Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
That zany Uncle Harold
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: Mikaela on August 08, 2006, 02:48:22 pm ---I wonder if the "ain't much I can do about it up here" /Ain't much you can do about it down there neither" exchange is simply their way of saying: "I think I may have to leave/No you don't, there's no call for that."
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To me, Jack doesn't sound very interested in leaving. In other words, he's not saying, "Ain't much I can do about up here ... so I'd better get packing." More like, "... so I guess he's a goner." And Aguirre, rather than talking Jack out of going, sounds to me like he's just reassuring him (gruffly, of course) that Jack's presence wouldn't make a difference in Uncle Earl's fate anyway.
Back to your thoughts about Ennis' contact with his family vs. Jack's. It's true, we do see more of Jack's. Partly because they're more crucial to the plot; it's possible Ennis saw his relatives but Ang Lee and the camera crew just didn't go along.
But I realized reading your post that Ennis hardly ever even mentions his siblings -- except as a way of sharing info with Jack -- whereas Jack mentions his folks pretty frequently. Which made me think: you know, in some ways we know more about Jack's life than we do Ennis'. Even though Ennis has more screen time, parts of his life are mysterious. For example, what did he do between leaving the mountain and marrying Alma? Where did he meet Alma in the first place, for that matter? For some reason, I feel like I can pretty well picture Jack's life in Childress and even in Lightning Flat, whereas Ennis' in Riverton seems hazier.
Mikaela:
--- Quote ---To me, Jack doesn't sound very interested in leaving.
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I agree - but he has a huge reason to not want to leave..... Perhaps his lack of enthusiasm and the circumspect way he frames his comment stem from him feeling he *should* leave, should *want* to leave - but he absolutely wants no such thing. He just wants to be with the one who makes him laugh and lets him love. :-* Especially in view of the happy scene that Aguirre witnesses before he rides down to camp to tell Jack of uncle Harold - I imagine it would take more than a bout of family phneumonia to make Jack really want to leave from the heaven he's in just then.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: goadra on August 09, 2006, 12:11:47 am ---“Not so lonely like you were raised” means she knew Ennis’s childhood was unhappy, but since he doesn’t say much I often think they knew each other growing up. Her sister’s in Riverton, though, so I’m at a loss to say for sure.
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Good point. I always pictured them meeting at a church picnic or something, maybe matched up by others. Maybe Alma's sister is married to a guy Ennis worked with or something. Otherwise Alma probably would have to be the initiator, and that's a bit hard to picture. She's no Lureen or Cassie.
But you've got a good point, Barbara. If she didn't know him growing up, how would she know he was raised lonely? That would require him talking to her in depth about his childhood. And not only that, discussing his emotions! Not likely!
opinionista:
--- Quote from: latjoreme on August 07, 2006, 02:26:02 pm ---What is up with Uncle Harold? He's a phantom character we hear about but never see (along with Roy Taylor, Don Wroe, Steve, Kurt, Troy and Ennis' mother -- only Uncle Harold is far more conspicuous and seemingly significant)? Why would the movie introduce a character, put him in dire jeopardy, then save his life -- all completely offscreen and with little or no connection to the plot?
The news about Uncle Harold's pneumonia is ostensibly what gets Aguirre up the mountain and in a position to spy on Jack and Ennis. But it also seems kind of pointless. Aguirre could have been given any number of other routine reasons for stopping by; he could even just be checking on things. Uncle Harold's illness does not propel any action -- Aguirre rather indifferently makes the announcement, Jack rather indifferently replies that he can't do anything about it, Aguirre agrees, and that's the end of that.
By the time they break camp, we viewers have pretty much forgotten about Uncle Harold. Yet, as if we'd been waiting in suspense, Jack feels compelled to mention him again and reassure us that he's OK. He says it quickly, as if it's only of passing interest, yet he announces it even before he gets to the bigger news (and, in the screenplay, pauses afterward) You'd think Jack would normally say, "Aguirre came by, said to bring 'em down" and then after that, or maybe even hours later, he'd add, "Oh by the way, Aguirre also said my uncle didn't die after all."
So let's figure out what purpose Uncle Harold is supposed to serve.
Here's what I notice: The scene where Aguirre announces Uncle Harold's illness mirrors the post-divorce scene, in several ways. In both, someone -- Aguirre in the first and Jack in the latter -- shows up unexpectedly and says, "So here I am." In both, Jack is wearing uncharacteristically dark clothes (going from memory, I think his shirt is blue in the Aguirre scene, but it's a darker, grayer blue than usual, and in post-divorce it's black and gray, colors that elsewhere in the movie seem associated with death or murder). In both, someone has been doing some investigating beforehand -- Aguirre with the binoculars, Jack by asking 10 people where Ennis lives. In the first, Aguirre peers at Ennis through his binoculars and Jack follows his gaze, perhaps realizing what Aguirre is thinking. In the second, Ennis peers at the white truck and Jack follows his gaze, perhaps realizing what Ennis is thinking.
So what does it all mean? When Jack says, "nothing I can do about it up here," and Aguirre agrees, "nothing you can do about it down there, either," are they metaphorically talking about Jack's inability to do anything to change Ennis' mind? Or does Uncle Harold somehow fit into Ennis' fears about the dangers they'd face if they lived together -- and does his recovery show that the dangers actually aren't as great as Ennis believed? Is Uncle Harold gay (as someone theorized a while back)?
What are your thoughts?
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There's no enough information to infer that Uncle Harold was gay. That is rather unlikely, IMO. In any case he'll be a very very very closeted gay. I always thought that uncle Harold line was a plot device to let us know that Aguirre knew about Ennis and Jack's secret. In the movie he sees them frolicking on the ground. In the sort story he sees them having sex. When Jack comes back to Aguirre looking for work the third time, long after he and Ennis had left BBM, Aguirre tells him he knew they weren't doing their jobs: "Twist, you guys wasn't getting paid to leave the dog baby-sit the sheep while you stemmed the rose", Aguirre said. If Proulx had written that line without some previous context, we wouldn't have understood how he knew. Also, it was to show some of the consequences of being gay in the 1960's in Wyoming. I think Aguirre refuses to re hire Jack because of what he knew about him.
On the other hand, Aguirre didn't trust them with the sheep. I think he hired them because he had no other choice. He didn't have a long line of people in front of his trailer hoping he give them the job, did he? When he first meet with Ennis and Jack and explains the job, he he makes a point that he doesn't want to lose another 25% of his cattle, the 25% Jack had lost the previous year. So, my guess is that he uses the Unlce Harold information as an excuse to spy on them.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: opinionista on August 09, 2006, 06:47:04 am ---There's not enough information to infer that Uncle Harold was gay. That is rather unlikely, IMO.
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I absolutely agree. I was being kind of flip. I think at one time or another, people here have speculated that every presumably straight man in the movie is gay: Aguirre, Jimbo, Old Man Twist ...
--- Quote ---I always thought that uncle Harold line was a plot device to let us know that Aguirre knew about Ennis and Jack's secret.
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I agree, I think he's a reason for getting Aguirre up there. But the Uncle Harold subplot is so elaborate and yet so pointless, when Aguirre could easily have been given a simpler, less complicated reason for stopping by. In a way, Uncle Harold is like the tattooed lady dancing in the bar -- so conspicuous you wonder if she's supposed to mean something beyond just showing that Ennis and Cassie weren't the only people in the bar dancing. Same with Uncle Harold; I wonder if he's supposed to have some metaphoric or symbolic significance in addition to serving the practical function of prompting Aguirre to pay a visit.
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