I just did a search of this thread for the word “homophobic” and only found one instance of it, besides yours.
That one other instance of the word was in reference to some “real” Wyoming cowboys whose reaction to the film’s existence ranged from “disgust to amusement.”
Just how much dismissing as homophobic to you think is going on in this thread?
I was just going to ask the same thing. I don’t remember reading a single accusation anywhere on the board that anyone who doesn’t like Brokeback Mountain is a homophobe. My assumption is pretty much that homophobes won’t see it at all.
There’s no accounting for taste.
Ennis and Jack had this weird, intense but brief fling, then didn’t see each other for 4 years. I’m sure they both thought it was a fluke, an aberration, hence the, “I’m not queer/Me neither” aspect of things. I’m also pretty sure that Ennis, at least, thought it would never happen again. He didn’t marry Alma believing their marriage wouldn’t work out. He had very limited tools for dealing with an emotional crisis the magnitude of Jack Twist in his marriage. That seems rather apparent to me. I felt very sorry for both of them.
You do realize this movie takes place in the 1960s and 70s in Wyoming, a state where Matthew Shepard was tortured to death for being gay pretty recently? Ennis should go get therapy? Really a ridiculous thing to say and a specious criticism even in jest. Ennis most definitely could have profited from some help, but if he was the kind of guy who could go to a therapist, he wouldn’t need therapy in the first place.
There I can’t help you. I saw it. Ennis, in the rest of his life, was a silent, closed off man. He told Jack that he spoke more words to him that one night than he had in the entire year previous. He He tried to be “normal,” to be a husband and father, but he didn’t have it and he didn’t know he didn’t have it until he failed at it. seemed like a man who was mostly without words or connection, except with Jack. To me, that’s tragic, because there’s just nothing for it.
No accounting for taste. I thought it was worth taking the time to tell.
Ruby, well said. Would you like to go see a movie with me? I have one in mind…
I agree. Unfortunately, you ain’t it. Your straining criticisms suggest that you love you some Vin Diesel.
Do tell? I love me a good movie and I am not often as satisfied with them as I was this time.
I had read “Brokeback Mountain” several years ago when I first heard about it. I don’t normally like Annie Proulx, but this was a story that told itself. I looked forward to the movie adaptation with great hope, and though at first I was skeptical of the casting, I think the entire project came off as perfectly as it possibly could have. I am rarely impressed with Hollywood movies, but I could not find a flaw in this one. Truly the best movie of the year and deserving of whatever accolades it receives and then some.
Got to see it tonight. Finally.
Man, what a punch in the gut. Actually, a punch in the gut would be merciful. This movie rips your heart out, slowly stomps on it for about half and hour, puts it back, pats it gently and says “there, how’s that feel?”
I was doing ok until the very last line when Ennis said: Jack, I swear. and that was it.
I’m done for the day.
I finally went to see this today (Thursday afternoon 2:00 and the theater was still half full). It was all the great things that everyone has mentioned already - beautiful, heartbreaking, passionate - but…
There is a long tradition in movies, which has kind of gone away in the last 20 years or so, that gay or lesbian characters in mainstream movies always had to die before the end. They talk a lot about that trend in the book “The Celluloid Closet”.
I know this isn’t the same sort of thing at all, and I understand how well integrated this was into the story, but one of the thoughts tumbling around in my head while walking to the BART station to go home, was this:
“Great, finally a real love story between two believable men, and one of them has to die at the end.”
It’s not that it spoiled the movie for me, in fact it was essential to the story, but I couldn’t help feeling that the last thing I need, after growing up closeted gay in the 50’s and 60’s, was another gay man dying in a movie just because he was gay (I’m on that side of the fence in the “was it an accident or murder” question).
Nevertheless, this is a movie that will stay with me a long time. Damn it.
Director Ang Lee said on the Charlie Rose show that Lurleen was lying when she told Ennis that Jack died in a roadside accident. My own theory is that Lurleen’s father hired thugs to beat Jack after he left Lurleen, and they killed him. Lurleen is left with the double dilemma of suspecting her husband left her for another man, and suspecting her father was behind the killing. The pauses in her terse conversation with Ennis, and the rigid mask of her face, say more than her words.
To quote The Dude, “That’s fucking interesting, man…that’s fucking interesting.”
I’d never considered that.
I went with my wife to see this film yesterday; we were both looking forward to it after the raves we’d seen.
While we agreed it was beautifully shot and the characters had an earthy realism, we were disappointed by the slow pacing and the thinness of the root story (when the end credits noted that the movie was based on a short story, neither of us were surprised).
