I thought that I’d finally respond to this thread. (I read it all earlier.)
1st: read the short story, got a bit misty at the ending.
The first time I saw it (in theater), I cried ridiculously for the last 20 minutes, at least.
2nd time: Movie projected onto big screen at school, I didn’t cry at all. I knew it was sad, and yet, I didn’t do anything more than mist up.
I now have the DVD, and I haven’t really watched it yet, although I’ve had it since Tuesday.
Also, I think that Jack really was beaten to death. I mean, tires don’t just blow up on their own, right? I interpreted it that way because Ennis interpreted it that way.
I think aside from the two shirts/postcard scene at the end, my favorite part was his acceptance of the invitation to his daughter’s wedding, and the careful care of her sweater. I just felt so happy for him, that he was able to mature emotionally like that.
Screenwriters Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossama say they are asked about Jack’s death all the time, and they are adament that Jack’s death is ambiguous; there is no “right” answer. McMurtry in fact said that, after all, accidents like that do happen. And much of Ennis’s character is about how his boyhood experience of seeing the fatal results of a gay bashing has colored his outlook on life. He could be projecting his own fears.
Of course, if I were Ennis, I’d be sending for a copy of Jack’s death certificate to allay my suspicions. The two different causes of death would leave two very different sets of wounds that any medical examiner could tell apart.
Unless the local medical examiner was accustomed to these sorts of “accidents” and signed off on it. Then they cremated him. It’s not like CSI: Montana would get involved.
I just now finished watching it again on DVD. Still hurts.
The video reminds me of a two-step night at Hoedowns (a gay country/western bar in Atlanta). An interesting thing there is that (and I haven’t been since long before Brokeback was a daily news term) you can tell the queers who go because they think it’d be cool to wear cowboy hats and western shirts for the night and the ones who are there because they really are NASCAR followin’ deer huntin’ dyed in the angora rednecks who also happen to be gay.
This line from the song though I must admit freaks me out a bit:
I know (or at least I assume) they’re using the word in the “brotherhood of cowboys*”, but as a gay guy who has a brother who looks like Bill Clinton and sounds like Randy Travis and is so straight he owns 3 SUVs and wears a college class ring with a holographic eagle in it I just go “ewwwww” whenever the line from the chorus comes up.
Except maybe for a medical examiner who happened to be human and therefore fallible, and also invested in the status quo. A medical examiner as a stand-in for what’s wrong with the “system,” in a work of fiction, say.
I’d say your idea of what a medical examiner would or wouldn’t ignore is about an ideal, perfect medical examiner. Needless to say, though doubtless some medical examiners are ideal and perfect, there must be one or two, somewhere, who are not.
Few movies inspire such anger in me that this movie did. Its not that I didn’t like the subject matter, its that it inspired such an overwhelming feeling of disgust for such a stupid movie that it left me wishing I had not wasted $4 or the 2+ hours of my life.
Before my post gets completely disregarded as that of an idiotic Vin Diesel fan, anyone that has been to Disney World on Gay Day knows that the stereotype of gay men as “mincing, catty, stylish, and fashion-focused” as Hentor the Barbarian said, is incorrect. Not to mention that one of the feature arguments of the religious right against the homosexual lifestyle is related to its perceived inability to stand up to the moral code and superiority of a heterosexual relationship. For that, this film does nothing but dig the hole deeper.
First, the film does little to establish or portray the gay relationship as anything more than a primal urge for sex. I’ve seen better relationship introductions in soft porn and better displays of loving tenderness in teenage love stories. I was not impressed. Sure there were moments of pain, intensity of passion and insecurity that I could relate to but overall the relationship was portrayed as primarily a sexual affair devoid of everything that truly represents love.
Second, the betrayal and adultery committed against the wives leaves little room to improve the perceived idea that gays are morally inferior. It perpetuates the idea that being homosexual is a kin to committing to a starter drug that leads to further moral offenses; that homosexuality is the result of emotional need.
Third the relationship portrayed with the children does little to aid the cause of showing homosexuals are capable of being there emotionally and physically for their children. Not to mention than Ennis only begins to reach out to his daughter once Jack is gone; that the immorality that comes with being homosexual can be cured by removing the cause.
While I understand the movie is supposed to portray a love that can never be, rather than accept their decision and stand like men, the two hide behind a veil of deceit and in turn hurt everyone around them. I’m not saying they should hide who they are and I understand it must have caused a lot of pain to do so, but to make a decision and then to proceed to cause pain to everyone else around you because you want to be someone else is no excuse and I can not imagine this movie improving the view of homosexuals in the eyes of the religious right; particularly at a time when a homosexual’s ability to parent is coming into question.
I want to respond to this in more depth but my shift ends in two minutes so I don’t have time right now, so until later I just want to ask if you’re sure you saw the same movie everyone else did. Your perceptions of this film are so radically different from that of anyone else I’ve ever heard speak or write of it that I have to wonder if you stumbled into an entirely different movie.
It’s not the job of this film to serve as an answer to the dribbling inanities of religious freaks. There’s nothing that any film, book, play or interpretive dance could do to answer them. If the Lord God Himself appeared before the vast majority of them and told them flat to their faces that they were 100% wrong about homosexuality they’d ignore it, so I can’t concern myself too greatly with what the fanatics think or in fact if the fanatics think.
Except for Ennis being so emotionally wrought up about parting from Jack that he vomits in an alley. And the overwhelming joy and affection both men feel when they reunite after four years, not the sort of reaction one generally has to a long-ago trick. And the jealousy and anger Ennis feels when he realizes Jack’s been with other men (an anger and jealousy he doesn’t appear to feel about Jack’s having sex with his wife). And “Jack, I swear…” And the devastation Ennis feels when he learns of Jack’s death. And the intertwining of the shirts. But you’re right, beyond that the relationship is clearly about nothing but sex.
