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...

[starboardlight]

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).

yeah, it is really difficult to convey that emotional impact of the film. i still haven't been able to figure out how to talk about it either. all i can do is give anecdotal stories that others posted about their own experiences. in a way, those are the stories that move me. i think of thebee's post, and how it made my cry with hope. i also think of several posts of people who started out trolling and came back to apologize after having seen the film. there was one in particular who didn't like the film at first viewing, but many of us challenged him to see it again. sure enough he came back and said that after the second time around, he's now convinced that it was one of the best films of the year. I wonder if you might challenge those three to see the film again and see if they still have the same opinions, if they might not catch more details and nuance of the film, and if they might not find that emotional connection.

[opinionista]

yeah, it is really difficult to convey that emotional impact of the film. i still haven't been able to figure out how to talk about it either. all i can do is give anecdotal stories that others posted about their own experiences. in a way, those are the stories that move me. i think of thebee's post, and how it made my cry with hope. i also think of several posts of people who started out trolling and came back to apologize after having seen the film. there was one in particular who didn't like the film at first viewing, but many of us challenged him to see it again. sure enough he came back and said that after the second time around, he's now convinced that it was one of the best films of the year. I wonder if you might challenge those three to see the film again and see if they still have the same opinions, if they might not catch more details and nuance of the film, and if they might not find that emotional connection.

For what is worth, everytime I try to explain Brokeback Mountain to a friend who hasn't seen it I always describe it as a heartbreaking love story that, among other things, conveys the harm people receive when they're not free to be who they are or to express what they truly feel. That's movie is so well done that anyone can find him/herself represented even if they don't share the characters' sexual orientation. I also tell them that obstacle between the lovers it's not just society but the fear, the insecurities and the perception they have of themselves, their lives, and the relationship they're in. Because the truth is that Ennis and Jack are doomed not because they're gay but because they feel forced to pretend not to be, especially Ennis.

[nakymaton]

I have such a hard time defending this movie to anybody. (Though I think most of my on-line friends know I'm rabid about it, and therefore back away quietly, hoping to escape before I really get going.) I did convince one friend (straight male) to watch it, after the Oscars when I was so angry about the members of AMPAS who refused to even watch it. I didn't really try to explain why it was so moving to me, though -- and I think it wasn't the quality of my arguments, but the intensity of my passion (and my comparison of Ennis with another character we both liked) that convinced him. (He thought it was all right, but not great. Liked the cinematography, hated the score, didn't see the tragedy as all that powerful.        What could I say?)

And tell you what -- as much as I love talking about the details, as much as they fascinate me... I wouldn't care about them if Ennis and Jack didn't break my heart in the first place.

[serious crayons]

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. 

Should I run now...

That does it, Silk, as moderator of this board I am officially banishing you. Get out!   

No, I guess I promised when I became moderator not to let all that power go to my head.     So instead I'll just have to say, oh well, to each his own. I think we disagreed about the clothing thing before, and maybe some of the other details. You're right that Jack's jackets are heavier and warmer, as befits his higher income, but re layers I was thinking of how, in key scenes on Brokeback, Jack is often one layer ahead of Ennis -- he takes off his jacket in the first tent scene and his shirt in the second. In the reunion scene, Ennis is wearing fewer layers, but that's the exception that proves the rule: in that scene Ennis leads the way to intimacy.

As for colors, there are only few exceptions to Ennis' code of always wearing blue when he misses Jack and wearing something more predominantly tan when he's with Jack and feeling skittish (sometimes a plaid, but one that's more tan than blue). Again, it's not absolute but it seems too recurrent to be accidental.

Luckily, I stopped short in the email of outlining my theories about Jack's subdued shirt colors after the divorce scene and Ennis' gray jacket in the last few scenes!

And if you think some of the other tiny details might seem doubtful to someone who's not a Brokeback devotee, imagine if I'd included -- as I was tempted to do -- the idea of the cherry cake representing yin/yang symbols! 

yeah, it is really difficult to convey that emotional impact of the film. i still haven't been able to figure out how to talk about it either. all i can do is give anecdotal stories that others posted about their own experiences. in a way, those are the stories that move me. ... I wonder if you might challenge those three to see the film again and see if they still have the same opinions, if they might not catch more details and nuance of the film, and if they might not find that emotional connection.

