy).  So, the level of aspiration in Ennis exists more at the level of internal conflict and identity I think.


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Offline serious crayons

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I actually see them as both. They were both honest-to-God ranch men who subscribed to the myth of the rugged Western male.

They both worked on ranches (Jack on his parents'). But Proulx evidently draws a distinction between "rough-cut ranch hand" and "top hand," and implies that only a top hand qualifies as an authentic cowboy. She also suggests the difference when she writes, "the word 'cowboy' is often used derisively in the west by those who do ranch work."

I don't know much about cowboy work or culture, so I'm only going by what Proulx says. Whether or not she has her facts straight, it at least seems to have been her intention in writing, for whatever reason, to make their cowboy idenitity more aspirational than factual. But clearly, they both subscribed to the myth of the rugged Western male.

Interestingly, Jack seems better able to reconcile that myth with homosexuality, whereas Ennis found them absolutely mutually exclusive.


Offline Brown Eyes

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Note the date of this film's release...one could imagine Ennis or Jack having gone to see this picture the year before their meeting.

This is an interesting point. I think it's likely that Ennis and Jack could have been aware of both Ride the High Country and Giant.  Especially Giant and James Dean I would think in terms of widespread popular understanding. 

But,thinking within the context of the narrative for a moment... and especially thinking about the beginning...  it seems unlikely that Ennis could have afforded a movie ticket.  It seems more possible that Jack could have gone to the movies once in a while (given that he can afford multiple beers, owns a cigarette lighter, etc. we have tiny clues that he has at least a tad more money than Ennis).  And, for sure, at least it seems that both Ride the High Country and Giant are the types of films they would have liked to see... or would have been likely to choose to go see.

The topic of Ennis's poverty (somehow more so than Jack's) seems to be an important component of the aspirational status of his identity as cowboy (maybe equally to the topic of sexuality in certain ways).  If, as Katherine points out, Proulx draws a big distinction between "rough-cut ranch hand" and "top hand" then class and wealth must factor into this identity to a great degree (at least in her way of thinking).

This brings me back to one of the first impressions of Ennis... a Marlboro-man-looking "cowboy" who can't even afford to smoke one single cigarette. 

Somehow, the image of Ennis snuffing out his cigarette and carefully saving it signals immediately that something is very different about this "cowboy."



And, as another somewhat random thought... the idea of the term "cowboy" being uttered somewhat derisively reminds me of Jimbos tone when he rebukes Jack at the bar.





 
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Offline serious crayons

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If, as Katherine points out, Proulx draws a big distinction between "rough-cut ranch hand" and "top hand" then class and wealth must factor into this identity to a great degree (at least in her way of thinking).

It seems so. "Poor" is the sixth word in the story, after the italicized prologue. And "high-school dropouts ... with no prospects" is in the second sentence.

Quote
This brings me back to one of the first impressions of Ennis... a Marlboro-man-looking "cowboy" who can't even afford to smoke one single cigarette. 

Somehow, the image of Ennis snuffing out his cigarette and carefully saving it signals immediately that something is very different about this "cowboy."

Great observation, Bud.


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It seems so. "Poor" is the sixth word in the story, after the italicized prologue. And "high-school dropouts ... with no prospects" is in the second sentence.

and don't forget "inured to the stoic life" that's one a my favourites! No rhinestone cowboys, these!

Both Proulx and Lee, in the early character development stages, were driving home the point that Jack and Ennis were the underdogs of Wyoming society, which in itself represents the underdog of U.S. society. Jack and Ennis came from opposite parts of the state, travelling to the central part roughly where the Continental Divide is located, in a hardscrabble search for work. Ennis was an orphan whose folks kept their money in a coffeecan and drove themselves to their death. Jack's folks were in the doomed family farming industry in an area where even successful farmers earn only pennies of profit per acre, if at all. What's more, they were on the fringes of Wyo career paths, neither working in the oilfields or herding cattle.

