why was the very last scene of the book not in the film???????????????

[optom3]

This is not meant as a criticism of the film,which has totally consumed my life.

I just love the last paragraph of the book. Jack has started to appear in the dreams of Ennis,complete with can of beans,with spoon handle jutting out.This appears in cartoon form, and the spoon handle was the sort that could be used as a tire iron.

It concludes with Ennis waking up"sometimes in grief,sometimes with the old sense of joy and realease; the pillow sometimes wet,sometimes the sheets.

I would love some opinions on this, as so much of what holds back Ennis is encapsulated by tire irons, and here he is haunted by them,even in sleep.

I also love the sheer poignancy of the wet pillow.

There seems to be no escape for him from that old childhood incident.

That said I still love the ending of the film. Maybe the visual of Ennis awakening crying,having had the optimistic start of his dream ( he initially dreams of Jack as he had first seen him) shattered by the cartoon image of a tire iron, would simply be too much to bear. I sob my heart out as it is.

Anyway, any insight/ comments  would be appreciated.

[moremojo]

I think the filmmakers were trying to translate the gritty, realistic (though superbly evocative) quality of Proulx's prose into the special aural, visual, and temporal constraints imposed by the cinematic medium. Dream sequences have long figured in films, but they often invest the resulting film with an air of fantasy, however fleetingly that sense may be maintained. Brokeback Mountain was designed to be an uncompromisingly realistic film, with a significant degree of ambiguity inherent in its narrative and thematic structure, and a dream sequence would have compromised this strategy (the point-of-view flash Ennis has of Jack's possible murder is the closest the film comes to varying this approach).

[mouk]

What an interesting question, and a very enlightening answer from Moremojo regarding dreams in films.

I think they tried to convey the feeling that Ennis was 'living with Jack' in his own mind and in little fantasy world he had built for himself (which is close enough to dreams)  by showing him talking to the shirts and sticking number 17 (believed by some, including myself, to be a code for Brokeback Mountain, 17 letters) on 'their' letter box and a photo of BBM in the closet. Effectively he has set up home with Jack in this dreary trailer that he is turning into Brokeback Mountain. Jack said at their last meeting 'all we have now is BBM' nd indeed all he has now is the shirts, a postcard and memories of the time 'when they owned the world and nothing seemed wrong'.

In the story, Ennis is perhaps more aware of his emotions and his inner conflicts and more open about them (eg motel scene) and this inner conflict carries on till after Jack's death with the 'comic obscenity' of the dreams. But in the prologue he is 'suffused with pleasure', he has accepted Jack's love at last. Ang Lee was forced to keep the film not too long, and perhaps he tried to amalgamate the end of the story AND the prologue in the last scene: Jack is still hidden in the closet, the trailer has a code name, not an explicit 'Welcome to Brokeback Mountain' plaque, but Ennis mentions the word 'love' for the first time. And there is the presence of the daughter. Film Ennis seems to me more conflicted than story Ennis and less aware for his own feelings until Jack's death, but then he seems to accept that what they had was love more quickly and more fully than in the story, as soon as he discovers the shirts. Even if he keeps it a secret.

I don't know if you see it the same way, but to me, from the moment Ennis receives the deceased card, the film seems more like the expression of Ennis's emotions, his inner landscape, rather that filming of objective reality. To me, there is something a bit unreal about the phone call although I cannot pinpoint it - Lureen's singing voice? her artificial looks and all these violent colors (red, black, straw blonde)?. And at Jack's parents, the blueish-white light flooding the rooms downstairs and upstairs is like in a dream. Also everything in the house seems to be white (death?) or blue (Jack), like bathed with Jack's ghostly presence: white walls and staircase, parents' washed out blue clothes, old Twist's blue eyes shining like glass eyes, really spooky.

So perhaps this is how they tried to convey the dream element in the film?

 

[moremojo]

So perhaps this is how they tried to convey the dream element in the film?

I really enjoyed your insightful post. I think you are absolutely right about Ennis setting up house with Jack symbolically by the end, with Jack's shirt safely stored behind the closet door and resting, sheltered, within Ennis's (a protective gesture, just like Ennis snapping Jack's collar closed). Except, as you point out, the men's real home is not the trailer, but a Brokeback Mountain of memory, recaptured as closely as possible by Ennis's use of the postcard to complete his shrine (and that is a very interesting interpretation of the '1' and the '7' that we see being affixed to the mailbox). Jack may be a mere memory, or dream, or even ghost by now, but he remains a living presence within Ennis's heart.

Others have pointed out the slightly unreal quality to the Lightning Flat visit, noting the eerily austere, almost empty whitewashed rooms and the strange, incantatory way of speaking of Old Man Twist and also, perhaps to a lesser degree, of his wife. I have always been struck by how these two characters never address each other, though they are aware of each other's presence, but rather interact only with Ennis, the one's icy contempt balanced by the other's reserved yet palpable compassion. One of our members once argued that this sequence suggests a mythic structure underlying the story's power, and I think you are quite perceptive to see how this scene might also have been designed to invest the film with some of the oneiric flavor that Proulx evoked so vividly.

[Artiste]

Thanks both of you!!

