Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum

The dark side of the mountain

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moremojo:
I posted the following today in reply to a thread originated on TOB on the IMDb ("Tent don't look right"):

I find it interesting and poignant, when reflecting on how the mountain can be seen as the boys' Garden of Eden, to consider how dangerous the mountain really is, despite its offering of refuge to the illicit love between Jack and Ennis. The mountain is cold, subject to harsh, potentially lethal weather (the hailstorm, the lightning strike that killed the sheep the year earlier), and is replete with bears and coyotes. Ennis and Jack found love amidst dangerous circumstances, and bore their love through unending peril and fear (culminating perhaps in Jack's own murder).

Mikaela:
Good  topic!  :)

Seeing the mountain as  the Garden of Eden, the filmmakers have made certain to ensure that there are serpents around too, as it were - and the boys are aware of them. They may feel like they're outside of civilization but even their paradise has issued rules for them to follow, and breaking those rules it comes with a risk.....  Game and Fish might catch them out. Forest Service is snooping around. And "what if Aguirre finds out" is emphasized when Aguirre himself shows up and very pointedly uses his binoculars in the middle of his conversation with Jack, to let Jack know they're being watched. No, the boys are not alone with the elements and the animals both domestic and wild....... the dangers and strictures of society are still present even if the dangers and freedom of the wild may seem more present, and more real.

Jeff Wrangler:
Mikaela,

Good point about Aguirre and the binoculars when he's talking with Jack. I never thought about that! Almost six months since my first viewing and I'm still learning new things! Thanks!


--- Quote from: Mikaela on June 07, 2006, 01:49:52 pm ---Good  topic!  :)

Seeing the mountain as  the Garden of Eden, the filmmakers have made certain to ensure that there are serpents around too, as it were - and the boys are aware of them. They may feel like they're outside of civilization but even their paradise has issued rules for them to follow, and breaking those rules it comes with a risk.....  Game and Fish might catch them out. Forest Service is snooping around. And "what if Aguirre finds out" is emphasized when Aguirre himself shows up and very pointedly uses his binoculars in the middle of his conversation with Jack, to let Jack now they're being watched. No, the boys are not alone with the elements and the animals both domestic and wild....... the dangers and strictures of society are still present even if the dangers and freedom of the wild may seem more present, and more real.

--- End quote ---

serious crayons:
It is a good topic, Scott!

One example of this that always strikes me is how dangerous the trail looks the morning after TS1, as Ennis is riding along and thinking about the night before. The shot comes from below, up a steep rocky hillside, dark clouds in the background. In its aridity it slightly resembles the setting of the scene with Earl (another reason, beyond the slaughtered sheep, that this scene mirrors that one). One false step by the horse and they could both go over the edge. It's threatening and forbidding and literally a slippery slope.

Of course, they've presumably been commuting on this same trail all along. But up until now, we've only been shown the pretty, verdant, forested parts of it.

nakymaton:
It's a pretty realistic view of living in the wilderness for a summer, though. I've been kind of annoyed with reviewers who focus only on the Edenic qualities of the mountain, in contrast with the drudgery of the small towns. Lightning, hail, bears, coyotes, cold, running out of food... I've worried about almost all those things during my summers living in tents. Seems believable to me. Neither safe nor unusually threatening.

Good point about why their second sheep pasture was on limestone with thin soil and not enough grass, though -- comparison with Ennis's flashback. (It's the limestone that makes it so bleak-looking.)

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