FULLSCREEN IMPARATIVE!

[twistedude]

You MUST get a fullscreen version. And I found good ones at Target, after failing at 6 other trys...the fullscreen at Target has a CD in it of someone or other reading the original story..I haven't had time to listen yet...BUT:

Right away, you will see: in the motel scene, Ennis's left hand WITH WEDDING RING, is visable throughout the scene--hey,. that's important! Also, Ennis rubs Jack's arm, every time he moves his hand, because his left hand is resting lightly on Jack's right armn, wbich is around Ennis.--any crumb from Ennis is great...
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This will take 5-6 viewings, unless you have a slower-downer, which I don't. But an ocasional "pause" helps:

Oh, Jack says "Ennis" right before Ennis turns him down, so her faces the canvas floor..

While they are (pretending to have sex):

Jack grabs Ennis's wrist with his hand--you can clearly see the blue cuff on the grabbing hand.  And then., right before Jacks' head collapses on the canvas, he reaches across with his left hand and grabs Ennis's right hand fingers and palm (he's already holding his wrist with his right hand). It's not loving, or affectionate; it's as if he was holding on for dear life...I think THAT's important too. Look at the lower left part of your screen, but not way in the corner--right where you'd expect Jack's hand to be. I NEVER saw this in the theater, or on widescreen...I watched it a lot before I was sure.

In fact, this fullscreen one I have is going to get worn out before i even open the widsescreen...

[Aussie Chris]

Right away, you will see: in the motel scene, Ennis's left hand WITH WEDDING RING, is visable throughout the scene--hey,. that's important! Also, Ennis jiggles-rubs Jack's arm briefly--any crumb from Ennis is great...

How did you miss the "jiggle-rub" (I prefer "caress" myself) in the theatre Julie?  I missed it on the first viewing but got it on the second, and that's when I saw Ennis completely differently.  It's up there with the little smile he gives Jack in the "you'll frighten the sheep off if you don't pipe down" scene.  It's easy to miss them, but when you do catch them you realise that you had Ennis all wrong in thinking he didn't show his love for Jack.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This will take 5-6 viewings, unless you have a slower-downer, which I don't. But an ocasional "pause" helps:
Ennis grabs Jack's right hand with his--it's grabby, not real affectionste, but he grabs his hand. And then., right before Jacks' head collapses on the canvas, he reaches across with his left hand and grabs Ennis's right hand (which is already holding his). It's not loving; it's as if they were holding on for dear life...I think THAT's important too. Look at the lower left part of your screen, but not way in the corner--right where you'd expect Jack's hand to be. I NEVER saw this in the theater, or on widescreen...I watched it a lot before I was sure.

He he, this is fun isn't it?  I can just see topics springing up that refer to "frame 234 of TS2" where you see...  Maybe that might be going a bit far, but after your post here I'm remotivated to slow-mo TS1 (again)! 

[twistedude]

..and on my second viewing of the motel scene (on my glorious new DVD), I realized that Ennis's arm is around Jack's arm throughout the scene, while Jack has his right arm all the way around Ennis, from beneath him.   In the theater, I never saw this--I couldn't exactly figure out HOW they were lying; Ennis seemed to be almost on top of Jack, but a little to (our) left of Jack. All I was sure of was that they were both mighty comfortable...

The ' hands' thing was brought to my attention by sfericsf, who has seen the movie 38 times in the theater, and Melinda (let me see if I can get this right: sascha+some more things--she's on BetterMost). Melinda saw it first, ands Eric and I lookedf for it in the theater, but said she was imagining things--but she wasn't. AFter Eric got his DVD, he saw it right away, and said the fullscxreen was better than the widescreen foer such details.  It doesn't "make me melt," because it's not a melting thing--like i said, it's as if he was  holding on for dear life. Which is certainly in keeping with a rough and passionate sex scene. Between two people who've never had sex with eachother before, and one who's never had sex PERIOD.

[Aussie Chris]

Actually I just realised you said FULL screen.  Do you really mean regular 4:3 TV, and not 16:9 widescreen?  I have a widescreen TV myself and normally I would never dream of a 4:3 version because the sides would be cut off.  How is it possible that you can see the scenes better, particularly in the motel, is it because it's a larger, fills the TV, and is non-letterboxed?  This would only work for people with 4:3 TVs right?

[twistedude]

Aussie: That's the cruddy truth of it! Widescreen is ALWAY S recommended for new movies--especially American ones---because that's the way they're shot. To see some details, though, you need fullscreen, because--you know how they're always talking about the sides being cut off in fuillscreen? Well, the bottom is cut off in widesacreen! And THAT'S where the wedding ring is. to clarify that---Jack has an arm around Ennis, but Ennis has his arm and hand over Jack's arm, throughout the scene, his hand resting lightly on Jack's arm, and his wedding ring is clearly visable. His left hand is resting on Jack's arm, and every tinme he moves it, he caresses Jack's arm.

Back to the hands. watched it several more times (I have no slow-mo on my good screen--maybe I'll switch to the other screen), and--it's the blue-cuffed hand that grabs Ennis' right   wrist, AND Jack's--obviously--left hand that comes across and grabs the other end of Ennis's hand at the end. So, not quite what I hoped for, but nice anyway.