But even with those powerful anecdotes I'm afraid that, while we find them moving, people who don't "get it" may just dismiss them as nutty, or at best just assume those people must have some specific personal reason to connect with the film. (Not to minimize its importance for people who do have a specific personal reason, only making the point that you can be deeply affected even if you don't.)

I like your idea of challenging them to a second viewing, though. If the email exchange continues, I'll give that a shot, and also try to broach the emotional thing somehow.

Now I'm wishing I had gotten feedback from you guys before I hit "send," because your suggestions would have been helpful. Oh well. Next time.

Mel and Natali, your posts jcame in as I was writing this. I agree, if I were talking to someone who'd never seen the movie, or who refused to see it, I would emphasize the heartbreaking love story aspect, too. But all three people I was talking to have seen it, so they already know whether they are moved by the story or not. And as I said, I have never met two of them, though from what I gather they seem reasonably open-minded and sophisticated movie goers. But their biggest complaint about the movie seemed to be that "nothing happens," so I tried to convey that actually a lot happens, but much of it subtle or beneath the surface.

[serious crayons]

In case anyone's interested, here is the some discussion from the original email I replied to. Three people are talking (I'm not one of them -- my only contribution so far is what's in the other post.) I put different speakers into different colors, though frankly I had a little trouble following it myself, so I was sort of guessing from context at times.

>JL and I were arguing a bit on the phone the other night about whether Brokeback Mountain is a
>groundbreaking movie.

It's groundbreaking in that it got so much respect and recognition even though it's about a topic people still for some reason get all fidgety about. Ah, intolerance. Where would groundbreaking movies be without it?

>He thought it wasn't, because he could list other movies about gay people. But those movies weren't both critical and commercial successes and didn't receive Oscar nominations. This is the first movie with a gay theme that has stood alongside all the other movies as something other than an "alternative film."


Yes. And in that respect it's groundbreaking. As for story and overall quality. Far from groundbreaking.


>That's the heartbreak of the story. They never got to be together as a real couple, because the prejudice of society kept them in limbo.
>


>Yeah, I get it. It's just... I don't know. Just because it's meandering doesn't mean it has to be boring, and I thought this was a little boring.


Well, I suppose. But it was pretty, too. The cinematography. The landscapes. The unblemished butts of the two hunks.
Besides, I didn't think it was boring. But that's a matter of taste, I think.

>Nah, I get it. I mean, I think it's like that with movies: you either like it or you don't.

[starboardlight]

we've had several discussion about why some people connect with the film. The "nothing happened" critique is really telling. To me their are people who need things to be spelled out and people who inherently understand that there's more beneath, around, above what actually happens. As we've all said, this is a movie about what didn't happen and what wasn't said. So "nothing happened" is right, but that's the tragedy of it. We're able to see what was on screen and instinctively see what could have/should have been. Nothing is spelled out, but we somehow were moved to look further into the context and subtext. That's another beauty of the film. It doesn't hit us over the head with a message, but rather invites us to find the deeper meaning on our own. That's what make its such a personal experience for each of us.

I sometimes feel sorry for people who can't connect with the film. From personal experience, they're always people who need things to be black and white, and everything spelled out. If a message doesn't hit them over the head like a ton of bricks, they don't get it. There are exceptions and my statement is a generalization, of course, but like I said "nothing happened" is a very telling critique of people not being able to see beneath the surface.

[JennyC]

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.

That's too much pressure, Jake Twist.   Just kidding.

Seriously I wrote the e-mail back in January, before I got really involved with this community.  I have learned a lot of things about the movie, the story since then.  I need to do some seriously proof reading before I dare to post it here  .

The main issue that my friend got hang up on is the infidelity issue, because of her personal experience.   

[ednbarby]

Oh, my GOD, Amanda.  This just damn near slayed me:

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."

Makes me wonder if A. Proulx isn't more than a tad familiar with Virgil.

[serious crayons]

I sometimes feel sorry for people who can't connect with the film. From personal experience, they're always people who need things to be black and white, and everything spelled out. If a message doesn't hit them over the head like a ton of bricks, they don't get it. There are exceptions and my statement is a generalization, of course, but like I said "nothing happened" is a very telling critique of people not being able to see beneath the surface.

Absolutely. Once you get past homophobia, I think this is the most common reason for people not connecting with the movie. Viewers are just so used to getting their movie messages ladled out in the form of explosions, bullet-dodging and, um, absurdly coincidental car crashes.

