Brokeback Mountain

[winter]

I know it's late, but in this backwater, Brokeback Mountain just premiered yesterday.

I think this movie can be summed up by three sentences: Wyoming is pretty. Jack is pretty. Ennis is dumb.

I can't point to any particular scenes or points that clenched it for me, but I liked it. There's a timelessness to it that makes it a story of star-crossed lovers, period, not particularly tied to any period of time or space except maybe the macho mythos of men-don't-cry and extrapolating from that, men-don't-have-any-emotions-except-anger (see: Men Are Dumb). It felt soft and quiet and real, and I walked out of the cinema with a sad smile.

(Also: this is the director of Hulk and the star of A Knight's Tale. Just for the transformations, Oscars for both of them, please :>)

In other news: a very happy belated birthday to kiraboshi - sorry luv, completely slipped my mind :S

Comments

[merentha.livejournal.com]

Actually, both Jack and Ennis were dumb. Since Ennis wasn't exactly like a respected member of his society, he had nothing to lose by running away with Jack after his divorce. I don't see the point of his angst. On the other hand, Jack was dumb to suggest Texas or New Mexico as potential destinations. My friend and I were going, "Excuse me, ever heard of San Francisco?"

Anyhow, I suppose I'm in the very minority of people who are not rightwing, conservative, religious, homophobic nutcases but just happen to find this movie terrible.

[winter]

That, and the fact Jack's parents weren't exactly the pitchfork kind. The one bit I liked was the "so you're Ennis... now why did we have to wait 20 years to meet you?" scene. But the one serious issue was the custody of the kids, though after he knew Alma knew anyway, he could have put two and two together and see she wouldn't keep the girls away from him.

I liked the beginning and the ending much more than I liked the middle, I guess. Though I appreciated Heath's portrayal of a Typical Male Emotional Cripple.

[merentha.livejournal.com]

I don't think custody was an issue, or if it was then the movie failed to convey that totally.

I see Ennis as the type of character who refuses to take responsibility for his life. He takes the easy route of avoidance instead of facing his commitments. Wife not happy? Fine, divorce. Daughter wants to move in? Make up some excuse about being away most of thet ime. Barslut interested in him? Stay non-committal until she finds somebody else. Throughout the movie, he kept repeating the same excuse that he's needed at some ranch and he can't move out to town (he was kinda railroaded into the decision by his wife)/run away with Jack/meet Jack more often etc. The final scene with his daughter was supposed to show that he's changed. Ennis was about to use the same excuse to avoid attending his daughter's wedding when he suddenly decided that his daughter was important.

I don't begrudge the message; I begrudge the tormentous boredom I had to sit through to get there.

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

Oh, Alma might well have kept the girls from him if his "perverted" sexuality became a matter of public knowledge. The social pressures she would have been facing if she hadn't would have seen to that.

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

Since Ennis wasn't exactly like a respected member of his society, he had nothing to lose by running away with Jack after his divorce.

Run away to where?

Ennis has a grade-school education, no skills apart from stock handling, and has never been anywhere outside of Wyoming. To him, the whole world IS Wyoming. He simply doesn't believe the situation would be different anywhere else he might go. And to him, a town of 10,000 people is "the big city". He'd be as psychologically capable of moving to San Francisco or New York City as you or I would be of emigrating to Uzbekistan.

(I think that's one of the functions of those gorgeous wide-screen views of the countryside Ang Lee keeps showing the viewers; they serve as a sad contrast to the constricted horizons of the characters' lives.)

On the other hand, Jack was dumb to suggest Texas or New Mexico as potential destinations. My friend and I were going, "Excuse me, ever heard of San Francisco?"

No, he hadn't. For one thing, at the time most of the film was supposedly taking place, SF wasn't yet known as a gay Mecca - that was New York City. More importantly, what Jack would know about gay life in such places would be sketchy - people in his part of the country prior to the 1980s simply didn't talk about homosexuality, period - and unappealing. He wouldn't be hearing rumors of certain big cities being places where he could live openly with his male love; he'd be hearing them described as places where he could engage in semi-clandestine sexual encounters with lots of other men without too much risk of arrest. Not exactly the sort of thing Jack was looking for.