Hey: read my story, "Good Old Boy." No sex at all...sorry about that.

[twistedude]

...so you can see Ennis's wedding ring throughout the motel scene, and see that, while Jack has an arm around Ennis, Ennis's left arm is resting on Jack's arm throughout, and every time he moves his left hand he caresses Jack's arm.

In tent scene one--slo-mo would help, but I don't have it on my good (Toshiba): Jack grabs Ennis's wrist (it's the blue-cuffed hand that grabs..sorry about that, too) half way through the simulated sex, and just before his head collapses on the canvas, he brings his other (left) hand across and grabs the fingers and palm of Ennis's hand as well...

And anyone who can't hear Jack say "Ennis" when Ennis first turns him  over, rather roughly, is deaf...that's on the soundtrack, so you don't need fullscreen!

That's FULLSCREEN, not widescreen..I haven't even looked at my widesacreen yet!

[Aussie Chris]

Aussie: That's the cruddy truth of it! Widescreen is ALWAY S recommended for new movies--especially American ones---because that's the way they're shot. To see some details, though, you need fullscreen, because--you know how they're always talking about the sides being cut off in fuillscreen? Well, the bottom is cut off in widesacreen! And THAT'S where the wedding ring is. to clarify that---Jack has an arm around Ennis, but Ennis has an arm over Jack's arm, throughout the scene, and his wedding ring is clearly visable. His left hand is resting on Jack's arm, and every tinme he moves it, he caresses Jack's arm.

Just noticed a thread on IMDB talking about this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388795/board/nest/42557541, which contains a description of the major differences and some picture examples:

          Wide version fireworks: http://img56.imageshack.us/img56/527/bbmwidefireworks0mm.jpg

          Full version fireworks: http://img56.imageshack.us/img56/4840/bbmfullfireworks8ec.jpg

I thought this from CaseyCornelius was interesting, referring to the above shots:

by - CaseyCornelius 4 hours ago (Thu May 4 2006 16:17:13 )  Ignore this User | Report Abuse

UPDATED Thu May 4 2006 16:39:49

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
stygomez and others:

Actually, the wide-screen version exactly duplicates the 1.85 ratio format which was shown in the theaters and was Ang Lee's and Rodrigo Prieto's 'vision' for the film. As in most film photography today they chose to matte a full screen image, choosing which portions of the image to keep in order to make artistic sense. The Full screen version of Brokeback 'opens up' this masking or matte-ing in order to avoid the pan-and-scan cropping of a normal wide-screen image for most of our televisions which show full screen in 1.33 ratio format. It also includes some significant cropping of the sides of the frame. So it is a total distortion of the film-makers' intents. The Full screen edition IN NO WAY corresponds to the original artistic vision of the film-makers, but is a commercially-motivated attempt to provide a 'palatable' image for normal TV screen viewers uninterested in artistic niceties .

That being said, however, the Full Screen image reveals more content [albeit not intended or even desired by Ang Lee] which IS interesting to those fascinated by the film, including 'fuller views' of certain scenes, but making nonsense of the artistry of the frame composition. The Full Frame shot of the Fireworks scene in this thread is a case in point - the long line of on-lookers at the bottom is distracting, intrusive, and takes away from the magnificence of the 'pose' by Ennis towering over Alma as the shot is seen in the wide-screen 'original'. Some have suggested that rabid Broke-a-holics might want to own both versions, as they are, in very real, obvious ways, completely different visual experiences. But, I will always take the Wide-screen version as sacrosanct.

There is an extensive number of pages detailing the comparisons of the Full Screen and Wide-screen versions and the artistic inadequacy of the former on the Dave Cullen Forum site: http://davecullen.com/forum/index.php?topic=4716.msg154880#msg154880

[korgriff]

  OMG julie01 I knew about Jack grabbing Ennis' wrist but I didnt know about the left hand thing!!!!  And I didnt know about the "Ennis"!! OMG!!  Now I have to watch the movie again to see!!!

THANKS!!

[twistedude]

Only sfericsf describes the sceres which interest me--I couldn't care less about a scene which imitates a cigarette add (I smoked for 52 years!). However the first tent scene and the motel scene--I cannot IMAGINE why Ang Lee would cut the hands from the tent scene, or Ennis's hand with his wedding ring from the motel scene...they are so important.

WHY am I always arguing with CaseyCarnelius--who, in the firstr place,. is brialliant, and in the second--you can't win, because everyone believes him? The activity of Jack's hands in the first tend scene mades such a great side comment on the main action of the sex--I can't imagine why a man from the part of the world that believes in the "travelling focus" of a painting, instead of the single, steady focus, as in the west--would remove them from the viewer's eyes.
Likewise, in the motel scene, Ennis's ringed hand anchors the whole action. It  both holds ands caresses Jack's arm, and at the same time stands as a reminder of Ennis's resposnsibilities--whether he chooses to accept them, whether he should or not.

[sparkle_motion]

He says Ennis? I've never heard it and this is the first time I've ever seen it mentioned. Anyone else notice it?