My long, rambling defense of Brokeback Mountain

[serious crayons]

I have been drawn into an email debate about the movie with three other people whose opinions range from outright negative (too long) to in-between (not that excited about it, but would give it another chance) to outright positive but far from obsessed. I only actually know one of the three people (the in-between one), but after I mentioned my own opinion my friend, she got the discussion going. Now the others have described their reactions and today it was my turn. Maybe it's a lost cause, but because I have urged others in this situation to mount a defense, I thought I'd give it a shot.

I thought some of you might be interested in seeing my message, if you don't mind the fact that it is very, very long (I'm especially daunted now that I see that huge purple quote box!). It is not my best writing ever, and you can undoubtedly find flaws or things I should have said differently. But what I was trying to do is to fit, as succinctly as possible (i.e., not very) ideas I've gleaned from months of discussion here and at imdb into a single message. I'm posting it because the vast majority of these ideas came from other people, most of whom are here on this board now (including something from one of our newest members, goadra!), and you all deserve the credit for them. Thanks, guys!!! (PS, I'll let you know what kind of reaction I get.)

Sorry I'm so late to reply on this. Guess I'm falling behind on my email lately because I've been spending way too much time on the message boards of this Brokeback Mountain website; I've just been made moderator of one of the forums.
 
OK, so what is it we're talking about again?
 
Oh yeah, Brokeback Mountain! Would you guys like my opinion on whether it's any good? Hmmm .... I'll have to think about that one.  ... Well, I guess ultimately it comes down to which is better: Brokeback Mountain or The Godfather. I'm leaning heavily toward the former. I know for sure it's better than Citizen Kane (probably just me, but I've always found CK a bit boring). Casablanca? That's tougher; I've only seen that once. It's definitely better than other movies I love, like Memento or L.A. Confidential or ... well, whatever other movies I love.

Someone said he'd give it a B. I would give it an A+ (and maybe a few extra pluses). This has little to do with its being a groundbreakingly big-movie portrayal of gay romance -- that makes it novel and bold and politically honorable, but doesn't make it good.
 
But it's a difficult movie to defend to people who aren't crazy about it. A lot of people think it's slow, or that not much happens, and I don't know how to talk them out of it except to say it is probably the most complex and subtle film I've ever seen (if I've seen other films that are more so, their complexities and subtleties must have gone way over my head). Every scene, almost every line, just about every frickin moment of the movie is suffused with much more meaning and subtext than appears on the surface.
 
For one thing, it's full of so many metaphors and double meanings and symbols that I couldn't begin to inventory them all here. Trust me, there are a lot of them, involving buckets, coffee pots, birds, yin/yang symbols, snow, water, wind, guns, full moons, a bear, a dead sheep, colors, trucks, shirts (yes, obviously, but the two at the end aren't the only ones), closets, beans, rodeos, windows, music ... I could go on and on. Obviously I can't explain all of these, but here are a few examples:
 
Water is a metaphor for the relationship between Ennis and Jack. When they go up the mountain, they cross over a stream, and cross it again on the way back down and into society. Jack carries overflowing buckets of water to Ennis. Almost every time they're together, they're by a river. When they go camping the first time after reuniting, they plunge naked into the river, i.e., fully immersing themselves in the relationship. When we see Ennis' wife Alma, she is often washing something in tap water (i.e., artificial, "domesticated" water, in contrast to natural river water). As years go by, the water they camp by slows down from rushing rivers until, at the end, they're by a still lake -- their relationship has stagnated. In an earlier argument about midway through the movie, Ennis rejects Jack's suggestion that he move to Texas, he drops the bucket he's washing into the river and it starts to float away -- he's letting go of his chance for happiness (buckets are a whole separate metaphor, also). When their time together on the mountain is about to come to an end, it snows -- their relationship is frozen. Near the end, the night before their big argument where Jack seems on the verge of breaking up, he says, "It's gonna snow tonight for sure." In the flashback where Ennis' dad takes him to see the murdered body of Earl, it's an arid desert-like area, the horrifying absence of love.
 
