You may remember that when I first saw BBM, later than most of you, on Feb 9, I was, not exactly disappointed, but a little underwhelmed. Yet, somehow I still believed in its greatness in principle.
BBM is closing at cinemas here in New Zealand, and there are no more evening screenings. So to catch it before it left the big screen altogether, I went alone (feeling like I was cheating on my man) to an afternoon screening at a boutique cinema in Petone, converted from a working men's hall. I was in the centre 2-person couch of 15. I'd paid the seniors' price of $NZ13 ($US7.80) a saving of $2. The only other person there was a Little Old Lady who sat far to the side.
Whatever I missed the first time, I certainly experienced this time: I cried much of the way through it, including when Alma saw them kissing. The familiar lines were like old friends. Almost every frame is a magnificent composition, and some (CGI aside), you wonder how Ang Lee got the weather to do his bidding.
Some new (to me) insights:
- Yes, the three telegraph poles near the beginning do look like crosses.
- Ennis isn't really all that bright.
- Jack is thoughtless at best to take Ennis' shirt when he has so little. He really needed it.
- Randy Quaid has a total of 28 lines of speech. At his asking price, that's $357,142.85 per line.
- Alma didn't need to put the note in the creel. She knew.
- Lureen's hesitation before she says "the rim of the tire" is brilliant. She knows.
- The theme "ti- do- ra- fa-- me--- ti---" (the one they, ironically, played again and again at the Oscars) seemed to come just before each significant event in the relationship. It was particularly poignant fully orchestrated just before the final shirt scene.
- The theme "fa-me----" as a guitar glissando seems to be a musical "uh-oh" when something's going wrong.
- Mrs Twist is one of the classic cameos of all time.
Some queries:
- They were issued with horses for the mustering, but how did they come by them on the later trips, and what did they need them for when they had trucks? Did they hire them, and the sort of open-air float thing they moved them in? Wouldn't that cost a bit? Couldn't they have just tramped for a day from the roadhead?
- Does anyone know what the round things were on the top shelf of the little wall shelf in Jack's bedroom? They looked like carved rocks. Below was what looked like an early plastic soap-container on a box for, perhaps, bullets.
I was pleasantly brought back to reality when Pierre's name went up in the credits. "Oh yes, our friend."
The LOL said "That was a really sad movie, wasn't it?" I said "I think it's a classic."
Coming out, I felt like I'd been kicked in the chest, heartsick.
I don't think we need to worry about the Oscars. Future generations will acknowledge BBM as one of the great art works of our epoch.
