![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Brokeback Mountain
Okay, next up, Brokeback Mountain. Since this is long, and disturbingly earnest and thoughtful rather than entertaining, I threw in lj-cuts for easy navigation and skimming. I'm particularly interested in your audience's reactions and/or opinions on audience reactions . . . so if you have input, skip to the last part.
SPOILERS contained herein:
I’m starting at the end, a very good place to start.
“I swear” –or was it, “Jack, I swear”? Anyway, something like that.
Maybe the line’s in the short story, and maybe what he’s swearing to do is explained there. I haven't read the story yet so I wouldn’t know. My own personal take on it was that Ennis was swearing he would begin to follow his heart. And it was that line which made me realize just what this movie is about.
A lot of (newspaper) reviews have been saying things like, “this is a film about humanity,” or that this movie is about love “that just happens to be between two men.” Before I saw the movie, I thought that these reviews were trying to say in an oblique way that the film portrays homosexuality as something human, something that can be both natural and right, something that contains all the love, sex, and betrayal. It is and the movie does, very thoughtfully, compassionately, and beautifully.
But the movie is also about Ennis being Very Fucked Up, and Ennis’s problems seemed to me to have a lot more to do with Ennis as a person than Ennis’s sexual preferences. (Naturally, those ideas aren’t mutally exclusive: Ennis’s person informs his preferences and vice versa.) The point I’m getting at (I think) is that there are a lot of Ennises out there, who aren’t necessarily gay or male or cowboys or really fuckin’ hot like Heath Ledger. They are people who fear themselves, close themselves off, and can’t connect with others.
The issues of homosexuality that the movie brings up are a macrocosm of those kinds of problems; instead of an individual’s interactions in his personal relationships it becomes about a group of people’s interactions with society. For Jack, being homosexual brings an outside pressure from society that’s in complete conflict with his open, giving nature. For Ennis, it’s a double pressure; I think he’s repressed from both the inside and the outside. Society’s reactions to homosexuality and him being homosexual make his natural propensity to bottle emotions and not show his true self positively crippling.
Take a look at his eldest daughter. He doesn’t connect with her, even though the movie suggests she is quite a bit like him—quiet, reserved, private. He constantly pushes her away, even though his interactions with her should have nothing to do with his sexuality. But, in the end, he suddenly, very consciously, decides to make an effort to be in his daughter’s life—because he’s made Jack a promise.
My first thought after that “I swear” line was that Ennis was swearing he’d follow in Jack’s footsteps—that is, admit to himself who he was, what he needed, and go after that, even if he feared the result would be a horrible death, even if the world was against him. And I thought that was a beautiful thing. But now that I’ve thought about it a lot, I’m not sure Ennis will ever do that, ever get to that point. But what he will do—what he has sworn to do—is live his life. Not scorn or abandon or turn away from the love that is given him. Love where he is loved, and give where he recieves. Most of all, I think it means that he and his daughter will have a beautiful relationship, and that’s the part that makes me get all teary-eyed.
Okay, other things. We’ve heard all about Ledger and Gyllenhaal and Michelle Williams were all awesome, but let me just say also: Anne Hathaway. She could light up the world with her smile.
My main beef with the movie was what a lot of people are saying is a virtue: the way it flipbooks through the lives of these two men, touching us softly in different places over and over again. A short story can do that, and I’m guessing Proulx does it well. Novels, otoh, can cover the same time frame, but each touch is a story in itself, a long, fleshed out scene. The movie didn’t make the major mistake of trying to be one or the other, like some biopics—it didn’t rush and I only thought it dragged at the end.
But I did find the passage of time somewhat disconcerting (I didn’t like anyone’s but Jake Gyllenhal’s age make-up; Ledger’s looked crusty and Hathaway’s just plain didn’t happen). I also felt that we were subjected to some scenes that existed to move along a plot that is so tried and true that we don’t need scenes that explain it or move it along. That is, the plot, the bare bones of it, has been done a million times before: star-crossed lovers married to the wrong people. I can’t recall now what scenes I felt were trying to be “plotty” when I would have preferred just more . . . time existing within the scene, but I definitely felt that way sometimes, especially in the second third.
