Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Got What They Deserved?
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: dly64 on June 27, 2006, 10:19:11 am ---Others may agree with me, others will agree with you, and still others will think we are all nuts.
--- End quote ---
The vast majority of humanity would fit into the third category.
:laugh:
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: latjoreme on June 27, 2006, 03:06:19 am ---Once again, Mikaela, you and I agree. A work of art is a collaboration between the imaginations of artist and audience -- one can't exist without the other. The fillmmakers (screenwriters, director, actors, etc.) have their own views, and because they created the work of art that we love, their views are important. But their authority is not absolute.
--- End quote ---
This, I guess, is where you and I definitively part company, although "absolute authority" is, perhaps, a bit strongly worded. Of course everyone brings his or her own background to any work of art, but when it comes to meaning or interpretation, I am willing to defer to the artist who created the art. Who better to know the artist's intention than the artist?
With specific regard to Brokeback Mountain, I don't intend to say, for example, that Ang Lee has absolute authority over everyone who had a hand in creating the film, in particular the characters. However, to make an example, if Ang Lee says clearly that Film Ennis is gay, and no one else, from Annie Proulx to Heath Ledger, who had a hand in creating Film Ennis as we know him, contradicts him, then as far as I'm concerned, Film Ennis is gay, my own opinion notwithstanding, and any debate over whether Film Ennis is gay, or merely "Jacksexual," or whatever, is pretty much beside the point.
I'm a former journalist myself, and at one time in my checkered past I've also spent twelve years writing history for a living, so I've had a lot of experience evaluating sources, and I'm pretty confident of my own ability to assess their reliability.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on June 27, 2006, 01:03:55 pm ---I'm a former journalist myself, and at one time in my checkered past I've also spent twelve years writing history for a living, so I've had a lot of experience evaluating sources, and I'm pretty confident of my own ability to assess their reliability.
--- End quote ---
Well, then you know that sources are fallible. For example, if you were covering the Bush administration as a journalist, or writing about it as a historian, would you base your conclusions on a quote from Dick Cheney, figuring that as the ultimate insider he must know what he's talking about?
OK, I know that's not a fair comparison, and I really don't want to compare Ang and Larry and Diana to Dick Cheney or imply that they harbor some sort of insidious agenda or are deliberately hiding or bending the truth.
On the contrary, they're honest and well-meaning and sincere and brilliant. And I guess if Ang or Diana or someone made some public statement that dramatically contradicted something I've believed all along -- if they said, "No, the story does not take place in Wyoming, it's actually set in New Jersey" -- it would give me pause. (By the same token, if they found out that a significant portion of the audience assumed the story WAS set in New Jersey -- that is, if lots of people interpreted something far differently from how it was intended -- it should give them pause. Perhaps they didn't send the message they meant to send. And if some people wind up thinking it is New Jersey and others think it's Wyoming, maybe it's the result of a deliberate decision by the filmmakers to leave certain issues unresolved and allow viewers to draw their own conclusions.)
But my point is that I also know how interviews go, even under the best of circumstances. People are talking off the top of their head, they're spending a minute or two, a sentence or two, under pressure of an interview, describing something they themselves may have given months and months of thought to in making the movie. And those of us here have given months and months of thought to these things. Hell, I spend way more time on a single post -- shaping my thoughts, making sure my words are clear -- than they do in those interview responses. So if I see a quote in movieweb.com or cinemalogue.com, unless it really throws me for a loop and dramatically calls into question everything I thought I once believed, I take it with a grain of salt. Those quotes can be interesting, but I don't regard them as sacred texts.
But in fact, the statements quoted in Diane's links DON'T drastically contradict anything I already thought. Ang says one of the men is less adventurous and goes through self-denial? Well, duh! Diana says Ennis breaks up with Cassie because he realizes it's Jack he truly loves? Um, I guess I always thought that was pretty much the whole point of that pie scene. I might not describe it in exactly those words, but close enough -- whatever minor differences do exist between our descriptions can be chalked up to the factors I was talking about: either the limitations of celebrity interviews, the space that exists between the imaginations of artist and audience, or both.
dly64:
--- Quote from: latjoreme on June 27, 2006, 01:51:01 pm ---On the contrary, they're honest and well-meaning and sincere and brilliant. And I guess if Ang or Diana or someone made some public statement that dramatically contradicted something I've believed all along -- if they said, "No, the story does not take place in Wyoming, it's actually set in New Jersey" -- it would give me pause. (By the same token, if they found out that a significant portion of the audience assumed the story WAS set in New Jersey -- that is, if lots of people interpreted something far differently from how it was intended -- it should give them pause. Perhaps they didn't send the message they meant to send. And if some people wind up thinking it is New Jersey and others think it's Wyoming, maybe it's the result of a deliberate decision by the filmmakers to leave certain issues unresolved and allow viewers to draw their own conclusions.)
But my point is that I also know how interviews go, even under the best of circumstances. People are talking off the top of their head, they're spending a minute or two, a sentence or two, under pressure of an interview, describing something they themselves may have given months and months of thought to in making the movie. And those of us here have given months and months of thought to these things. Hell, I spend way more time on a single post -- shaping my thoughts, making sure my words are clear -- than they do in those interview responses. So if I see a quote in movieweb.com or cinemalogue.com, unless it really throws me for a loop and dramatically calls into question everything I thought I once believed, I take it with a grain of salt. Those quotes can be interesting, but I don't regard them as sacred texts.
But in fact, the statements quoted in Diane's links DON'T drastically contradict anything I already thought. Ang says one of the men is less adventurous and goes through self-denial? Well, duh! Diana says Ennis breaks up with Cassie because he realizes it's Jack he truly loves? Um, I guess I always thought that was pretty much the whole point of that pie scene. I might not describe it in exactly those words, but close enough -- whatever minor differences do exist between our descriptions can be chalked up to the factors I was talking about: either the limitations of celebrity interviews, the space that exists between the imaginations of artist and audience, or both.
--- End quote ---
I understand your point of view, albeit I don't completely agree with it. Granted, I am not a journalist. I did, however, get my undergraduate degree in psychology and the arts. So, I think I have a grasp of human behavior. My point being that, in this film, (put aside the quotes) it is incongruous to think that Ennis was consciously aware that he even loved Jack until it was too late. It has nothing to do with what he didn't say (i.e. "I love you" ... because that would be completely out of his character) or whether or not the "dozy embrace" should be taken literally or figuratively. It has everything to do with Ennis' ability to acknowledge that he was in love with a man and his inability to love a woman in that same way.
Where I do agree with your statement is that there is a space between the imaginations of the artist and/or audience. That is why there will never be a concensus on this or any film.
serious crayons:
Jeff, Diane and everybody -- I hope I didn't come off sounding like I thought that because I am a journalist I am the ultimate authority on human behavior, or even on the way humans behave in interviews.
I think there is a certain sausage-factory quality to journalism, which probably gives me a somewhat jaded, or at least skeptical, view of its products. But I'm sure all of you are perfectly capable of evaluating press quotes, and human behavior, whatever your professional backgrounds. :) :) :)
The thread I linked to a few posts back -- it's on the Chez Tremblay forum, titled "Hello I'm new here" -- deals with the subject of Ennis' love for Jack in such a fascinating and eye-opening way that I have to repeat my recommendation for anyone who hasn't already seen it. The discussion there is unfolding in really interesting directions.
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