Something else has just occurred to me about the imagined power of BBM, and I can't remember if this has already been discussed on this thread...
BBM was a time, even if only for a short time, of perfection for Jack and Ennis. Whether the enduring power of it for them over the years was real or imagined, they were there on Brokeback - they had that time together, and despite Aguirre watching them and everything else, that was *their* time, and it was real.
To us, the power of BBM is immense. Just the fact that over two years after the film's release we're all here and still discussing it speaks volumes, without even going into the full impact of Brokie-ism...
The power of BBM over us too is immense, just as it was over Jack and Ennis, but Jack and Ennis (and I guess I'd better whisper this so it doesn't upset anyone
) lived in a story, in a story world, and though the power of Brokeback over us too has a great hold - the power of the story, of the characters, the places....Brokeback itself doesn't exist. Brokenback Mountain, Wyoming, yes...but not Brokeback Mountain, Wyoming. The movie was filmed in Canada. The Brokeback we see when we think of Jack and Ennis up on the mountain isn't even in Wyoming. Even all we see of the mountain in Canada that "is" Brokeback isn't real, because various aspects of the film and scenes from it - all those hundreds of sheep, the storm scene that was filmed on a bright sunny day....Brokeback in the "real world" itself is imagined, but yet it's hold over all of us is very real.
Reality and imagination blur, but that doesn't make it's power any less, or any less real, just as whatever Brokeback meant to Jack and Ennis was real and even in the end with Jack gone and only two shirts left of that summer on Brokeback, the power was still there, very real, and imagined or not, no-one can take that power away, any more than anyone can take the power of Brokeback from us.
Bliss's philosophical thought for the night...