Now, last, the real beef, which is nothing to do with the movie itself, but the audience reaction. I was in a small artsy theatre in a “hip” part of town, three days after its opening in Houston. The theatre was mostly filled with men, and I would wager most of them were gay. There were a small number of female couples, and I would wager most of them were gay, too. They were a rowdy crowd before the movie started, but we had stood in line for a long time to get into the theatre and I understood that there was considerable excitement about this movie.
Still, I don’t get why people laughed. They laughed through the sex scene. I thought later that perhaps the people in the theatre were uncomfortable, because even if I am quite sure more than 75% of the audience had had male-on-male sex before, they hadn’t seen it often on-screen in a regular theatre. My friend suggested earlier today that maybe they laughed because Ennis and Jack were, “doing it wrong.” In the same vein, I told my mom maybe they were scoffing at the idea of not using lube (which got me a horrified huh?)
But even worse, because it was the most touching, heart-rending scene, was when the theatre broke out in giggles when Ennis and Jack first kissed after they hadn’t seen each other in years. I thought okay, maybe people still have an issue with the boy touching thing. But when the wife saw Ennis and Jack, the laughing got much worse, and then there were hoots and ooohs—more as if the scene were a mother catching her child doing something amusingly naughty, than a wife watching her world fall apart.
I thought maybe my experience was singular, but the other day, there was this article in the Houston Chronicle. The reporter had gone to see the movie at the same theatre, but on a different day. He noted that the crowd seemed mostly gay, too. Then he noted that “raucous laughter filled the auditorium” at the same two parts in the movie I mentioned above.
The interesting thing about the article is that the reporter talks about his second theatre experience. Another theatre in Houston had picked up the film, this theater much more mainstream, with those big stadium seats and everything. He went and found himself surrounded by what seemed to him a much more diverse crowd of women and men; he notes they seemed to be more straight than gay. And he expected jeers and laughing, with that crowd. But this crowd was silent.
The reporter tries to draw conclusions about this, which might be a bad idea without having experienced a few more audiences. I know that most of the people on my flist are saying the audiences were quiet and seemed really movied by the movie. Still, the questions the reporter asked are questions I couldn’t help asking too after my theatre experience. He says, “Are gay people so accustomed to seeing ourselves vilified on screen that some of us don't know how to appreciate accurate depictions of homosexual love? Are we that cynical?
“Or repressed? Nervous laughter, after all, can serve as an escape valve, a diversion from things we'd rather not think or talk about. Perhaps those River Oaks chuckleheads were reacting to previous experience, numbed by all the movies that bash gays as villainous, predatory, sick of mind and body.
“Perhaps they just weren't prepared for the enlightened Brokeback Mountain, for the liberation from decades of mean stereotypes.”
Anyway, I was wondering what your personal theatre experiences were like, etc. Or just your thoughts on the movie. Or just mindless squeeing; it’s all good.
*
SPOILERS contained herein:
I’m starting at the end, a very good place to start.
“I swear” –or was it, “Jack, I swear”? Anyway, something like that.
Maybe the line’s in the short story, and maybe what he’s swearing to do is explained there. I haven't read the story yet so I wouldn’t know. My own personal take on it was that Ennis was swearing he would begin to follow his heart. And it was that line which made me realize just what this movie is about.
A lot of (newspaper) reviews have been saying things like, “this is a film about humanity,” or that this movie is about love “that just happens to be between two men.” Before I saw the movie, I thought that these reviews were trying to say in an oblique way that the film portrays homosexuality as something human, something that can be both natural and right, something that contains all the love, sex, and betrayal. It is and the movie does, very thoughtfully, compassionately, and beautifully.
But the movie is also about Ennis being Very Fucked Up, and Ennis’s problems seemed to me to have a lot more to do with Ennis as a person than Ennis’s sexual preferences. (Naturally, those ideas aren’t mutally exclusive: Ennis’s person informs his preferences and vice versa.) The point I’m getting at (I think) is that there are a lot of Ennises out there, who aren’t necessarily gay or male or cowboys or really fuckin’ hot like Heath Ledger. They are people who fear themselves, close themselves off, and can’t connect with others.
The issues of homosexuality that the movie brings up are a macrocosm of those kinds of problems; instead of an individual’s interactions in his personal relationships it becomes about a group of people’s interactions with society. For Jack, being homosexual brings an outside pressure from society that’s in complete conflict with his open, giving nature. For Ennis, it’s a double pressure; I think he’s repressed from both the inside and the outside. Society’s reactions to homosexuality and him being homosexual make his natural propensity to bottle emotions and not show his true self positively crippling.