Ironically, Jack and Ennis were closer to the real cowboys than guys who were actually called cowboys in the 1960s. Real cowboys had their heyday during only about two decades of U.S. history. They were young men, mostly unschooled, but some were universitiy students from the East who had fallen in love with that life. The students usually didn't last long because cowboying was a dirty, thankless job with low pay, long hours, much tedium especially during winter, discomfort, and a great deal of loneliness.
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There are 24 pages of posts about a talk in Casper, Wyoming, on this subject, that included a talk by Annie Proulx!!

http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,4224.msg338761.html#msg338761


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Offline Front-Ranger

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From the book Cowboy by Linda Granfield:

Quote
Cowboy is actually a very old word. It has been traced to Ireland, where horsemen were called cow-boys almost 2,000 years ago. . . . During the American Revolution...the word cowboy became ugly. . . . By the mid-1800s the word had returned to its original meaning--a hired man who works with cattle and performs many of his duties on horseback.
"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline Brown Eyes

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There are 24 pages of posts about a talk in Casper, Wyoming, on this subject, that included a talk by Annie Proulx!!

http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,4224.msg338761.html#msg338761





That's awesome Lee!  I'd forgotten about that thread.  8)

and don't forget "inured to the stoic life" that's one a my favourites! No rhinestone cowboys, these!

Both Proulx and Lee, in the early character development stages, were driving home the point that Jack and Ennis were the underdogs of Wyoming society, which in itself represents the underdog of U.S. society. Jack and Ennis came from opposite parts of the state, travelling to the central part roughly where the Continental Divide is located, in a hardscrabble search for work. Ennis was an orphan whose folks kept their money in a coffeecan and drove themselves to their death. Jack's folks were in the doomed family farming industry in an area where even successful farmers earn only pennies of profit per acre, if at all. What's more, they were on the fringes of Wyo career paths, neither working in the oilfields or herding cattle.

Ironically, Jack and Ennis were closer to the real cowboys than guys who were actually called cowboys in the 1960s. Real cowboys had their heyday during only about two decades of U.S. history. They were young men, mostly unschooled, but some were universitiy students from the East who had fallen in love with that life. The students usually didn't last long because cowboying was a dirty, thankless job with low pay, long hours, much tedium especially during winter, discomfort, and a great deal of loneliness.

Well, it's interesting just how nuanced and complex the concept of a cowboy really is.  Clearly the history of that concept or job or identity must be very complex decade to decade.  At this point I'm really interested in learning more about it in a serious way.

I'm still particularly curious about the early 1960s in terms of historical significance. 

It would be interesting to do some more thorough research on this.  I've never thought too much about western history until BBM came into my life.  And, while I've been interested in film for a long time (even in academics... I was a T.A. for two film-history courses in grad school) I've never focused much attention on the genre of the western.  So, coming up with examples... again filmic/cultural, visual role models to compare with BBM through the course of this thread is really an interesting discovery.  Meanwhile, my new copy of Giant is winging its way to me via Amazon and hopefully should be here by Saturday. I've seen both Rebel Without a Cause and East of Eden but, ironically now for the context of BBM here, never Giant (I ordered a set of all 3 movies, so that will be a fun little film festival coming up) And, now I'm growing more curious about Ride the High Country too.  So, BBM continues to expand my horizons, which is just so amazing.

Anyway... I just finished watching all the "bonus feature" interviews on the original BBM DVD and it was a really nice refresher about certain things.  The interview with Diana and Larry is just so funny... they're both just so, so serious and keep finishing each other's sentences.  And there's one place where they discuss BBM (very briefly) in terms of genre... and they said they feel BBM is "framed" by the western but, then Larry said he thinks of it as a drama/love-story more specifically.  And, then when he was talking about his reaction to reading the New Yorker story he said something like (I'm paraphrasing) "I wish I had written it... the subject's always been laying there in the west, the attraction between cowboys."

And, this is very OT, but I'd completely forgotten that in one of the interviews Jake actually refers to Ennis and Jack as "yin and yang."  I'm sure we've discussed this in the Yin and Yang thread... but somehow that had slipped my mind/ caught me somewhat by surprise when I was watching those bonus features just now.  And, then there was this lovely thing that Heath said (again something I'd sort of forgotten about)... but which echoes so much of what we always say here... that he hoped Brokeback would present more questions than answers.





