Do you think your life will change now?

[malina]

Hi Katherine... Thank you for 'getting' it... that's exactly what I meant. There's just something about that fact that someone so young and so talented has died so... so randomly, really.. that reinforces the duty to life that the rest of us have. And my realization is that that duty is not just to love, and to enjoy life, which I pretty much was doing anyway, but also to... take care of things.

Maybe that comes from the feeling that I have and can't shake, that there should have been someone taking care of Heath, when he was alone in that apartment. But in order to take care of each other, we have to be strong, ourselves.. strong and clear and resourceful and not dragged down by stuff or blinded to reality. I feel like, if we can do that, and also remain open-hearted as BBM taught us, then that's the best we can do. And it still won't be enough to eliminate horrible things happening, like  people dying too soon, but since NOTHING can eliminate that, facing the life we've been given is the best we can do.

That's some of the meaning behind my personal "Heath, I swear". The rest of it has something to do with how Heath never shied away from using his talent to its fullest, taking on challenging roles... that is a brilliant example to all of us, I think.

[Ellemeno]

Malina, I'm glad to see you.  Clarissa

[Brown Eyes]

Hey Buds,

Malina, your posts here are really thoughtful.  Thanks so much for feeling comfortable enough here to share things like this with us.  That quotation from House, "Dying is easy. Living is the hard thing" is really profound.  It's profound for the situation that's happening now for sure... and it's so relevant to BBM too.  We see how hard it is to be Ennis, the survivor.  And, we can imagine how hard it must have been to be Rich.  Grief, regret and loss are just such difficult things to handle, and it certainly carries over to this current experience trying to cope with the loss of Heath.




I just finished watching Brokeback about ah hour ago.  For me, I'm very glad I did.  I can certainly understand that deciding to watch it/not-watch it under the current circumstances is a very personal decision.  I was definitely nervous before I started watching it.  I mean genuinely nervous.  And, it really reminded me of my emotions when I went to see BBM in the theatre way at the very beginning of my journey as a Brokie.  I was always a tad nervous when I would go into a theatre to watch it.  And tonight, I didn't rewind or do anything other than just watch it straight through.

Watching tonight was very cathartic and was really like seeing the movie with fresh eyes in certain ways.  The film had all of it's intensity back, which had admittedly mellowed a bit for me after so many viewings over so long a period of time.  I cried... and I mean really cried at certain moments and even at some new moments this time.  But, it was a nice kind of crying.  And, while it was like viewing the film with fresh eyes on the one hand, it was also like visiting with old friends.  It was just plain nice to see Ennis in all his vividness... and to get completely absorbed by the characters and the story. 

The end with the shirts has an intensity to it tonight that really is like the first few viewings. 

And, tonight it struck me more than ever how hugely intimate the motel scene is... and how sad it gets so quickly.  When Ennis says "I'm stuck with what I got here" and gets the tear in his eye and Jack falls silent... geez.  I mean I've always been aware of these things, but tonight it sort of knocked me out.

The dozy embrace, always, without fail makes me cry... but tonight the final bit of that flashback is the one thing that's almost too much to take, given the current situation with losing Heath.  "See you in the morning" combined with the image of Ennis walking away and getting on his horse without looking back...
 

And one line really rang out with huge significance tonight in this viewing... "Sometimes I miss you so much I can hardly stand it." 


All that said, it really was a comforting experience for me.  Really like seeing old friends.  And, on a lighter note, I even jotted down a few new observations of details, etc. to post in Open Forum later on.  I almost always find myself searching for new details, etc. when I watch now.  It's almost an instinct at this point.



Hope you're all doing well Friends.
 

[serious crayons]

That's some of the meaning behind my personal "Heath, I swear". The rest of it has something to do with how Heath never shied away from using his talent to its fullest, taking on challenging roles... that is a brilliant example to all of us, I think.

That's what I was thinking, too. He's an inspiration. Just when he could have made millions going the usual route -- pretty-boy roles, explosion movies -- he went in a different direction. And it's because he dared to take a "risky" role (a role that's making him controversial even in death  ), he created something so, so much more valuable.

He didn't stand it, he fixed it.

The dozy embrace, always, without fail makes me cry... but tonight the final bit of that flashback is the one thing that's almost too much to take, given the current situation with losing Heath.  "See you in the morning" combined with the image of Ennis walking away and getting on his horse without looking back...
 

