Author Topic: Brokeback's filmic structure a palindrome ?  (Read 52042 times)

Offline Sason

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Re: Brokeback's filmic structure a palindrome ?
« Reply #50 on: August 22, 2016, 10:42:32 am »
I'm glad you brought attention to this thread again, Sonja! I just re-read it and loved the feeling of being back on the mountain.

That old, cold time on the mountain, when they owned the world and nothing seemed wrong.

You're welcome, Priestess!

Yeah, I miss those intense feelings from early on, too.

Düva pööp is a förce of natüre

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: Brokeback's filmic structure a palindrome ?
« Reply #51 on: February 02, 2020, 11:28:32 am »
Bumping this for Palindrome Day!
"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline serious crayons

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Re: Brokeback's filmic structure a palindrome ?
« Reply #52 on: February 02, 2020, 12:54:58 pm »
Speaking of palindromes, forgive me if I've already mentioned this, but a week or so ago Clarissa messaged me on FB that a public book club in Seattle read Brokeback Mountain and in February participants will be going to see the movie together and then discuss both as a group. She invited me to attend and stay at her house. Unfortunately I can't make it, I said, but ...

Quote
How fun would it be to sit in the book-club discussion saying things like "Obviously the kettle and coffee pot are a metaphor for Jack and Ennis" and "I'm sure everybody noticed how Jack is always associated with wind" and "It's obvious what the bear represents, right?" and "It was interesting that Ennis says, specifically, 'the people on the pavement' and earlier he'd had a discussion while spreading pavement with a guy who says 'broke my back' figuratively and Ennis then gazes off wistfully into the distance," and "Of course, that's also connected to the fact that the entire movie as an inkblot structure, as most of you probably noticed, with the center point when Ennis is seen in a mirror image getting his toothbrush at the exact midpoint of the film, and from then on everything that happens mirrors something that happened in the scenes going back from that moment all the way to the very beginning and the very end."

And then we could add, "This movie was really good! I'd see it a second time!"




Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: Brokeback's filmic structure a palindrome ?
« Reply #53 on: February 04, 2020, 11:50:19 am »
Love the quote! I can imagine the people in the book club just staring at the speaker with their jaws dropped!
"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline serious crayons

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Re: Brokeback's filmic structure a palindrome ?
« Reply #54 on: February 05, 2020, 12:11:54 am »
Love the quote! I can imagine the people in the book club just staring at the speaker with their jaws dropped!

Thanks! Wouldn't that be fun? I feel like all of us here have basically earned a master's if not a PhD in Brokebackology. And yet, what can we do with it?

Unfortunately I don't think teaching is an option, as few college literature or film departments offer a degree for Brokebackologists -- even adjunct wouldn't really be available. (Though I will say that when my son, several years ago, took media arts and culture classes in college, he for the first time asked to watch my DVD of BBM.)

When I describe my love for the literary aspects of BBM, my son insists that all the coffee pot/wind/bear/inkblot etc. things are present  in most acclaimed arty films.

If that's true, they probably aren't as engaging as BBM in other ways. But I would also question whether the metaphor/symbolism/subtext stuff -- even if they do indeed have some -- is as complex and granular.

Lee, when you bumped this thread I went back and read its beginning -- maybe you did, too -- and it was fun to admire the lofty level of discussion back then.

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: Brokeback's filmic structure a palindrome ?
« Reply #55 on: February 05, 2020, 01:52:29 pm »

When I describe my love for the literary aspects of BBM, my son insists that all the coffee pot/wind/bear/inkblot etc. things are present  in most acclaimed arty films.
Oh? Did he give you some examples? Studying BBM has made me aware of some filmic symbology, but nothing quite as complex and interwoven as our favorite film.
I would also question whether the metaphor/symbolism/subtext stuff -- even if they do indeed have some -- is as complex and granular.
I get the complex part, but what do you mean by the granular? I can hear Ennis saying "the whu..?"
"chewing gum and duct tape"