Brokeback Mountain!!

[FoxLocke]

Jake and Heath in the interview both said they are straight. Sorry guys.

 

I used to say I was straight too. And for a while I actually believed it.

 

Anyway, you can have Heath. I don't really care for him anyway. lol.

[novaseeker]

Alright ... time for some thread necromancy!

 

I just watched this DVD with a gay friend of mine (not a lover) and was ... very affected by it. I suppose I didn't care that much for the beginning, which I thought could have been edited (I'm a city boy, and all the business with the sheep and campfires and stuff like that isn't stuff I relate to really well), but the second half of the film ... it was very hard to watch at points, some of it was very similar to things that have happened in my own life.

 

I never had a true "boyfriend" before I was married ... I did have sex with men occasionally before I met my ex-wife, but never had a romantic relationship with one until after I was divorced. But in the course of that relationship, the same kinds of issues, almost the EXACT same issues and conversations, came up ... the conflict between having an open gay relationship, and parenting children in a divorce. It's an absolute Hobson's choice. I don't live in Wyoming or rural Texas, I live in the suburbs of Washington DC and I can tell you that many of the suburban areas that are full of straight families are not particularly tolerant of gay people in the context of typical suburban family life, so the issues are not as period-oriented and irrelevant to today's society as we may think ... I was very affected by the conflict felt by Ennis, and very, very much related to that aspect of the film and story (even though my own relationships have not mirrored at all the one portrayed in the film).

 

I thought the film glossed over what was happening in the '70s. Ennis was divorced. Why didn't he and Jake just move to San Fran? I don't think their feelings for each other were really explained or explored in depth, other than maybe Ennis was just in denial.

 

I think that this understates the level of conflict Ennis felt about leaving his daughters. He just was NOT willing to leave WY because his daughters were there and even though his drinking, his general level of unhappiness impeded him as a father nevertheless he valued being close to his kids. Hence the critical conflict in his life.

[jon 13]

heh i would love to see the movie but my mom is like homophobic or something

[FoxLocke]

My favorite scene(now I own the DVD...haha) is "The Dozy Kiss..."

 

Jack is standing up beside the fire, dozing off. Suddenly, Ennis walks up behind him, wraps his arms around his upper lower torso, and gently nuzzles his neck...

 

Afterwards Ennis gets back on his horse as Jack watches him, lovingly, trot away...

 

That scene is so sweet, innocent, romantic, and tragic all at once. I love it.

[Ians Mommy]

Me and my best friend nearly died laughing when "Ennis" was in bed with his wife and out of no where, he just flips her over.

 

I would say that my favorite line in the entire movie would have to be when "Jack" and his wife (sorry, I've seen the movie 5 times and keep forgetting her name) were in the car before they had the baby and she asked if she was going to fast for him. His reply was "Fast or slow I don't care, I just like the direction you're going."

[AwdreeHpburn]

Glad someone posted about this - I was just thinking about that.

 

I agree with Prufock - I like the idea that the movie was made a lot more than I liked the actual movie.

 

The acting was phenominal (sp?) and it was like every other love story...

 

AND the more I think about it, the more that becomes the beauty of the movie.

 

Love is love is love. You tell one story, you've told them all. But we all love to keep watching them with different characters.

[annie24]

ok, I am late to this discussion. I have been looking forward to seeing this movie for so long.... and i finally watched it tonight... and I was so disappointed!

 

I really enjoy unconventional love stories, so I was looking forward to this... but, i didn't like the movie so much at all.

 

It was very pretty, the cinematography was fabulous. I actually thought the acting wasn't so great - I thought the dialogue was kind of awkward.

 

Actually, what turned me most off was how they were telling their wives that they were off fishing and hunting, but sneaking off behind their backs. I think all of us here on enotalone would say, it doesn't matter how much you love the other person, you should leave your wife. Yeah, so it was hard for me to cheer for them while their wives were at home being lied to.

 

Raykay - i think that ennis' wife did know about ennis + jack because the very first time she met jack, she saw them making out outside her door. but I guess to keep the family together, she decided to try to pretend it wasn't happening, but could only keep up the act for so long.

 

ok, that was just my take on the movie. I definitely hope more gay romance movies come out, I just wasn't too thrilled with this one.

[fredv3b]

Just my tuppence worth

 

I think annie24 kind of hit the nail on the head as to why so many people were disappointed with the film.

 

I really enjoy unconventional love stories, so I was looking forward to this... but, i didn't like the movie so much at all.

 

I think the issue is that so many people were hoping to see a gay romance (either because they would like to see a love story they can more easily relate to or because they would like to see a gay romance crossing over to the mainstream) when it isn't. I think in essense it is tragedy, true tragedy. I think that they both loved each other and knew that in their hearts even if they couldn't say the words, just look how long it took them to kiss the first time they saw each other again, after their time on Brokeback Mountain. Even though the film never mentioned it (a pity) towards the end they could not have been completely unaware of how things were changing in San Francisco, etc. The point is that Ennis, at least, was so rooted in in the life of a ranch hand 'somewhere in rural America' that he could not have left it to go anywhere with anyone least of all a gay lover. It was a romance doomed from the outset, it was in the nature of the characters that no other outcome was possible. (Which was why I liked it because I love tragedy even though it depresses me).

 

P.S. I have never read the book, and I don't think you should ever really comment on a film that used to be a book until you have read the book

 

P.P.S. MetroGirl, you said you felt lied to by the actors. What is an actor but someone who lies, on the writters/directors command, for art/fame/money?

[AzureSkyes69]

My favorite scene(now I own the DVD...haha) is "The Dozy Kiss..."

 

Jack is standing up beside the fire, dozing off. Suddenly, Ennis walks up behind him, wraps his arms around his upper lower torso, and gently nuzzles his neck...

