Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Harmonia (A) on February 09, 2006 at 18:50:49

In Reply to: Is Brokeback Mountain about being gay? posted by dave c on February 7, 2006 at 15:35:15:

...you're mostly right.

It's tragic how emotional repression blights not just Ennis and Jack but the lives of those around them. The harvest of emotional disconnect is sadness and loss.

But I can't help feel that the very nature of Jack's & Ennis' forbidden passion feeds the repression even more intensely, in unique ways, and that this bitterness is both more poignant and more tragic than a "straight" version might be. (It don't get much more forbidden in them parts than homosexual love.) Certainly I agree the lessons to be learned apply to all relationships - gay, straight or whatever. That's the movie's triumph.

As you say, Ledger is quite good in a difficult role. Ennis is so emotionally crippled, so "strong & silent" that he barely speaks, barely smiles, barely even opens his mouth, yet you feel his desperation and loneliness. He's a man cut off from his own soul. (Yes, Ennis' relative poverty is an outward manifestation of this emotional stuntedness.) Gyllenhaal as Jack is more self-aware and openin his emotions - check out the wordless way he sizes Ennis in the very first scene - he undresses him with his eyes. But that openess also makes Jack more vulnerable.

BTW, when I saw BBM I hadn't read the story in years. I didn't remember the scene you mentioned where Jack asserts himself over his father in law by controlling the TV. I thought I was losing more little grey cells than normal. I was relieved to find out that scene wasn't in the original story but a new scene written by McMurtry (and very telling it is too).

BTW, other folks agree with us...I assume you missed the discussion below. Check out the excellent article in the link.

• Brokeback Mountain Article/NY Review of Books   (Open in New Window)