Wind is a metaphor for Jack. When he goes back the next summer to ask Aguirre for work, the fan above Aguirre's head, which was heretofore motionless, suddenly begins spinning when he walks into the trailer. Aguirre says, "Well, look what the wind blew in." When Ennis is sitting on the bed, obviously thinking about Jack, Alma is imploring him to move to town and says, "You don't want it to be so lonely, do you?" there's a pause as Ennis looks sad, and we hear the wind outside howl. In the end, when Jack is dead and Ennis is talking to his daughter in his lonely trailer, there's a huge fan propped on the bed.
 
Dialogue: When they're working together on the mountain, and Jack keeps complaining about beans and Ennis is fine with them and doesn't want to break the rules by eating one of the sheep, it's a metaphor for the rest of their relationship and how they deal with society's rules. (They compromise by killing an elk, and there are images of elks elsewhere in the movie, such as on a bar sign, and at the end Ennis, trying to placate angry Jack, suggests they could get a cabin and go hunting, "kill us a nice elk.") When Ennis tells Jack his dad thought rodeoers were all fuckups and then Jack horses around and falls, Ennis laughs and says "I think my dad was right" -- just as he thinks his dad was right about homosexuality. At the charity dance, when Lureen says "funny how husbands don't never wanna dance with their wives," the obvious subtext is, and that that's not all they don't wanna do with their wives. "Our husbands don't have a smidgen of rhythm between them," the other woman, LaShawn, replies -- her husband is gay, too. A few minutes later, Jack wonders why women powder their noses "just to go home and go to bed" -- nothing happening there, obviously. When Ennis has a summer job spreading tar and the buffoonish coworker says his wife keeps telling him he's going to break his back on the job, it prompts Ennis to turn and stare wistfully off into the distance, recalling his much better summer with Jack. Near the beginning, Ennis warns Jack that his horse has a low startle point and Jack assures him there's not a filly that could throw him, but eventually it does -- another metaphor for their relationship; Ennis turns out to have a low startle point and essentially throws Jack, too.
 
Countless scenes in the movie echo or mirror each other in their positions, dialogue, postures and other stuff. At the beginning, Ennis travels at dawn, in a truck crossing a mountain scene from left to right, and he's carrying a paper bag holding a couple of shirts. At the end, Ennis travels at dusk, in a truck crossing the same mountain scene from right to left, carrying a paper bag holding a couple of shirts. When they leave Brokeback and part for the first time, they stand at Jack's truck and Jack says he's going to go visit his folks, then Ennis walks away and collapses. At the end, in the scene of their big argument, they stand at Jack's truck and Jack says he's going to go visit his folks, shortly after which Ennis collapses. On or near the Fourth of July, both men confront challenges to their masculinity, Ennis (beating up bikers) "wins" and Jack (hitting on Jimbo) "loses"; later, on Thanksgiving, they both confront challenges to their masculinity, Jack (telling off his father-in-law) wins and Ennis (reacting to Alma's accusation) loses -- gets beat up. At the drive-in, Ennis and Alma are watching a movie featuring a trailer (a reminder of Aguirre's trailer) and Alma grabs Ennis' hand just the way Jack did in the tent, only she puts it on her pregnant stomach. (Both the first scene and the last scene take place in and outside a trailer.) There are lots of other examples.
 
Even the tiniest details are meaningful: in one kitchen scene, where everybody's keeping a secret, there's a bag of bread in an opaque wrapper. In a later kitchen scene, where the secret is revealed, there's a bag of bread in a clear wrapper. At the Twist's ranch, there's an abandoned outbuilding with a houselike structure that could represent Jack and Ennis' would-be home together. In scenes where Jack and Ennis are more open to each other, they're wearing lighter (or no) clothes; in scenes where they're closed off from each other, heavier clothes and jackets (Jack, the more open, is usually wearing fewer layers). When they're apart, Ennis, missing Jack, always wears blue (the color Jack almost always wears) but when he's with him he retreats to his own typical tan. When Ennis gets the postcard marked "deceased," a pickup truck that looks like the one Jack drove crosses the screen. When he's in the bus station, you see a pair of men in cowboy hats, one black (like Jack's) and one white (like Ennis') standing at the counter buying tickets -- a suggestion of the life they could have had together.
 
