Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > IMDb Remarkable Writings Rewound

Thoughts on 'Here I am'...

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TOoP/Bruce:

--- Quote from: Ellemeno on November 26, 2007, 03:12:33 pm ---Jesus H.!  While I admire brilliance and ability to tie all this together and present it so clearly, I am kind of glad to be a mere mortal with only the skill to appreciate it, but not do it.

That FullMOntyClift sure done did give us the Full Monty.  Holy Enchilada!  I want to know more about this:

Is there (there must be) a linear simplified list of mirrors/bookends?  Is there more than one?  One with the stars as center, and one with the toothbrush as center?


--- End quote ---

(TheFullMontyClft has also been known as Clancypants, Clancypantsnasty, Basicgrate, and ruthlesslyunsentimental.)

I don't know if anyone has ever done a linear list of the bookends in the movie.  Several have been pointed out, but I can't remember seeing a list in sequential order...

serious crayons:

--- Quote from: Ellemeno on November 26, 2007, 03:12:33 pm ---Is there (there must be) a linear simplified list of mirrors/bookends?  Is there more than one?  One with the stars as center, and one with the toothbrush as center?
--- End quote ---

Clancy first mentioned that his analysis of BBM as an inkblot a long, long time ago. At that time, he felt that the stars were the center. He contended that the film can be matched up almost perfectly that way, scene for scene (the trailer at the beginning, the trailer at the end, etc.)

More recently, Casey Cornelius started a thread here on the same subject. His feeling was that the mirrored toothbrush scene was the center. Here is his thread: http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,9793.msg188970.html#msg188970

My feeling is that either stars or mirror is valid (though the mirror is a bit more poetic as a center) because I don't think the inkblot ever forms a perfectly matched set of reverse-matched scenes, like A-B-C-D-E-F/F-E-D-C-B-A. I think it's more like A-B-C-D-E-F/F-D-C-E-A-B or something like that. In other words, there are matching scenes at both ends, but they aren't always in perfectly precise reverse order. (And there are scenes here and there that, as far as I can tell, don't have a bookend. ... Or do they, and I just haven't spotted it?)

Anyway, for example, the very first scene is the truck crossing the screen from right to left at dawn, Ennis inside with a paper bag holding two shirts. At the end, a truck crosses the screen from left to right at sunset, Ennis inside with a paper bag holding two shirts -- but that's not the very last scene.

Though I suppose you could make a case for the parallels between
truck drives across landscape/Ennis stands outside trailer/Jack drives up/Ennis and Jack go into trailer for metaphoric wedding
and
truck drives across landscape/Ennis stands outside trailer/Alma Jr. drives up/Ennis and Alma go into trailer to discuss actual wedding.

We've talked about bookends a lot, but in a scattered informal way. I don't know of a thread where we've attempted to go through the whole film scene by scene and create a linear list of them, in order. That would be fun!

Penthesilea:

--- Quote from: ineedcrayons on December 05, 2007, 11:56:15 am ---We've talked about bookends a lot, but in a scattered informal way. I don't know of a thread where we've attempted to go through the whole film scene by scene and create a linear list of them, in order. That would be fun!

--- End quote ---

That's something to plan on for next year's Roundup  :D!
Similar to your joint watching and analyzing of the movie at the BBQ this year (which I still am soooo sorry that I have missed it!). Taking a loooong sheet of paper for the timeline, marking the middle and then write down every bookend/mirror scene we can find.
How does that sound, huh? It's so easy girls, you just have to get your scrawny asses up there to Denver and WY.


From my guts I'd say I tend more towards the mirror/toothbrush as center of the inkblot than towards the stars. One criterion is that this is the actual center of the movie, time-wise. Another is the picture of Ennis (our central figure) in the mirror. It just seems more logical that everything is mirrored around this mirror-frame, than around the stars.
But it could also be that I'm a bit biased here because I've read and thought more about the mirror than about the theory with the stars.

serious crayons:
Well, it certainly seems more fitting that if the first half of the film is a mirror image of the second half, then the dividing scene would be one of a mirror (not to mention the reunion, which sets the plot on a new course). Whereas the stars on the swingset and the dealership sign don't seem particularly (or at least not as) significant.

TOoP/Bruce:
Numerically, does one divide the film in half including (or excluding) the final credits?

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