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Offline serious crayons

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For me, the quintessential Brokeback predecessor is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Like BBM, it's a revisionist, rather than classic, Western. And the homoerotic undertones are there, if not the actual sex. I loved that movie!

And more recently, there's 3:10 to Yuma. More of a completely classic Western, almost Shakespearean. Homoeroticism even more deeply buried. But I loved that one, too.

What is it with me and Westerns involving two handsome actors? Maybe I'd better order Ride the High Country, too!

 :laugh:

Another interesting thing, and this has been mentioned on this thread, is the conflation of movies about cowboys with movies about outlaws and sheriffs. Westerns, to me, are really more the latter. And yet we think of them as being about "cowboys." Not all that many Westerns are about actual "cowboys," are they? Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove comes to mind, and probably a few John Wayne ones, and ...I'm grasping here; Westerns aren't my film history forte. But often they seem to be about keeping law and order in the Wild West rather than herding cattle.



Offline Brown Eyes

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Another interesting thing, and this has been mentioned on this thread, is the conflation of movies about cowboys with movies about outlaws and sheriffs. Westerns, to me, are really more the latter. And yet we think of them as being about "cowboys." Not all that many Westerns are about actual "cowboys," are they? Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove comes to mind, and probably a few John Wayne ones, and ...I'm grasping here; Westerns aren't my film history forte. But often they seem to be about keeping law and order in the Wild West rather than herding cattle.



Yes, I think this is very accurate to note McMurtry as particularly being famous for the "gritty, realism" type of depiction of working cowboys and nuances of western culture in general vs. quick-draw/ high-noon/ sheriffs and outlaws types of westerns.  [They mention this briefly in one of the bonus features actually!  And, is sort of fresh in my mind at the moment.  So, this is a super perceptive comment Crayons!].  My hunch is that this is why McMurtry himself resists the genre label of "western."  And, this is where the concept of realism/ real life/ examples of real non-cinematic cowboys plays a huge role and is just as important to the construction of BBM as cinematic role models.



p.s.  I just went and found a bunch of cool images from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and wanted to post them here, but my divshare account is not cooperating tonight (it won't let me upload the pics from my computer at the moment).  So, I'll try and post them tomorrow night.

 
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Offline Brown Eyes

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For me, the quintessential Brokeback predecessor is Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Like BBM, it's a revisionist, rather than classic, Western. And the homoerotic undertones are there, if not the actual sex. I loved that movie!



Just some nice pics related to this film.  :)

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/3855442-057.jpg" border="0" /> <img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/3855440-7f6.jpg" border="0" />

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/midsize/3855441-46a.jpg" border="0" />

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/midsize/3855444-585.jpg" border="0" />

(1969)

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Offline serious crayons

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Nice images, Bud! Thanks for posting. Those last two are kind of BBMesque. Especially the second-to-last one, which reminds me a little of the post-Thanksgiving-camping scene. (Yes, I know, you Westerners, that it would be hard to get a photo of two guys wearing cowboy hats and crossing a river on horseback that DIDN'T look like that!  ;))

Meanwhile, over on the Heath news threads, LauraGigs posted a good essay about Heath from The Advocate.

http://www.advocate.com/issue_story.asp?id=52310&page=1

Here's a passage that's significant for this thread:

Quote
One of the most compelling stories, one likely to grow with time, compares Ledger to James Dean. Beyond its most obvious connection, it’s an instructive primer of the homoerotic ingredients that go into creating a masculine icon.

Rebel Without a Cause gave Dean his most famous role, and though the character was straight, he was the object of homosexual desire (and informed by the actor’s own sexual ambiguity). In spite of that—or, I’d posit, because of it—Dean’s Jim Stark became a classic masculine archetype. Ledger’s Ennis Del Mar, though, wasn’t merely the object of gay interest—he was gay himself. The character was iconic from the time Brokeback was released, but Ledger’s early death—and the photos of Heath as Ennis that accompanied nearly every obituary—has hastened his entry into the pantheon of on-screen masculinity.


Offline Brown Eyes

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Meanwhile, over on the Heath news threads, LauraGigs posted a good essay about Heath from The Advocate.

http://www.advocate.com/issue_story.asp?id=52310&page=1

Here's a passage that's significant for this thread:
Quote
One of the most compelling stories, one likely to grow with time, compares Ledger to James Dean. Beyond its most obvious connection, it’s an instructive primer of the homoerotic ingredients that go into creating a masculine icon.