Take a look at his eldest daughter. He doesn’t connect with her, even though the movie suggests she is quite a bit like him—quiet, reserved, private. He constantly pushes her away, even though his interactions with her should have nothing to do with his sexuality. But, in the end, he suddenly, very consciously, decides to make an effort to be in his daughter’s life—because he’s made Jack a promise.
My first thought after that “I swear” line was that Ennis was swearing he’d follow in Jack’s footsteps—that is, admit to himself who he was, what he needed, and go after that, even if he feared the result would be a horrible death, even if the world was against him. And I thought that was a beautiful thing. But now that I’ve thought about it a lot, I’m not sure Ennis will ever do that, ever get to that point. But what he will do—what he has sworn to do—is live his life. Not scorn or abandon or turn away from the love that is given him. Love where he is loved, and give where he recieves. Most of all, I think it means that he and his daughter will have a beautiful relationship, and that’s the part that makes me get all teary-eyed.
Okay, other things. We’ve heard all about Ledger and Gyllenhaal and Michelle Williams were all awesome, but let me just say also: Anne Hathaway. She could light up the world with her smile.
My main beef with the movie was what a lot of people are saying is a virtue: the way it flipbooks through the lives of these two men, touching us softly in different places over and over again. A short story can do that, and I’m guessing Proulx does it well. Novels, otoh, can cover the same time frame, but each touch is a story in itself, a long, fleshed out scene. The movie didn’t make the major mistake of trying to be one or the other, like some biopics—it didn’t rush and I only thought it dragged at the end.
But I did find the passage of time somewhat disconcerting (I didn’t like anyone’s but Jake Gyllenhal’s age make-up; Ledger’s looked crusty and Hathaway’s just plain didn’t happen). I also felt that we were subjected to some scenes that existed to move along a plot that is so tried and true that we don’t need scenes that explain it or move it along. That is, the plot, the bare bones of it, has been done a million times before: star-crossed lovers married to the wrong people. I can’t recall now what scenes I felt were trying to be “plotty” when I would have preferred just more . . . time existing within the scene, but I definitely felt that way sometimes, especially in the second third.
Now, last, the real beef, which is nothing to do with the movie itself, but the audience reaction. I was in a small artsy theatre in a “hip” part of town, three days after its opening in Houston. The theatre was mostly filled with men, and I would wager most of them were gay. There were a small number of female couples, and I would wager most of them were gay, too. They were a rowdy crowd before the movie started, but we had stood in line for a long time to get into the theatre and I understood that there was considerable excitement about this movie.
Still, I don’t get why people laughed. They laughed through the sex scene. I thought later that perhaps the people in the theatre were uncomfortable, because even if I am quite sure more than 75% of the audience had had male-on-male sex before, they hadn’t seen it often on-screen in a regular theatre. My friend suggested earlier today that maybe they laughed because Ennis and Jack were, “doing it wrong.” In the same vein, I told my mom maybe they were scoffing at the idea of not using lube (which got me a horrified huh?)
But even worse, because it was the most touching, heart-rending scene, was when the theatre broke out in giggles when Ennis and Jack first kissed after they hadn’t seen each other in years. I thought okay, maybe people still have an issue with the boy touching thing. But when the wife saw Ennis and Jack, the laughing got much worse, and then there were hoots and ooohs—more as if the scene were a mother catching her child doing something amusingly naughty, than a wife watching her world fall apart.
I thought maybe my experience was singular, but the other day, there was this article in the Houston Chronicle. The reporter had gone to see the movie at the same theatre, but on a different day. He noted that the crowd seemed mostly gay, too. Then he noted that “raucous laughter filled the auditorium” at the same two parts in the movie I mentioned above.
The interesting thing about the article is that the reporter talks about his second theatre experience. Another theatre in Houston had picked up the film, this theater much more mainstream, with those big stadium seats and everything. He went and found himself surrounded by what seemed to him a much more diverse crowd of women and men; he notes they seemed to be more straight than gay. And he expected jeers and laughing, with that crowd. But this crowd was silent.