Coincidences? Yeah. Maybe.
 
Trust me, these examples just barely barely scratch the surface. There are dozens and dozens of things like this throughout the movie. Am I sure they aren't just accidental, that I'm not reading too much into them? Absolutely. As a former literature major, I did this exact thing picking apart classic novels for metaphors and symbols and subtexts, and The Great Gatsby is no more multilayered than this. Of course, you don't have to notice all or any of them to enjoy the movie, but they subtly and maybe even subconsiously underscore meanings and enrich the experience.
 
But the greatness of the movie isn't based entirely on hidden symbolism. Artistically, it's a masterpiece: wonderful writing, beautiful cinematography, lovely music, etc. And the acting! Heath Ledger was absolutely robbed of the Best Actor award he deserved. Yes, Phillip Seymour Hoffman's Capote was very impressive. His mimickry was perfect, he was Capote, and he went beyond mimickry to reveal something of Capote's inner life, too. But Heath Ledger's performance was beyond any I've ever seen: his portrayal of a closed-off, emotionally damaged, tumultuously emotional introvert -- a man struggling to reconcile absolutely contradictory impulses -- is exquisite, despite the extremely spare dialogue, despite the fact that few of his lines express what he's really feeling or thinking about. It's a character I've never seen in films before; the stoic taciturn iconic Western cowboy who -- in direct contrast to the classic Hollywood cowboy -- is not a rebel or rugged individualist but just the opposite: the ultimate tragic conformist. (Keep in mind that I was no huge Heath Ledger fan before this; when I initially heard he was going to be in the movie -- I'd already read the story -- my first thought was, "Oh, I guess they're going to wreck it. Why don't they cast a serious actor?" Though later, when I saw him in Lords of Dogtown, I felt somewhat reassured.)
 
Another thing:  Restraint. This story could so easily have become mawkish or maudlin. It never does, despite all the powerful emotions -- somehow it manages to be both heartwrenching and rigorously unsentimental. Another thing: its way of developing empathy. When Ennis is bathing in the background, why doesn't Jack turn and look, which we know he's tempted to do? Because if he did, we'd all immediately understand why, but from a distance. When he doesn't, we're forced to go into his mind and figured out how he's feeling. Another thing: Subtlety. It took me a couple of viewings to figure out how Jimbo the rodeo clown knows Jack is hitting on him, before I noticed the eye contact. Took a few more times before I noticed the same kind of eye contact was going on between Jack and Randall, his gay ranch neighbor, when the two couples are at the charity ball. Took a few times before I spotted Ennis leaning out to check Jack out as he rides off, then immediately catching himself and making himself turn away. Took a few times to notice the galaxy of emotions that crosses Ennis' face when he asks his daughter if her fiancee loves her (suggesting that he has come to understand the importance of love and how much he has missed). Another thing: its ambiguity. Very little is spelled out. We're left not knowing how Jack died. Or what Ennis means, exactly, when at the end he says "Jack, I swear." Or whether Jack really would have left Ennis and gone off to ranch with Randall. Or why Alma never mentions having seen them on the stairs. Or at what point, if ever, Ennis comes to accept his own sexuality. Or whether this is a gay love story or a universal love story or a story about loneliness or a story about missed chances or what. The story draws us in, lets us think for ourselves, credits us with the intelligence to puzzle these things out on our own, allows us to come to all kinds of different conclusions depending on what we're looking for.
 
That's great art.
 
Keep in mind that I learned most of this stuff only after multiple viewings and way too many hours on message boards discussing the movie with really insightful and observant people. I don't think anybody could come out from one viewing realizing all this. On the other hand, I did come out from my first viewing knowing I really loved the movie and wanted to see it again as soon as possible. It's touching and moving and sexy and poignant and heartbreaking and mysterious. But those are reactions that can't be defended in rational terms -- you either respond to the film or you don't. Many people (gay, straight, male, female, homophobic, open-minded) were not swept away by it. (Luckily, most of those unconvinced viewers weren't film critics; the film won every major award up to the Oscars, reason in itself to find the Oscar BP award a little suspicious.) Anyway, while I can understand people who don't love it, I also feel a bit sorry for them, because they're really missing out.
 
