Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > IMDb Remarkable Writings Rewound
Jack and Ennis - Lake Scene and a Unique Camera Move-- by CaseyCornelius
TOoP/Bruce:
Re: Jack and Ennis - Lake Scene and a Unique Camera Move
by - CaseyCornelius (Thu Mar 2 2006 22:31:00 )
spare time:
The shot of him riding high above the distant plains and hills is so telling. Ennis is completely cut off from any guiding social reference in his confusion over the previous night's eruption of uncontrollable feelings with Jack.
It's a brilliant visualization of the line from Proulx's story, Ennis "on the mountain flying in the euphoric, bitter air, looking down on the hawk's back" -- "suspended above ordinary affairs".
Re: Jack and Ennis - Lake Scene and a Unique Camera Move
by - savvygal (Sun Mar 5 2006 23:38:44 )
bot where it should be...
ang lee was robbed tonight with the loss of "best picture".
bringing this remarkable thread back to the foreground so that it's apparent that this film should have won "best picture"....
Camera movement noted
by - momoro (Mon Mar 6 2006 14:04:46 )
CaseyCornelius, I wanted you to know that I had the pleasure of seeing Brokeback Mountain for a second time this past Saturday, and I noted the intricate camera movement you so carefully describe in your opening post for this thread. I was looking for it on the basis of your careful observation, and was thrilled to confirm for myself that it was there.
Clearly a visual metaphor for Jack's thoughts and feelings at this juncture of the story, the effect is so subtle and unobtrusive that it could easily be overlooked on a conscious level upon first acquaintance with the film. I think it registers on a subliminal level, suggesting how the filmmakers are appealing to our unconscious in how we orient ourselves towards the unfolding story, and this no doubt helps to explain the resulting film's powerful hold on so many.
Thank you again for your close readings and insightful observations on this remarkable movie.
Nothing compares, I think, when thinking right, to a good friend.
Re: Camera movement noted
by - CaseyCornelius (Sat Mar 11 2006 22:07:40 )
momoro:
<<the effect is so subtle and unobtrusive that it could easily be overlooked on a conscious level upon first acquaintance with the film. I think it registers on a subliminal level, suggesting how the filmmakers are appealing to our unconscious in how we orient ourselves towards the unfolding story, and this no doubt helps to explain the resulting film's powerful hold on so many.
>>
Absolutely agree with you. Along with a total absence of any 'agenda' - even though the film-makers have been accused of such - the visual effect of the film is miraculous in its subtlety. I love your describing the camera effect under discussion as subliminal, because that is so in keeping with the powerful affect of the film.
Re: Jack and Ennis - Lake Scene and a Unique Camera Move
by - palsuess-1 (Sun Mar 12 2006 00:57:38 )
does anyone know where i can find more technical info on this film
Re: Jack and Ennis - Lake Scene and a Unique Camera Move
by - andrewscotth (Sun Mar 12 2006 16:50:08 )
Brilliant, absorbing post which I have got so much out of reading - thanks to all for contributing particularly Casey. This film will go down as a real classic for study around the world for students of film, drama, cinematography, writing etc. A huge emotional film experience, it is built on an amazing depth of artistic detail which is slowly revealed the more times you see it. I have never been to see a film so many times and am still learning more about it and enjoying the experience and wanting to go back again. I am actually "studying" it as if I was back at University and enjoying doing so!
Despite many cinema viewings I had not picked up on the camera signifance of the lake scene (possibly because I always find that scene about the most painful - sort of hits you and absorbs you completely) nor the camera shot which suggests Jack's ghost or spirit looking out at Ennis from the closet where the shirts hang. That thought sends a shiver down my spine. If there is such a thing I am sure that is where the spirit would have lingered at that moment and would have been watching from. Beautiful insight from that poster.
Re: Jack and Ennis - Lake Scene and a Unique Camera Move
by - meryl_88 (Sun Mar 12 2006 20:53:15 )
Casey,
I've just enjoyed re-reading most of the posts on this thread and am more and more in love with Ang Lee's wonderful attention to detail, not to mention your insights and those of other posters.
I wanted to mention a detail that I noticed in the Lake Scene on my ninth viewing, and this thread seemed the logical place to do it. Surely someone else has remarked this somewhere, but I am sure I saw the faint echo, on Jack's left cheekbone, of the bruise he received from Ennis on their last day on Brokeback.
I don't remember seeing this mark in other scenes of the film, but I was amazed and touched to see it here, in the last scene that they have together. Just as the shirts were marked permanently with blood, Jack was marked, too. This is a small but incredibly telling detail that I am sorry I missed til now. I will look for it in other scenes when I can go back again.
One other thing leaped out at me in this scene. After Ennis threatens Jack about Mexico, he spits with great violence as he walks away. I noticed Jack flinching at this spit and was suddenly reminded of the way John Twist spits into the coffee cup in the Lightning Flat scene. How many times had young Jack been on the receiving end of just such a vehement expression of contempt?