To be more specific, we each thought several sub-plots could have been edited wholesale, e.g. Cassie’s relationship with Ennis was completely redundant, and in fact the tension exibited between her and Alma Jr. was a distraction never fully explored. In another example, repeated demostrations of Ennis’ frustration with his situation also seemed wearing: By the time Ennis gets into the fight with the driver of the pickup he stepped in front of, we had gotten the message. Things like this made the movie drag in spots. The ending made up for much of this: The unspoken acknowledgement of the situation between Ennis and Jack’s mother (who clearly knew about Jack and Ennis’ relationship) and Ennis’ opening up in accepting his daughter’s invitation to her wedding were each brilliant displays of the character’s transformation.
Our problem–and I think from reviewing some of the posts here many agree–was the time it took to get to the resolution. A good film, but nowhere near the best of 2005; we think if it does win it might rival “The English Patient” as the most plodding Oscar winner in recent memory.
And I have yet another theory…in the short story, it simply claims that Jack was killed in an accident while changing a tire. And considering Ennis was dragged as a kid to see the results of a horrible fag-bashing, I think out of guilt, Ennis just projected Jack’s death to be the same. I prefer to think Jack’s death really was just an accident.
And Roderick Femm, I understand your “one of them has to die” in a Gay love story complaint, but it is pretty traditional in most great love stories that “one of them has to die” - Gay story or Straight story…one of them has to die (usually). Romeo and Juliet ended even worse.
I think the king of that heap was and always will be Ordinary People.
I know how you feel. When I first heard about this movie I thought “great! Someone’s making a mainstream love story about two men and it doesn’t involve cuddly, PG-13 rated drag queens.”
Then this thread came along and I found out it was a tragic love story and I immediately thought, “oh-uh. One of them gets AIDS or dies by gay bashing. The movie’s set in the 60’s & 70’s, so it’s probably not AIDS. It’s gonna be gay bashing.”
When I saw the movie yesterday and Jack’s wife was describing what happened to Jack, I thought “thank God it wasn’t gay bashing!” Then the movie flashed to what really happened.
I say “what really happened” because the movie never showed us anything that wasn’t real. If only once Ennis had been shown imagining something, I’d consider it. But the way Jack’s wife described the accident, that was the voice of a woman who was angry, hurt, ashamed, and knew exactly who it was she was talking to.
But at some point last night while I was pacing the house feeling totally depressed from this movie, I came to the same conclusion as DMark. It’s a tragic love story, and one of them had to die, and death by gay bashing fit this movie.
Maybe someday we’ll get a love story with a happy ending.
To everyone reading this who hasn’t seen the movie yet, don’t go to it thinking you’re about to see the best movie ever made. It’s not.
Given the subject matter, it may be the best movie ever made. But compared to all other movies, you’ve seen better. I hope you’ll go see it anyway.
Certainly you’re entitled to what you prefer to believe, but Ang Lee probably is a better authority on what his and the screenwriters’ intentions were.
I finally saw this last weekend and thought it was lovely and heartbreaking, but came away with similar thoughts on how gay love stories so often end with AIDS, a bashing, or someone committing suicide.
It made me realize that this is one of the reasons I like the film Maurice as much as I do: aside from it strongly appealing to my Merchant-Ivory sensibilities and featuring the always welcome sight of a buck naked Rupert Graves, it’s one of the rare gay love stories made into film I can think of that has a happy ending. Rather than dying or breaking up miserably, we end with Maurice and Alec snogging away madly.
I don’t think it’s knowable how Jack actually died, from Ennis’ point of view. He may have been murdered, it may have been an accident. Lurleen’s tone did not indicate one or the other. Ennis was paranoid about gay bashing-- it was his fear that prevented him from having a life with Jack. So convinced he was that one or both of them would be killed for it, he never allowed himself to be happy. Is it really that unbelievable that Ennis might automatically believe that Jack’s death was by violence, which would provide some justification and validation for the sad, empty way he lived his life? The tragic part is that Ennis denied them a life together but, in his version of reality, Jack died for it anyway.
How is Jack’s death depicted in the short story? I’m 3 seconds away from downloading the audiobook on my iPod. Campbell Scott reads it.
Has Proulx ever provided any insight as to what she intended when she wrote it?
I may be too late here: The way it is in the movie is the way it is in the story. Lureen tells Ennis about the accident, and Ennis immediately assumes that Jack was murdered with a tire iron.
Sorry, don’t know.
That is what I meant from the short story…it was never clearly defined whose version of Jack’s death was correct, but Ennis’ version was not based on any fact, just his hunch.