Rebel Without a Cause gave Dean his most famous role, and though the character was straight, he was the object of homosexual desire (and informed by the actor’s own sexual ambiguity). In spite of that—or, I’d posit, because of it—Dean’s Jim Stark became a classic masculine archetype. Ledger’s Ennis Del Mar, though, wasn’t merely the object of gay interest—he was gay himself. The character was iconic from the time Brokeback was released, but Ledger’s early death—and the photos of Heath as Ennis that accompanied nearly every obituary—has hastened his entry into the pantheon of on-screen masculinity.


Hey Bud,

Thanks for bringing this quotation over here!  It certainly is interesting.  I just came back from buying this magazine at Barnes and Noble.  It was actually a really touching experience... the young woman at the check-out counter stopped and looked at the cover for a notably long time and said "boy, it's a real shame he died."

So, anyway, In this article they also include an image of a painting by Thom Bierdz titled Lost Cowboys that combines a portrait of Heath with an image of James Dean that's clearly based on this photo:

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/3109699-f19.gif" border="0" />


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So, anyway, In this article they also include an image of a painting by Thom Bierdz titled Lost Cowboys that combines a portrait of Heath with an image of James Dean that's clearly based on this photo:

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/3109699-f19.gif" border="0" />

Is there a picture of Heath where he's posed the same way? Or are the pictures of Heath and James combined in Photoshop??

Can you show us the original photos??
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Offline Brown Eyes

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Is there a picture of Heath where he's posed the same way? Or are the pictures of Heath and James combined in Photoshop??

Can you show us the original photos??

No, there's no photoshop involved.  It's a painting that this guy did.. with an image of Heath and James Dean side by side in front of a landscape.  The image of Heath in the painting is Ennis-y but, I'm not aware of a specific corresponding photo (although I'm sure there is one since the image of Dean in the painting is directly taken from the photo above... but again this is a painting not a photo collage).

I'd love to post the image, but I don't have a scanner or a digital camera.  It's on page 31 of The Advocate.

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Offline Brown Eyes

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Just as a reminder, here are some images of James Dean looking Ennis-like.  These were posted earlier in this thread by Chrissi.


<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/midsize/3047748-41a.jpg" border="0" />


<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/midsize/3047741-7e0.jpeg" border="0" />


<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/midsize/3047746-a93.jpg" border="0" />


<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/midsize/3047719-a4e.jpg" border="0" />


<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/midsize/3047745-b27.jpeg" border="0" />


And, then in terms of a very close Ennis-James Dean pose... I think this one must have been in the back of someone's mind during the shooting.  On my very first viewing of BBM, I remember thinking that this was a classic James Dean-look in this pre-reunion moment

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/thumb/3109699-f19.gif" border="0" />

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/1668336-440.jpg" border="0" />

Finally, this is one of the spookiest images (I think).  I think this pic of James Dean could easily be mistaken for Heath upon first glance.  Just amazing. :o

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/midsize/3047747-3f8.jpg" border="0" />

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Offline Brown Eyes

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Heya,

So, I just finished watching Giant... and I thought I'd post my initial impressions and then I'll leave this topic alone.  Nothing I say here will constitute any kind of real spoiler.

First of all, Liz Taylor is just wonderful in it. I think she really carries the film. And she and Rock Hudson certainly are the dominant protagonists in the movie with James Dean's character hovering on the fringes/margins as an outsider (which is what his character is). 

Overall Giant reminds me of BBM in that both look like westerns in every way (location, costume, certain plot elements) but, each really can be characterized as other genres as well.  As we've been discussing there's a way in which BBM can be seen as a pure drama/love-story and, it's very evident that the best fit in terms of genre for Giant is really a classic melodrama (which is not at all surprising given Rock Hudson's involvement in the film). 