Nice chatting with you guys!

Katherine

[RouxB]

Well, Katherine, you saved me from having to write it! I am saving it to share my my nay-sayer pseudo friends.

 

[Mikaela]

Wonderfully well-written and sufficiently detailed to get your point across, I'd say - not rambling at all, and thoroughly enjoyable for a Brokeaholic to read, for sure.    I especially appreciate what you write about HL. His Ennis is nothing short of an acting miracle, IMO - and in the period after the initial film reviews that point seemed to come close to drowning in the ofttimes superficial flood of BBM hoopla in the media and at awards ceremonies, -  even at fan sites now and then.

[JennyC]

Katherine,

Thanks for sharing this with us!  This is eloquently written, so are many of your posts.  I have written a very very long e-mail myself to a dear friend of mine, trying to explain the subtle details of some scenes and their meanings, and in my not very successfully attempt explain why I love the movie so much.  I have forwarded mine e-mails to a few more friends if BBM came up in our conversation.  But my e-mail in no way can be compared to yours.  If you don’t mind, I will use yours instead.  Are you going to charge us royalty for your copyright? 

I am no control freak, I don’t need all my friends to see things the way I do.  Only to the friends that I held high regards, I am trying to convince them because I think we all can learn from this movie/story.

[Brown Eyes]

Wow, Katherine!  That's very eloquent.  An excellent synopsis of lots of the really interesting ideas from all of these wonderful discussions. 

They clearly don't know who they're tangling with when asking an "expert" BetterMost Brokie whether or not Brokeback Mountain is "good." Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but still...
 

By the way,

Even the tiniest details are meaningful: in one kitchen scene, where everybody's keeping a secret, there's a bag of bread in an opaque wrapper. In a later kitchen scene, where the secret is revealed, there's a bag of bread in a clear wrapper

This is a new one for me!  Great observation.

If any of these people are still in doubt about the greatness of BBM or the complexity of it... try mentioning the thing about Aeneas and Dido from and the "I swear" line of dialogue... or really anything from the old Classical Allusions thread by CaseyCornelius...  It will blow their minds.  I just re-read part of it myself anyway... and it is truly amazing.  I just have to re-post some of the original post from that thread here.

It seems to me to most clearly echo Virgil's "The Aeneid" and the portion in Book VI where Aeneas descends to Hades. Ennis [= Aeneas?] undertakes a 'labor' much as Aeneas in descending to Hades/Hell to recover the ashes of his Beloved Jack and release his spirit from Tartarus where the Sons of Men are imprisoned.

The interior of Jack's family home is like a sepulchre - white-washed, bare, spare, bereft of any ornament, drained of color with a ghostly, unearthly glow illuminating the kitchen through the windows.

Jack's Mother is the Sybil who allows Ennis/Aeneas passage past Cerberus the guardian of the underworld--Jack's Father- the adamantine, unyielding judge of what is meant to be acceptable and allowable.
Jack's Mother/the Sybil mollifies/drugs the intractable Cerberus/Jack's Father with a sweet cake as in "The Aeneid". She offers the same 'cherry cake' to Ennis/Aeneas along with a cup of coffee. Ennis accepts the latter [as an aid to illumination?], rejecting the former, hence, is able to partake of her offer to see Jack's room and the icons and remnants of his life --"I kept his room like it was when he was a boy. I think he appreciated that. You are welcome to go up in his room, if you want."

Ennis, 'undrugged' by the same cherry cake is able to fully experience the earthly remnants of his beloved Jack's life, the details of whose life he has never fully known or realized, which have been protected and maintained in his boyhood room by his true guardian/Mother.