An enormous sea change has taken place in the United States over approximately the last 15-20 years with regards to homosexuality (largely because of the forcible 'outing " of the gay community as a result of the AIDS epidemic). Unfortunately for Jack and Ennis, their story ends just before those changes in attitude begin to take place.

[merentha.livejournal.com]

Run away to where?

Well, Jack did suggest that scary ranch run by his old pop. According to the Jack's parents, Jack even brought his new boyfriend down once. While I don't see that new guy (well-dressed and all) dirtying his hands at the ranch, Ennis should have felt right at home.

For one thing, at the time most of the film was supposedly taking place, SF wasn't yet known as a gay Mecca - that was New York City.

A gay counterculture in SF was already beginning to emerge in the 1950s. Even if it wasn't quite the gay mecca in 1963, where the story of BBM begins, it was already there in the 70s where the bulk of the story after Ennis' divorce took place. Gays were likely more tolerated (though not necessarily accepted) prior to the discovery of AIDS. In fact, AIDS fanned the flames of homophobia because of the public's misconception that AIDS is a gay disease.

Anyhow, Jack isn't a simple country hick like Ennis. He meets people, including other gay "cowboys", and from what we've seen, he isn't totally ignorant of gay culture.

[ithilwen.livejournal.com]

Well, Jack did suggest that scary ranch run by his old pop.

Yes, and if Jack and Ennis had been very careful to stay closeted when in public, I'm sure the ranch would have worked. The locals, after all, had known Jack as a child,a nd they would have followed a "don't ask, don't tell" approach. But after his childhood experience of seeing the body of that old rancher who was lynched, there's no way Ennis would have believed that. (The sad thing, of course, is that he never stops to question whether that dead rancher would have accounted the happy years with is lover worth the gruesome death he met - and in the end, staying closeted didn't work. He still lost Jack.)

A gay counterculture in SF was already beginning to emerge in the 1950s. Even if it wasn't quite the gay mecca in 1963, where the story of BBM begins, it was already there in the 70s where the bulk of the story after Ennis' divorce took place.

Yes, but the news the wider society got about gay culture was coming primarily out of New York - the Stonewall riots, the first cases of AIDS, etc. Awareness of SF gay culture is a bit slower in coming to the middle of the country.

Gays were likely more tolerated (though not necessarily accepted) prior to the discovery of AIDS. In fact, AIDS fanned the flames of homophobia because of the public's misconception that AIDS is a gay disease.

Initially, it caused homophobia to flare - but that also forced ordinary people to really see the true ugliness of it. It's much like what happened in the early 1960s in the civil rights movement - seeing sheriffs siccing dogs on nonviolent black protesters and watching white adults hurl objects and vile epitaphs at little black schoolchildren forced a lot of 'soft' bigots to come to grips with the reality of what racism truly is. And the AIDS epidemic forced straights (especially in areas away from the large coastal cities, where gays will still quite thoroughly closeted) to really see how many gays there actually are and how normal they are. With so many 'nice,' well-known people dying from the disease, straights could no longer pretend homosexuality was a rare condition, or that gays were just perverts or freaks. It turned out that mostly, gays were just your neighbors. Straights coming to see gays as something other than weird drag queens was a crucial advance in the long-term.

Anyhow, Jack isn't a simple country hick like Ennis. He meets people, including other gay "cowboys", and from what we've seen, he isn't totally ignorant of gay culture.

I suspect that if Jack hadn't died, he would have broken up with Ennis and tried to find happiness with someone else (either that other fellow he was seeing, or another man). I could see him either back at his folks' ranch with his new partner or moving to the big city - he just couldn't do either with Ennis, the person he really wanted to be with.