Makes me wonder if A. Proulx isn't more than a tad familiar with Virgil.

That's for sure. Just the Ennis/Aeneas thing is enough to convince me.

[silkncense]

I wonder if you might challenge those three to see the film again and see if they still have the same opinions, if they might not catch more details and nuance of the film, and if they might not find that emotional connection.

I agree.  After my first viewing I had the three nights of sleep loss & knew I had to see it again (didn't know then it would be 16 viewings in the theater). 

A 20 something newlywed male @ my work saw Brokeback based on my praise.  He came back & said it was "a lust affair" & was about infidelity.  I pointed out some of the subtle scenes that show it was love, etc.  That was in April.  Ironically, last week (he had just seen Crash & we were discussing that) & he said he thought he needed to watch Brokeback again as he may have missed some of the details.  Here's hoping he really sees it this time. 

Katherine - Actually we usually agree, almost completely.  Now if you'll only acknowledge that I'm right about the shirt colors...

[Brown Eyes]

Makes me wonder if A. Proulx isn't more than a tad familiar with Virgil.

I KNOW!  That part that you quoted amazes me all the time too.  I can just sit and read it over and over again. 

I'm sure she knows Virgil too.  The coincidence here would be too great I think (especially since other elements of the story suggest some parallels too).  Plus, super serious writers like Proulx tend to be exceedingly well-read (not too surprisingly).  If there was ever any doubt that BBM (in it's book form) isn't true literature, well this goes a long way towards demonstrating the extreme seriousness of the story and literary references.  It would actually be a fantastic question to ask Proulx.  If for some unlikely reason she didn't intend or know about this parallel... I'm sure she'd be amazed (and quite happy) to find out about it.

[Front-Ranger]

I missed this subject the first time around, so was overjoyed to find and read it. I'd like to add something I noticed in the scene around the table with Jack, Lureen, LaShawn, and Randall. After not seeing the movie for quite a while, I watched again with fresh eyes. You can see Lureen bristle when LaShawn starts off calling Childress a "poky little town." That's why she comes back with the reply, "I was Kappa Phi myself," a more prestigious sorority than LaShawn's. LaShawn gives the impression of a social climber, a person with low self-esteem who needs to obtain the approval of others. Here it's Lureen, so she comes back with the smidgeon of rhythm comment and, by saying she and Lureen might have to dance together, intimates that the two women are in the same boat. As they talk on, the women keep finding more and more things in common, till this starts to alarm Jack, who has perhaps become sensitized by Ennis's paranoia. He starts to brush off the veiled accusations by saying "Ain't never give it no thought," at the same time actually brushing cigarette ashes off his black finery. He asks LaShawn to dance, IMO, simply because he is drawn to her and identifies with her; they are a lot alike, the socialness, the complaints, the garrulousness. Especially the low self-esteem and need to seek the approval and love of others. But he gets a dividend from dancing with LaShawn--seeing that Randall doesn't ask Lureen to dance is another in a series of little hints that Randall is gay.

[Brown Eyes]

That's why she comes back with the reply, "I was Tri Delt myself," a more prestigious sorority than LaShawn's.

Well, I think it was LaShawn who was Tri Delt and Lureen was Kappa Phi.  I have no idea about how sororities work or the hierarchy amongst them... but you're right F-R,  I think the implication is that Lureen is trying to let LaShawn know that her sorority is more prestigious.  I always wonder about Jack here... he's the only one at the table without a college education and really, it seems very little experience or background with college culture at all.  I've always thought of this as just one more way that Jack's Texas life makes him feel uncomfortable.

[2robots4u]

atz75...in my college days the hirearchy on my particular campus was, more or less, which was "considered" more prestitious, which means which was more popular, which meant who was in it, and finally, which was the "bitchiest"  We college men found most of them filled with stuck-up, rich girls, who wouldn't give us the time of day.  I am of the same opinion of frats, too, so ladies, please don't attack, nor men either for that matter.  That was just my school and every school was different.  Kappa Phi is definitely far above Tri Delta, hence, Lureen's acid tongue when she says "Myself, I was Kappa Phi", drawing out the "Phi" just a tad.  It's one of those moments when I (if I had been Lashawn and within distance) would have laid 5 across Lureen"s alltogether too pale cheek.  We don't really get to know much about Lashawn, but I get the impression she does not come from money, and apparently Randall did.  Any thought on that?...Doug

   

[Luvlylittlewing]

Thank you for posting this truly brilliant defense of our film.  I am blown away.  Even after 100+ viewings, a little less than half of them on the big screen, I am as obssessed with BBM as ever.  There are so many layers to this quiet miracle of a movie that I'll be studying it for a long, long time!  Your essay is going in my memory book!