Ennis ascends the deathly, bare stairs to Jack's room where he finds the only true repository of any of the memories of his childhood, the core of his personality. The bare room looking out over the dusty plain and down "the only road" he had every known is heart-breaking. A simple cot for a bed. The rest of the room consists of reminders of Jack's failed dreams. A desk and chair where he failed to make an impression as a scholar. A cowboy figurine is a mocking reminder of his failure to achieve his dream of becoming a cowboy himself. The small .22 hanging in a wooden rack is a mockery of his lack of marksmanship evident earlier in the film. The only thing representing anything of value he might have achieved is the iconic/cult object of his true and abiding love for Ennis - the two shirts hidden away from the prying eyes of Jack's father and the rest of the world. Only his Mother would have been party to their significance.

Jack's Mother/the Sibyl allows him passage out of the house/Hades with the shirts, placing them in a paper bag for transport, even as the Father/Cerberus states adamantly that Jack is "goin' in" the family plot. The final act of hatred of the Father toward his only son is to deny Jack's last wish for his remains to be united with Brokeback, the only reminder of a time and place which gave him his greatest joy in life.

Ennis's final words of "Jack, I swear" echo those of Aeneas when confronted with the 'shade' or ghost of his beloved Dido who committed suicide after he abandoned her.
Aeneas says to Dido's ghost, "I swear by every oath that hell can muster, I swear I left you against my will. The law of God--the law that sends me now through darkness, bramble, rot and profound night--unyielding drove me; nor could I have dreamed that in my leaving I would hurt you so".

[serious crayons]

If you don’t mind, I will use yours instead.  Are you going to charge us royalty for your copyright? 

  Almost all of the ideas jn my message are cribbed from other people's posts, so if any copyright lawsuits are filed, I'm in big trouble.

Actually, Jenny, I would love to see what you wrote. And if anyone else has written any BBM defenses, I would love to see them, too. Let's all post them here!

Yes, it does seem like an uphill battle to convince the skeptical. I'm not particularly evangelical -- what do I care if two people I've never met (and one I haven't seen in 20 years) like the movie or not? Usually, when people tell me in person that they weren't crazy about the movie, I just shrug and tell them, well, I loved it. It's just too hard and possibly futile, in normal conversation, to outline all the arguments in the movie's favor. But because here I had the luxury of writing, I did this mainly as an exercise -- to make the argument as best I could and see what would happen. I definitely will keep you posted about the results.

Of course, since sending the email I've thought of a bunch of additional things I wish I would have said.

This is a new one for me!  Great observation.

Yes it is, and guess where the bread bag observation came from? Goadra, a new BetterMost member -- on her very first post!

If any of these people are still in doubt about the greatness of BBM or the complexity of it... try mentioning the thing about Aeneas and Dido from and the "I swear" line of dialogue... or really anything from the old Classical Allusions thread by CaseyCornelius...

Thanks for reposting this. I so remember that thread, partly because -- I'll have to admit -- my own knowledge of "The Aeneid" is so nonexistent (I was going to say spotty, but then I remembered my vow to be honest here) that when I came to the post I was completely daunted and barely skimmed it. But I love rereading it now. I especially love the part about Jack's room and all its symbols of failed dreams  !!!

[starboardlight]

there's so much to say about this film. despite your long email, you've only just covered the surface, but I think you did a great job explaining that there are deeper layers going on in the film. For me, despite all those beautiful details, I go back to that first emotional heartsick feeling that we all suffered. Our reaction was so unique and yet thousands of us had that same reaction. No other film has been able to make us care so much. The delayed reactions that we all had has never been experienced with other films. I certainly have never heard of any one reacting this way to any film before. And yet the story of people having to pull off to the side of the road to cry, of a guy seeing his retired marine dad crying for the first time in his life, or of people finally finding courage to confront their own demons because of the film, is evidence that their a power in this film that we've never seen before. The storytelling and literary details are brilliant, but it comes down to the fact that it is able to make very profound emotional connections that makes the film great.