One other big thing that they hold in common is that both are based on literature written by female authors (in Giant's case the novel by Edna Ferber).  And, both films are/were socially controversial.  I watched a bit of the special features on Giant and they begin by making a point about how difficult it was to get the film funded and made.  It was apparently such an unpopular/controversial book in Texas that there was a lot of furor over it initially.  Like BBM, Giant highlights big social issues (but in a somewhat more blatantly didactic way)... in the case of Giant the issues really are sexism and racism/poverty.

And then there are some fun details that could stand as comparisons with BBM.  Right after the opening credits, the film begins with a train coming into the frame much like BBM.  And, later Thanksgiving is a big highlighted/tension-filled holiday in Giant and compares two different Thanksgivings happening simultaneously in two different locations.  When it comes to physical comparisons between James Dean's character and Ennis, well the comparisons are strikingly numerous (too many to elaborate in detail).   In terms of mannerisms and certain poses there's most certainly something going on between those two characters.  They're definitely not exact (not at all), but there's definitely a lot to compare... even things like a certain mumbled/taciturn style of speaking.  Some of these comparisons come across better while watching the action of the film than in looking at these still photos.



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Amanda, I received the Heath tribute issue of The Advocate as a gift, and I got to see the image of Heath next to the one of James Dean. Spellbinding!!

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Offline Brown Eyes

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Heya,
I was just flipping the channels and came upon Ride the High Country on TCM right at 8 pm when it was just starting.  So, I'm watching it now.  I've never seen it before and have been curious about it ever since this thread.  

I'm only 30 minutes into it.  But, I'm enjoying it so far.

I've noticed 2 potentially direct BBM connections so far (beyond the scenery and the cowboys).

1) one of the very first scenes of this western involves a camel!
2) There's a prominent line early on... in this case: "If he don't, I will."

I'm posting again, because while glancing through the Story to Screenplay book tonight, I noticed yet another explicit and concrete example of a reference to a historic cowboy movie written into the screenplay (at least this published version of the screenplay).

Of course this one on p. 60 has already been discussed a lot on this thread:

"EXT: RIVERTON, WYOMING: RANCH: BACK OF HAY TRUCK: DAY: 1972:

ENNIS stands in the back of a hay truck, looking much like James Dean in 'Giant.' Throws open bales of hay out to the cows.  
        
        ENNIS
        Come on! Come on!"



And, this second reference actually comes right before the "maybe Texas" scene and is found on p. 70. It says:

"EXT: WYOMING MOUNTAINS: DAY: 1978:

JACK and ENNIS ride through the mountains, like Randolph Scott and Joel McCrea in 'Ride the High Country,' only more life-worn, more weather-beaten."


So, here are some images I found doing quick web searches for Ride the High Country (1962).

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/3843779-875.jpg" border="0" /> <img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/3843788-067.jpg" border="0" />

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/midsize/3843782-764.jpg" border="0" />

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/3843781-7e3.jpg" border="0" />

The most interesting component of the Ride the High Country reference, I think has as much to do with Randolph Scott as with the film itself.  In Hollywood there is longstanding and fairly well substantiated speculation that Scott may have had an affair with Cary Grant. They Scott and Grant lived together for many years.  So, again here we have an example of subtext hovering just below the surface of a famous western image.

Here's just a nice photo of Scott:

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/midsize/3843780-918.jpg" border="0" />

And here are two apparently, somewhat famous photos of him with Cary Grant taken at their home.  I found one on Wikipedia and one on Answers.com:

<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/3843786-20d.jpg" border="0" /> <img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/3843787-0de.jpg" border="0" />

Here's a link to the Wikipedia page about Scott (it's a very large page on his film career, his military service, etc.  and then at the end there's a long section called "Rumored homosexuality"). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randolph_Scott

And, here's a link to the Answers.com page about Scott, which is almost a duplicate of the Wikipedia page in many regards, but this also has lots of nice thumbnails of many of his movie posters. http://www.answers.com/randolph+scott?cat=entertainment

Here's just a taste of the blurb from Answers.com

Anyway, just thought this was interesting.  Reading the direction notes in the Story to Screenplay book is actually pretty revealing about certain scenes.  And, of course it's fun to find the places where the screenplay differs (sometimes greatly) from what the finished film actually seems to show.



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WOw, thanks for letting us benefit from your channel surfing, friend! I'll have to hunt up that movie asap!!
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