Thank you so much for the report, Bud. It's nice to know you got through it OK and found it rewarding, even. What you said above -- the dozy embrace is always the Scene Most Likely to Make Me Cry. And it's that line -- "See you in the mornin" -- already so freighted with meaning just in the movie alone. And now ... 

Anyway, I'm glad you're going to post new viewing observations in the OF. I'll look for them. Actually, I had a little mini-idea myself tonight -- somebody posted something about the apple-pie scene, and that made me think of something. It wasn't quite worth a whole thread on its own, but I wanted to post it somewhere ... and then I didn't. Because, well, you know.

Actually, just now I had an idea. What if we started a whole new thread for movie discussions? I mean, it doesn't have to say right in the title that it's A.H. But in a way, with people's sensitivities so heightened, I wonder if it might make sense to start a whole new place new where people who wanted to could just carefully, gingerly discuss the movie or story in whatever ways still make sense to them. Away from the old arguments, debates about Lureen's pregnancy or Jack's death  or, as Jeff said, about whether they're gay or bi, and onto some new level. It could be kind of meandering. No need to stay on topic, as long as generally it's still about the movie/story.

Just thinkin out loud.

[Brown Eyes]

Anyway, I'm glad you're going to post new viewing observations in the OF. I'll look for them. Actually, I had a little mini-idea myself tonight -- somebody posted something about the apple-pie scene, and that made me think of something. It wasn't quite worth a whole thread on its own, but I wanted to post it somewhere ... and then I didn't. Because, well, you know.

Actually, just now I had an idea. What if we started a whole new thread for movie discussions? I mean, it doesn't have to say right in the title that it's A.H. But in a way, with people's sensitivities so heightened, I wonder if it might make sense to start a whole new place new where people who wanted to could just carefully, gingerly discuss the movie or story in whatever ways still make sense to them. Away from the old arguments, debates about Lureen's pregnancy or Jack's death  or, as Jeff said, about whether they're gay or bi, and onto some new level. It could be kind of meandering. No need to stay on topic, as long as generally it's still about the movie/story.

Hey Friend.

  I will definitely post my new observations in OF tomorrow.  I'm too sleepy to tackle that right now.  But, I literally did write down a few notes to use in Open Forum later... I'm so silly about BBM, I often do that actually.  And, tonight it was sort of nice to realize that urge was still there for me.

I think it might be great to have a thread in OF devoted to just this very question... how to move on with Brokeback discussions following this tragedy... or a thread about how our interpretations of BBM are now changed or heightened, etc. following the loss of Heath.  It might be nice for folks to discuss and work-through this exact question together.

And, yes, there are just so many things in that film that resonate so profoundly with the real grief we're going through now.  It's a pretty remarkable situation.  Anyway, it was nice to see Ennis tonight.  It really was.

[malina]

atz75... what you said, about how now we get to see how hard it is to be Ennis... for some reason, I never thought about it quite that way before. But, at least in some measure, that's true. And the fact that Heath was the one who showed us Ennis... there's a symmetry to that.

I've always said that Ennis was 'everyman', and that's why so many of us relate to him. So now we get to finish the journey.

Katherine, I think there's definitely a place for a thread on A.H. movie discussions. For all the reasons you said, which I can't repeat and don't have in front of me, but I think you're right.

[Ellemeno]

Katherine, I think there's definitely a place for a thread on A.H. movie discussions.

A.H.   

[malina]

A.H.   

I know... 
It just doesn't seem real, but in a way, putting it that way makes it seem more real..

[Dagi]

Hi Katherine... Thank you for 'getting' it... that's exactly what I meant. There's just something about that fact that someone so young and so talented has died so... so randomly, really.. that reinforces the duty to life that the rest of us have. And my realization is that that duty is not just to love, and to enjoy life, which I pretty much was doing anyway, but also to... take care of things.

Maybe that comes from the feeling that I have and can't shake, that there should have been someone taking care of Heath, when he was alone in that apartment. But in order to take care of each other, we have to be strong, ourselves.. strong and clear and resourceful and not dragged down by stuff or blinded to reality. I feel like, if we can do that, and also remain open-hearted as BBM taught us, then that's the best we can do. And it still won't be enough to eliminate horrible things happening, like  people dying too soon, but since NOTHING can eliminate that, facing the life we've been given is the best we can do.

That's some of the meaning behind my personal "Heath, I swear". The rest of it has something to do with how Heath never shied away from using his talent to its fullest, taking on challenging roles... that is a brilliant example to all of us, I think.

Thank you for this thoughtful, inspiring post, Malina!

Dagi