Heya,
During my recent, amazing dinner with Pipedream we found ourselves deep in a discussion about the different ways that religious symbols are used in interesting and complex ways in BBM. This is a topic that's come up in various forms in the past, but we thought it might be interesting to re-investigate this big topic with some fresh eyes. I find the use of religious symbolism in BBM really gorgeous and profound in its complexity. I think of it as a poetic deployment of religious symbols and a deployment of the symbols that can make you look a the original religious symbol in a new way. I find it a fascinating and profound topic even though, I personally am not religious in my real life.
There seem to be many ways to approach this subject, and the word "religion" in no-way is limited to any one religion or religious tradition. Christian symbols and Taoist symbols seem to be deployed very strongly, but I'm sure there are many, many other religious lenses to investigate here.
I'm going to mainly focus on the film here in this initial post... but I'm sure there are rich ways to address this topic with the story too.
One way to think about it is to look at ways that the topic of religion comes up explicitly. The most obvious example seems to be Jack's singing of Water Walking Jesus and the two boys' discussion of the religions of their families. The other prominent explicit discussion of religion comes later in Ennis's relationship with Alma... his disinterest in going to the "fire and brimstone" church social and his disinterest in singing at the church social with his girls.
There are other, more subtle, visual suggestions of religious symbols. A couple examples come to mind... The three crosses that dominate the screen as Ennis rides into Signal in the semi-truck at the very beginning of the film. The yin and yang compositions of many shots of the boys and landscape on Brokeback... For example, when we see Jack sitting guarding the sheep by moonlight for the first time, the moon in the black sky seems to be the white dot of one half of the symbol and Jack himself seems to be the dark spot amongst the white sheep as the second half of the symbol. (I'm re-posting this image that Meryl graciously provided in the original Yin and Yang thread).
<img src="http://www.divshare.com/img/midsize/2650142-c1c.jpg" border="0" />Then there are thematic elements that seem to suggest a running religious metaphor... or the use of a religious them as a poetic device. For example, I strongly believe that the use of sheep and the seeming equation between Jack and the sheep that need protection (from Ennis's point of view) has a religious connotation of the "sacrificial lamb" notion. Endangered or killed-sheep seem to be equated with Jack and Earl in very significant ways in the film.
And, perhaps one of the most famous and controversial Brokie notions is that Jack is meant to be a "Jesus-type" figure... leading the way for Ennis... "walking on water" as he crosses the stream carrying the sheep... comforting Ennis even after he himself is dead (through the gesture of the shirts, etc.). I've even heard somewhere the idea that Ennis's favorite endearment "Jack F***ing Twist" echoes a very common cursing, angry exclamation that you hear from time to time, "Jesus F***ing Christ".
Anyway, I'm just throwing these ideas out there to see how people feel about these ideas now. I think these are actually just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to this subject. Again, many of these notions have been generated over long, long discussions both here and at imdb, etc. It would be fun to see how many other themes and concepts we can tease out of this subject.
And, Anke, I'll leave it to you to include the two suggestions you made at dinner here! They were great ideas... and two that I'd not considered before!