This might comes as a shocking surprise to one or both of you, or others:

I think more and more that Jack lives!! (And is NOT dead at all... like we think!)

But does Ennis know this... yet??

Hugs!!

[mouk]

Moremojo, do you remember what was said about the mythic structure? I am intrigued

And it is true, the parents don't interact, but they do exchange looks that seem full of meaning, there is a whole lot of body language that would be well worth examining in detail. I guess it has already been done and I missed the boat...

[moremojo]

Moremojo, do you remember what was said about the mythic structure? I am intrigued

Alas, those arguments were enshrined in an old IMDb thread called "Classical Allusions" that I have little doubt has long since disappeared into the electronic ether. They were made by our member Casey Cornelius, and may be cached somewhere by someone in the labyrinthine web of the Internet, but I am not sure where.

As I recall, Casey was arguing that Old Man Twist was comparable to Cerebus, the classical hound of Hades that had to be placated before the mythic hero could go further into the realm of the dead (for whatever reason). Mrs. Twist was the benevolent agent (goddess or sage) who comes to the hero's aid and gives him the resources to fulfill his journey/mission; the cherry cake was seen as an allusion to the honey cake that was thrown to Cerebus to divert him away from the entrance to the underworld. Ennis, the hero, successfully made his way into the world of the spirit (Jack's boyhood room) and retrieved the vital, powerful totem that he sought (in this case, without even knowing he was seeking it). Like Eurydice following Orpheus, Jack's spirit followed Ennis out of that house to dwell within his own abode and heart forever.

[optom3]

I think the filmmakers were trying to translate the gritty, realistic (though superbly evocative) quality of Proulx's prose into the special aural, visual, and temporal constraints imposed by the cinematic medium. Dream sequences have long figured in films, but they often invest the resulting film with an air of fantasy, however fleetingly that sense may be maintained. Brokeback Mountain was designed to be an uncompromisingly realistic film, with a significant degree of ambiguity inherent in its narrative and thematic structure, and a dream sequence would have compromised this strategy (the point-of-view flash Ennis has of Jack's possible murder is the closest the film comes to varying this approach).

OK, thanks for that,a very plausible and cohesive explanation.

I agree about the ambiguity,more evident in the film than book.The only point I struggle with is,after the trailer shirt scene,we the audience are left in no doubt ,regarding the strength of feelings Ennis has now come to accept. I just feel that the dream sequence would irrevocably tie together all the tire iron references.
Part of the tragedy of Ennis,who he is and what he becomes ,is so intertwined with that very object.

Maybe though Ang is trying to avoid spoon feeding us,so allowing us free rein with our imagination.Realistically a further shot of Ennis in tears, could I suppose be construed as reducing,what I do consider a cinematic masterpiece,to a more base level.Sometimes,now I think of it,less is more.

It makes for heart wrenching reading in the story,but in that context the reader is of course using their imagination,as opposed to having it visualised inch by inch.

Having read your post and given the matter some more thought,I think the omission was not only right but necessary.

See I knew someone would would provide an insight,enabling me to clarify my own thoughts on the subject.

[moremojo]

Maybe though Ang is trying to avoid spoon feeding us,so allowing us free rein with our imagination.Realistically a further shot of Ennis in tears, could I suppose be construed as reducing,what I do consider a cinematic masterpiece,to a more base level.Sometimes,now I think of it,less is more.

Absolutely; I agree with this. I do think that Ang with the film, just like Annie with the story, is inviting and even challenging us to make ultimate sense of the material for ourselves. Just as Annie has said that each reader must finish the story in their own life. The fact that Ang has so far refused to incorporate deleted scenes or commentary in any of the DVD versions of the film further suggests that he has taken great pains to ensure that each viewer is confronted with this responsibility.

[delalluvia]

Because Ang wanted a 'happier' ending than the story gave.

IMO he "Hollywood-ized" the movie's ending to give audience the bare feeling of hope that Ennis' character learned from his experience with Jack, unlike the story which left Ennis no more enlightened than he was before.

While the movie ending was an artistic delight, it took away from the pure tragedy that was the story.

[moremojo]

I certainly do agree that the film ends on a more hopeful note than does the story (heck, it ends on a more hopeful note than the story even begins on). Ang was quoted as saying that he wanted a redemptive ending, and got it.

But I suspect that this alone does not account for the absence of Ennis's dreams from the film. I think that was as much an aesthetic choice as it was one guided by thematic or narrative concerns.

[Front-Ranger]

I never got a chance to participate in this thread while our friend moremojo was here, and I'd like to reopen the question here. The last scene of the movie echoes the work of a Japanese filmmaker named  "Yasujiro Ozu, who lovingly detailed the daily domestic world of his middle-class characters, sometimes paying as close attention to the accoutrements of their environment as to the human beings wielding them. His famous 'pillow shots', wherein the camera lingers on a space after the human inhabitants have departed, are a salient example of this." (quoting moremojo)

In a way, both Ozu and Lee seem to be saying that the objects left behind by those departed not only remind us of them but carry on their spirits in some way. The simple everyday objects have a way of telling the stories of these people who went before, so that we can learn from them and apply to our own lives.