Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Would it have worked? Merged with "Would a SWEET LIFE ever have been possible?"
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: Bucky on September 15, 2006, 06:54:00 am ---Also where you lived in the USA played a big part in whether you would be tolerated or hated.
--- End quote ---
This was and is a key issue. Thanks for mentioning it, Bucky.
Scott6373:
--- Quote from: ednbarby on September 15, 2006, 08:54:05 am ---I agree wholeheartedly, Scott, I'm very sad to say. That's why I've always seen Jack as a revolutionary. Some think of him as just a dreamer.
--- End quote ---
Revolutions are born from dreams.
ednbarby:
--- Quote from: Scott6373 on September 15, 2006, 09:13:52 am ---Revolutions are born from dreams.
--- End quote ---
Absolutely. I think he took the dream one step further. Or tried to. And that's what revolutionaries do.
And there's nothing wrong with me.
This is how I'm supposed to be.
In a land of make-believe, they don't believe in me.
~ "Jesus of Suburbia" - Billie Joe Armstrong
malina:
When I think of them working together on the mountain, I think it would have worked. They were symbiotic. They balanced each other. Think of the scene where their sheep get mixed up with the Chilean ones... Jack cursing Aguirre, Ennis being reasonable and telling him they just had to see it through. And then Jack accepts that because Ennis has a steadying influence on him.
I especially love how there are many instances, on the mountain, where Ennis looks after Jack... ordering soup, killing the elk, switching places, trying to set the tent up right. Of course it's reciprocated.. there are so many ways in which Jack looks after Ennis, too - getting him to open up, guiding and reassuring him through the second tent scene. Beautifully symbiotic, and really much more equal than their relationship becomes later on.
Later, I see more bickering, withholding, denial. I think there is certainly, ABSOLUTELY the potential that it 'would have worked'. I would hope that if they were living together and working together, they would fall into that easy partnership that they had up on the mountain. But I suppose a lot would depend on external circumstances and pressures, too.
Personally, though, I don't think the ultimate measure of whether something 'works out' is the living happily ever after. I think people come together because there is a reason behind their connection. They have something to learn from one another. Sometimes that ends before one's life ends, but that doesn't necessarily mean things didn't
'work out'. It might just mean the impetus behind your connection with that person has been fulfilled and has therefore ended. I think Jack and Ennis were learning from each other right up until Jack's death, and for Ennis, even afterwards. It didn't work out the way Jack wanted it to and no one can say for sure if it would have, but clearly something 'worked'...
ednbarby:
--- Quote from: malina on September 18, 2006, 02:54:26 am ---Personally, though, I don't think the ultimate measure of whether something 'works out' is the living happily ever after. I think people come together because there is a reason behind their connection. They have something to learn from one another. Sometimes that ends before one's life ends, but that doesn't necessarily mean things didn't 'work out'. It might just mean the impetus behind your connection with that person has been fulfilled and has therefore ended. I think Jack and Ennis were learning from each other right up until Jack's death, and for Ennis, even afterwards. It didn't work out the way Jack wanted it to and no one can say for sure if it would have, but clearly something 'worked'...
--- End quote ---
Wow. What a mature and healthy point of view. I think too many people go through life never feeling fulfilled because they're always looking for that "happily ever after." They don't realize that it's living in the now, as the Buddhists say, where you find your joy. I have a good friend who is constantly struggling with this. She agrees with me that her constant need for the next thing coming in her life to "make" her happy is the problem, but then she says "How do I fix that?" All I can say is, "Well, STOP it." Much easier said than done.
When Jack and Ennis were together, especially on the mountain, they felt that pure, unadulterated joy that comes with being truly connected and partnered with another person. That paw the white out of the moon feeling. You're right - as time went on and they drifted further apart, there was more bickering and strain because it was the being together that mattered, and their time apart was growing longer and longer with each passing year...
Welcome to our little corner of cyber space, by the way. Hope you'll stick around. :)
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