[serious crayons]

Thanks, Littlewing! 

All this time, and we ain't found everything there is to find in this movie, I don't think.

[Noviani]

Latjoreme,

if ther a lawsuit for me,for luring people to watch this movie (please note i'm in Indonesia, homosexuality is a keep-it-in-your-closet-don't-get-me-involved stuff here, though south Bali has better acceptance)

i would ask you to be my defender, as to why folks should watch the movie.

[serious crayons]

Thanks, Noviani! What a nice compliment. I'm packing my suitcase. 

[isabelle]

"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".

 

As Barb (I think) said earlier in this thread: these lines just slayed me.
10 months since I first saw BBM, and the heartbreak when I see the film/read the story/come across such posts here, has still not let up.
Annie MUST have known about Vigil; now I want to read it too!

How could I miss that post about Ennis/Aeneas? Thanks for posting this, and for bumping this thread. So glad I found it!

[Sheriff Roland]

I have to bump this - I know I'll want ta read it again & the responses it brings out. Thanks Isabelle for having found it - you brought me to it, and I noticed kelda's reading it too.

But mostly thank you Katherine for your treatese in defense of BBM. I too have learned new details from your "rambling(s)", this, 11 months after my first and probably a 100 subsequent viewings.

[Kelda]

Yeah - I had never seen it before and noticed it in the latest posts list. I admit that a good few of these subtleties mentioned were lost on me.

as for the classical lit - english was never my best subject!

VG piece and a good bump as more and more people see it on HBO.

Hope to comment more profoundley later!

[isabelle]

But mostly thank you Katherine for your treatese in defense of BBM. I too have learned new details from your "rambling(s)", this, 11 months after my first and probably a 100 subsequent viewings.

Same here! I had never noticed the "wrapped bread" detail, nor the 2 cowboys at the bus station (can anyone please remind me when this scene takes place? I cannot place those 2 cowboys).
I have only seen BBM about 15 times, 5 of which at the theater. Good excuse for not having noticed everything, but good excuse too for watching it again. And again. And again...

[Sheriff Roland]

I had never noticed ... the 2 cowboys at the bus station (can anyone please remind me when this scene takes place? I cannot place those 2 cowboys).

The bus station scene is also known as the Ennis eats apple pie scene - when he last makes Cassie cry - ... remember "Ennis, girls don't fall in love with fun!"

[isabelle]

Thanks Roland! I'll check that up.

Also, do you pronounce Aeneas the same as Ennis in English?

[serious crayons]

But mostly thank you Katherine for your treatese in defense of BBM. I too have learned new details from your "rambling(s)", this, 11 months after my first and probably a 100 subsequent viewings.

And let me in turn thank everyone here (and at imdb) from whose posts most of these details were lifted, over the course of many months of intense discussion.

  everybody!

[Noviani]

Thanks, Noviani! What a nice compliment. I'm packing my suitcase. 

BTW, last week i get my 2 best buddies, and my sister to watch BBM!!!!
and to my surprise, because my sister coming to watch, My husband who has been very anti to BBM, actually sat and watched!!

though he left to the other room during reunion scene (the kissing). only to get back and ask : did Alma knew? with a curious face...

well, i don't think i am getting any new Brookies follower but hell, at least they now what i am talking about when i started my yida yida on heath, jake, or humming the guitar song.

[Lynne]

bump

[southendmd]

This definitely deserves a bump!

[serious crayons]

This definitely deserves a bump!

Thanks, Paul! I just went back and read that old email. It's been a while since I thought about all of those things. That must have been a pretty good movie, hunh?  

[Meryl]

Thanks for the bump, Paul!  And thanks, Katherine, for your insight and eloquence.  I don't know how I managed to miss this thread, but I did.  You brought up things I hadn't noticed to this day.  I love, love, love our movie! 

[Front-Ranger]

I second that, Meryl!