[welliwont]

I have written a very very long e-mail myself to a dear friend of mine, trying to explain the subtle details of some scenes and their meanings, and in my not very successfully attempt explain why I love the movie so much.  I have forwarded mine e-mails to a few more friends if BBM came up in our conversation.

Hi JennyC:

I would really like to read your very long e-mail explaining BBM, would you post it here, or e-mail it to me?  I myself have been planning to write myself a definite analysis of BBM but I have been too busy reading at Bettermost to get very far with it.  If I ever do write my dissertation I will post it here.

[serious crayons]

there's so much to say about this film. despite your long email, you've only just covered the surface, but I think you did a great job explaining that there are deeper layers going on in the film. For me, despite all those beautiful details, I go back to that first emotional heartsick feeling that we all suffered. Our reaction was so unique and yet thousands of us had that same reaction. No other film has been able to make us care so much. The delayed reactions that we all had has never been experienced with other films. I certainly have never heard of any one reacting this way to any film before. And yet the story of people having to pull off to the side of the road to cry, of a guy seeing his retired marine dad crying for the first time in his life, or of people finally finding courage to confront their own demons because of the film, is evidence that their a power in this film that we've never seen before. The storytelling and literary details are brilliant, but it comes down to the fact that it is able to make very profound emotional connections that makes the film great.

Nipith, I remember you saying something like this not long ago, when Jeff was confronting a similar situation with a friend who, bafflingly, didn't care much for the movie. I was urging him to write something outlining its artistic brilliance. You pointed out the overlying importance of its profound emotional effect. I totally agreed, and as I was writing the thing above I kept that conversation in mind.

But of course it is really hard to convey that effect that to people who simply didn't feel it themselves. I doubt anyone here noticed half of the symbolism and stuff the first time they saw it, but I'd venture that everyone here was profoundly emotionally affected on that very first viewing. And I really don't understand what distinguishes us from the people who are lukewarm about the movie -- most of those people don't seem unusually insensitive otherwise (assuming they're nonhomophobes, of course).

Anyway, I tend to feel more comfortable discoursing in objective terms, using relatively irrefutable facts. Must be the former newspaper reporter in me. But if the email conversation with these other people continues, I'll see if I can figure out a way to address that emotional impact, too.

[silkncense]

For me, despite all those beautiful details, I go back to that first emotional heartsick feeling that we all suffered. Our reaction was so unique and yet thousands of us had that same reaction. No other film has been able to make us care so much. The delayed reactions that we all had has never been experienced with other films. I certainly have never heard of any one reacting this way to any film before. And yet the story of people having to pull off to the side of the road to cry, of a guy seeing his retired marine dad crying for the first time in his life, or of people finally finding courage to confront their own demons because of the film, is evidence that their a power in this film that we've never seen before. The storytelling and literary details are brilliant, but it comes down to the fact that it is able to make very profound emotional connections that makes the film great.

Nipith - I absolutely agree!!!  THIS is what I have tried to explain about Brokeback.  Maybe people who don't have the same reaction think I am insane, but I truly think that is what makes this more than a film.  As I tried to explain to someone - Pulp Fiction is a great movie - but it is just a movie.  Brokeback is a life experience.   

Katherine - I love your e-mail but feel that non-Brokeback people would think a great many of the "tiniest details" are a stretch.  I can't say that I view or interpret some of the often quoted views the same, even (please don't throw me off the board for this) - the  clothing. 

(Jack, the more open, is usually wearing fewer layers). When they're apart, Ennis, missing Jack, always wears blue (the color Jack almost always wears) but when he's with him he retreats to his own typical tan.

From my viewing, Jack usually wears far more layers & heavier clothing, esp his coats.  Jack always wears a T-shirt & button shirt.  Ennis does not wear a T-shirt (that I remember) & his jackets appear lighter in weight - usually the cordoroy one while Jack is looking for his parka (one blue, one tan).

I love the beautiful tan color of Ennis coats but his shirts are generally a light blue plaid (or stripe) with one that is bluish/grey & red? on Brokeback.  Jack's coat is not blue but green & black on Brokeback & changes virtually every time they are together.   

Should I run now...