Jack's Wound and Ennis's Spitting
by - CaseyCornelius (Mon Mar 13 2006 06:43:10 )
meryl 88:
Great to hear from you. I had always thought there was something physically unusual or notable about Jack in that scene, but had not thought that it was the 'resurfacing' of the bruise on his face. There are other parallels to the scene that last afternoon on Brokeback - Ennis's inarticulate denial of the clear love he has for Jack, an awkward embrace as both drop to their knees which is both a hug and a shoving away akin to the rolling down the hill in the earlier scene. It makes perfect sense that the 'wound' which Jack has always carried would re-surface in this, the most intensely emotional encounter they have in their life with all the unsayable and unsaid things surrounding their difficult and separate lives rising around them. It adds to the Bruderschaft theme which was explored in the Classical Allusions thread:
[reposted]
I'd noticed the spitting as well and explored it in the Ennis's Maledictions thread as one of three such instances of it in the film including the one by Jack's father:
[reposted]
Re: Jack's Wound and Ennis's Spitting
by - meryl_88 (Mon Mar 13 2006 16:48:04 )
Thank you for your comments and those links, Casey! Very helpful in understanding all that's going on there. :)
Re: Jack and Ennis - Lake Scene and a Unique Camera Move
by - gpm497 (Tue Mar 14 2006 04:45:17 )
UPDATED Tue Mar 14 2006 04:50:27
Thanks to Casey, flashframe, flickfan and all the others who contributed to this impressive thread. It took me three days to read it. I'm truly humbled with your insight and even more with your devotion in sharing your thoughts with us.
I will copy just a few words that I've written elsewhere because they relate to the issues that Casey and flashframe touched upon above. I was glad to see that someone else has felt the same already...
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Since I've seen Brokeback Mountain, I can't get myself to watch another movie, and I've tried. I can't even watch any TV, I just can stand it, it all seems so trite, cheap and irrelevant to anything.
Something like that has never ever ever happened to me before.
I know this feeling will pass but still I'm amazed that it has such an effect...
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.... I believe that when the art piece of this scale and reach is created even the ones that created it may not be aware of absolutely all the meanings of what they made. Creating an art work doesn't have to be 100% conscious and calculated process, and it rarely is, and it's good that it so.
What I want to say is, we should continue to search for what the movie means to us, and the word of the author is a really valuable help.
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Re: riding the ridge line
by - Flickfan-3 (Wed Mar 15 2006 05:30:00 )
UPDATED Wed Mar 15 2006 05:33:20
late response to your comment about Ennis's riding the ridge line--physically the ridge line is the midway point between two valleys or like the edge of the cup or bowl--
does this not also illustrate the fact that Ennis is always on the edge of his belief system so to speak because he refuses to commit to Jack and refuses to admit to himself actually that he is homosexual--he is trying to take the "high ground" by saying what they have is a "one-shot thing"...
by having Ennis ride the ridge like that Lee also puts him "above the tree line" which makes him visible/vulnerable to predators--his secret is out and he will find it harder to hide in the real world now because he has become what his father warned him about being-- a "queeer" like Earl, whether Ennis realizes that or not at that point...
"...That's the beauty of argument, Joey. If you argue correctly, you're never wrong..."
Re: Jack and Ennis - Lake Scene and a Unique Camera Move
by - Front-Ranger (Wed Mar 15 2006 06:49:21 )
zurrafo, good post, but I just wanted to clarify Ennis' quote since it's one of the best in the movie and comes closest of anything Ennis said during Jack's life to pledge his undying love to him. He said:
"For as long as we can ride 'em. There ain't no reins on this one."
Re: Jack and Ennis - Lake Scene and a Unique Camera Move
by - amandazehnder (Fri Mar 24 2006 20:53:58 )
Awesome and amazing thread.
I think that Jack was being flat out honest when he said he wished he knew how to quit Ennis. He's self-aware enough to know that he would never really be able to break it off.
By the way... what exactly do people find so funny about the line "I wish I knew how to quit you"? I truly don't understand why people have picked up on that line as something funny (I mean in pop culture generally these days).
About Ennis finding out from Jack's Dad that Jack had ideas of bringing another man to live with him... In another post, it was eloquently discussed that at that exact moment in conversation, Jack's Mom puts her hand on Ennis's shoulder and invites him to go upstairs to the bedroom. She's wanting/waiting for him to find the shirts. She wants to reassure Ennis (in light of the father's bitter talk) that Ennis was the love of Jack's life.
Re: Jack and Ennis - Lake Scene and a Unique Camera Move
by - Front-Ranger (Sun Mar 26 2006 12:57:53 )
I think the people who find that line funny are primarily those who haven't seen the movie.
In the case of Ang Lee, who said it to his Oscar statuette when he was presented with the Best Director Oscar, I think it was an inside "joke." He already knew that BBM wouldn't get the Best Picture, and so he was saying that Oscar had treated him badly, just like Ennis did, but still he was there at the Academy Awards, go figure.
Front-Ranger
"There ain't no reins on this one."
Front-Ranger:
--- Quote from: TOoP/Bruce on June 18, 2007, 03:01:14 pm ---Ang Lee's 'Antonioni-esque' qualities seemed to me employ effects from Antonioni's earlier work, most noticeably L'Avventura and The Red Desert: the former for the way Lee places actors, building, objects within the frame and the latter for use of pure color symbolism, both with regard to identifying traits of Ennis and Jack and the color contrasts between civilization and nature.
In addition to the Antonioni moments I've indicated in previous posts, I recall the use of the passing train in the the 8th or 9th shot of the film, the camera 'peering' between the cars at Ennis, as a means of showing the passing of time, perhaps framing and defining Ennis as a contemporary, habitual, work-a-day, mechanized individual -- a similar famous train shot is for the same purpose in L'Avventura.
--- End quote ---
I watched Antonioni's Red Desert this evening and enjoyed seeing what inspired Ang Lee so much. His Blow Up was the first adult movie I ever saw...I was 16 and sneaked in to a showing. Deserto Rosso was a fascinating movie but I had to get up and decorate the tree a bit when the ennui got to be too much for me.
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