 

Afterwards Ennis gets back on his horse as Jack watches him, lovingly, trot away...

 

That scene is so sweet, innocent, romantic, and tragic all at once. I love it.

 

I agree fully,It was very romantic,I live for mush like that and I think most if not all of us want scenes like that in owr own *real* life.

 

As for the movie it touched me I felt very badly for Michelle Williams character and like FoxLocke had mentioned about loving someone and them not to be able to love you back the same way fully(I have been there myself in her position) that broke my heart.

 

There were so many touching scenes that really got me,but what was the most difficult was seening how these two human beings (I am not going to say gay,straight or otherwise) loved eachother and couldn't truly be together.and the end part where Ennis keeps his shirt..that tore me up I was sobbing like a baby... and I'm not afraid to admit that

[mgirl]

Well, i am like annie24, i have finally got around to seeing this movie almost a year later!

 

I thought it was over-rated. The acting was good as with any blockbuster Hollywood movie, but the story was unbelievable to me.

 

Whilst i think it is great that authors and film directors are dealing with this issue, i did not find the chemistry and strength of bond between the two main characters believable. It was not established enough for me to believe that an lifelong relationship could be endured from a stint together on a mountain, and from something that essentially started off as a one-night-stand between a horny straight guy and a closeted gay guy.

 

The only thing that i really enjoyed about the movie was the way it dealt with the theme of masculinity, which is more of a cultural statement of the place and time the story was set it and sometimes has little to do with sexuality. I did appreciate the last 35 minutes of it though:

 

• choice (should i follow my heart? or play it safe?) and the wasted life
  
• the prejudice against anyone that was not a 'real man'
  
• death and the subsequent isolation that can be experienced by a spouse

Whether or not the director intended on portraying the deadful lonliness and isolation associated with being gay is not clear to me, but that's what i got from it in the end. It is tragic that the characters did not follow their hearts/dreams and it is tragic that it ended so abruptly for them. So, the film highlighted for me the tragedy in many ways of being gay.

 

So, yeah, great choice for doing a movie, but i like more cutting edge stuff that deals with contemporary gay issues and that is a little bit sordid in nature, because that is what gay life is about now. Predominately.

[Rizby]

I must have watched BBM five times, and cried finally on the fifth time as the movie's tragic universal love story finally hits home hard. Initially I had been drawn into the movie by it being the first true gay romance, and the visual imagery of the movie's stunning setting. Of course the romantic interplay between the protaganists Jack and Ennis and the ensuing sensual kissing scenes drew me into the sexuality of the production. Strangely, as I watched it critically for the fifth time, the universal love theme of the film envelops me and I watched the closing scene with tears in my eyes. The movie expounds the notion of love between two people and that these two people just happen to be men. One cannot watch BBM and not be moved or affected by it in some profound way and this applies to straight male viewers. One confided in me that despite some preconception he was shocked at how good it actually was and planned on seeing it again!'

 

 

The touching scene where Ennis and Jack part ways at the culmination of their summer at Brokeback mountain reaches deep within my core as it profoundly epitomizes my struggle for my identity and place in society. As a gay man I strongly related to Del Mar's wracking grief as he convulses in uncontrolled sobs, sandwhiched between two solid unyielding brick walls (metaphorically reminiscent of society's rigidity closing in later on his life) as he drops his belongings and keels over weeping. He punches the wall in vain, in an attempt to deflect and assail his feelings of non-acceptance and his own self loathing, and at his own indifference at letting his one love slip through his fingers and himself walking away as if he didn't care.

Interestingly enough, before I watched the movie, I was sure Gyllenhaal would be my screen favourite with his gorgeous hunky physique, mesmerizing clear blue eyes, and that engaging sexy grin. However, Heath Ledger's superlative, unbelievable performance utterly and completely blew me away. It was such an honest portrayal of a repressed gay man coming to terms with his inner struggles and his confrontation with societal norms that reaches out to all of us. Ledger expresses this fluidly with subtle nuances in eye movement, awkward shy glances and mumbled speech. We really feel his great pain and sorrow and his unrelenting fear at being found out. In the end I felt so much more attracted to Ledger's tragic character than that of Gyllenhaal's and we realize that this is much more Ledger's movie than anything else. Heath Ledger should have won that OSCAR, moreover so with that amazing passionate kiss (the best Hollywood has ever seen in 30 years of cinematography) when he embraces Jack again after a four year hiatus.

 

 

It was so poignantly dismal to watch a much older, shattered Ennis discover his missing shirt from the fight that summer in Jack's old room (after Jack's untimely death) in which Jack had lovingly enshrouded his bloodied shirt over Ennis's and more poignantly so to see during the closing scene that Ennis had carefully reversed the order and had placed his shirt over Jacks symbolic of an eternal, everlasting embrace.

 

 

I know that I'll be watching BBM for many more times to come, and each time I know the movie will touch me differently expressing itself on many levels. I just had hoped that there had been more tactile tenderness in the movie, more touching romance, more cuddles.

What does "I swear, Jack" meant at the end when he touches the picture and looks at the shirts again...what could he have meant? " Jack I swear that I'll scatter your ashes over Brokeback Mountain as you wished"....or "I swear Jack that I'll never forget you" or "I swear Jack, why did you love me so and make me like this".....

 

 

Whatever the answer is, it would be as ambiguous and as mystical as the movie is meant to be....and that whatever it is one should remain true to oneself and to that quest to find one's undying, everlasting true love.....

 

Yeah and my favourite scene is the one with that flashback insert depicting Ennis lovingly cuddling Jack by the fire and mumbling....what? Can someone tell me what he was saying? Something abt mothers and lullaby....Anyway, his play of expressions were a classic....and very tender. A great touch by Ang Lee.