Again, it’s not the job of this movie to assert the moral superiority or even equivalency of of homosexuality to heterosexuality. I find this to be an extremely superficial criticism.
Ennis is emotionally shut down with everyone. Jack is probably the first person in his life that he’s ever been able to open up to emotionally, and his inability to be more open with Jack leads to tragedy and loss. It is this loss which serves as the catalyst for his being more emotionally open with his daughter.
Aaaand, their feeling the need to hide behind that veil of deceit, causing pain to themselves and everyone around them, is why the movie is a tragedy.
And again, the religious idiots can go hug a rope.
Ennis’s breakdown in the alley after saying goodbye to Jack- that scene alone negates this interpretation for me. He was not retching and wailing because he missed his trick- he’s about to get married so there’s going to be sex- but because he’s left the only person he’s ever deeply loved and has to be macho about it. The scene where the two reunite for the first time- it’s an explosion of love as well as of lust that causes the kiss. The “horses sleep standing up” scene was to me the most powerful scene in the movie because it could not have been less about the need for sex.
I disagree, and I fear that there will be an attack party circling here soon.
Well, I’m a straight female but personally, I thought that there was more chemistry between the two of them than anyone else in any other movie I’ve seen recently. I couldn’t sense any sort of awkwardness between Heath and Jake at all. That kiss in the stairwell was…wow…just wow.
And I agree with all the above posters who suggest watching it a second time. It just becomes even more poignant after the first viewing, after the full impact has sunk in.
Otto, I can certainly agree that religious nuts are going to be nuts regardless of a movie, but people had placed hope that this film would help break down stereotypes - and imho, it doesn’t come close.
Personally, I do not believe the movie would have gotten the attention it did had one of them been a woman.
Perhaps I should have taken the advice twickster gave Skammer on page 2, because I’m certain that cheating and lies is 80% of what did the movie in for me, similar to the effect I had with American Beauty. Obviously the movie isn’t for everyone, but the love scenes didn’t do it for me. The kissing scene was just blah! - not that I’m not one to be squimish around guys kissing, but it was violent and devoid of tenderness. I need more than sex and an intertwined shirt, because passion does not equal love.
Sampiro, I’m not calling for an attack party here. I just really, REALLY didn’t like the movie. It’s a matter of opinion and it’s my opinion that it did nothing that some had hoped it would do to portray gays in a better light. That’s my opinion and I’m sticking to it.
Most of them are pretty much “by the book” making of documentaries. A straight guy that was watching the dvd with me did spot a rather big continuity error in the movie.
In scene 17, where they are saying goodbye for the last time, in November, Jack doesn’t have a mustache for most of the scene, except for the parting glance, where it reappears for several seconds.
What would you prefer, a politically correct revisionist history? From now on, all movies about Black slavery in the US should portray Blacks as Harvard educated rocket scientists, just so no ignorant people can claim Blacks are stupid.
If anyone who hasn’t seen the movie had made it to page 6 without figuring out they might see spoilers, that’s unfortunate.
The shots of Jack without his mustache are a flashback to their first summer together on Brokeback. Note that Ennis gets on a horse and rifes off, then we switch back to the present and Jack is watching Ennis drive away in the pickup with the horse trailer.
Also, that’s not taking place in November. It’s earlier in the year and Ennis has told Jack that he can’t return until November.
It’s not the responsibility of the movie to break down stereotypes and getting angry at the movie for failing to live up to an expectation that should never have been placed on it to begin with is unreasonable and unfair.
Of course not, because we’ve seen the story a million times before with a woman.
Are you talking about the very first time they have sex in the tent, or are you talking about when they’re back together outside Ennis’s place over the laundromat? Because if it’s the former, I agree that it’s not super-duper romantic, but it shouldn’t have been at that point in the story. If you mean the latter then I’m sorry, you’re just flat wrong. You’re completely misreading the scene.
gooftroopag’s post inspired me to go out and buy the DVD after work. I’d been resisting because my birthday is in ten days and I’m guessing that I’ll get at least one copy of the DVD. But I saved my receipt (on which the DVD is hilariously identified as “BROKEBACK MO”) so if I do get a copy I can return it. Now, I supposedly bought the widescreen version but there’s no letterboxing. I have a regular old square-screen set so I was expecting letterboxing. Anyone else who’s seen the widescreen DVD, is it letterboxed? I’m wondering if I somehow got a full screen packaged in a widescreen case by mistake. Not that this is the only reason for wanting widescreen, but in the scene where Ennis and Jack jump off the cliff into the lake, Jack drifts out of frame on the way down. I don’t remember if he drifted similarly in the theatre. It just seems like an oddly framed shot.
I haven’t unwrapped my DVD yet, but I couldn’t help being amused by the note on the back wrapper that says “disc made in Mexico.” It reminds me of Jack.
Otto, your comments inspired me to take a second look at the movie. Partially because I couldn’t believe I’d have such a fierce reaction to a romance movie and partially because I feared I’d missed something.
While I still am no fan of the movie, but I can at least recognize my initial problem is more related to the expectation placed on the movie by some reviewers that the movie would/could help change homosexual stereotypes rather than simply portraying a love tragedy. I still don’t get the majority of their relationship and rarely see any connection between Jack and Ennis.
I can, however, give you the connection in the sleeping horse scene and that it is one of the sweetest moments of the movie. Unfortunately, that affection doesn’t seem to carry over into the rest of the movie which seems to be more sexual, particularly the laundromat scene which seems to me like unbridled lust. Of course, that’s my opinion, and I obviously read intimacy differently, but having watched it a second time I would no longer rank it as the worst movie ever which is a toss up between the Music Man and Bean.