The reporter tries to draw conclusions about this, which might be a bad idea without having experienced a few more audiences. I know that most of the people on my flist are saying the audiences were quiet and seemed really movied by the movie. Still, the questions the reporter asked are questions I couldn’t help asking too after my theatre experience. He says, “Are gay people so accustomed to seeing ourselves vilified on screen that some of us don't know how to appreciate accurate depictions of homosexual love? Are we that cynical?
“Or repressed? Nervous laughter, after all, can serve as an escape valve, a diversion from things we'd rather not think or talk about. Perhaps those River Oaks chuckleheads were reacting to previous experience, numbed by all the movies that bash gays as villainous, predatory, sick of mind and body.
“Perhaps they just weren't prepared for the enlightened Brokeback Mountain, for the liberation from decades of mean stereotypes.”
Anyway, I was wondering what your personal theatre experiences were like, etc. Or just your thoughts on the movie. Or just mindless squeeing; it’s all good.
*
no subject
Like I told
In various scenes--chief among them the sex scene in the tent, the kiss Alma witnesses and the cut to the motel room--the (majority) audience reaction was laughter. Even some "Oh no they didn't" remarks. What surprised me was that the laughter came from the gay members of the audience (or, at least all the ones around me). What I thought were serious moments in the film belying the desperation and raw emotion between the two were treated almost as if they were jokes. It wouldn't have surprised me if the audience had been mostly heterosexuals because let's face it, Alabama is still very backwards in some regards. That the laughter came from gay majority did surprise me.
I'm not sure if the laughter was truly laughter in the "ha, funny" sense or more in the "wow, that [the secrets, the desperation, the hiding] is too, too close to things I've experienced" nervous laughter sense. I've never had to be ashamed of my sexuality or have to hide it from people for fear of reprisals so I can't honestly say if I would have reacted differently if the roles were reversed. I know when I'm nervous/uncomfortable, I tend to laugh at inappropriate times just as a way to deflect the nervousness. Whether that was happening here, I can't say for sure.
I don't know if the audience reactions would have been different if it had been a majority heterosexual audience. Like I said earlier, I was expecting that type of reaction from that segment of the crowd so when it turned out to come from the largely gay audience, I was very surprised.
no subject
no subject
I loved the movie. In fact, I love it more now than I did at the end of the movie because I've had time to mull it over. I think what makes this movie stand out is that it's so much more realistic in terms of star crossed love - there really were gay couples that were desperate to be in love and just live and they weren't allowed to.
I thought it was a beautiful storyline, it had beautiful camera shots, atmosphere, and Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal are just SO pretty together I can't stand it.
no subject
I didn't see a lot of straight women, though I very much expected to--I guess because most of my flist is women, and a lot of them are straight, and they were excited about the movie (gay and bi ones were, too, I'll note). I also, weirdly, expected to see a lot of older couples because whenever I go see something controversial, "risque", or both, there seem to be a lot more older people, especially at little art theatres, there are always a lot of older couples...I think because those kinds of films are thought to be highbrow and "cultural." There was one old couple, but the rest were in their 30s (some 20somethings and some 40somethings, but mostly 30s, it seemed). Though I've since talked to several older couples who've seen it (and enjoyed it).
when Alma saw the two men kissing, but I have to admit that I laughed too because I was just so shocked.
So it was just surprise, because you didn't expect her to see? Huh. I can see that, but I just thought that part was so, so sad.
I thought it was a beautiful storyline, it had beautiful camera shots, atmosphere, and Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal are just SO pretty together I can't stand it.
I agree whole-heartedly with every word!
no subject
When the sex happened there was a collective breath holding, when the kiss came, a whimper (so damn hot and foce of nature-y) followed by an anguished gasp of horror at the pain on her face.
Really, really, good audience.
And when Jack stands up to his father-in-law there was actual clapping in some places and a general chorus of approval and glee.
no subject
My impression was that the audience DID enjoy the movie . . . there was definite cheering when Jack stood up to his father, and collective silence (besides some sniffles) at the end. I just don't get why they laughed when they did.
no subject
I still have limited net access, so I'll come back later to ponder the rest of your neat review.
I have to gloat, though, about my perfect Halifax audience. Enormously diverse crowd, mink coats to nose rings, totally swept up by the movie, laughed at the funny parts, gasped and whimpered appropriately. I went with my mom. Woot.
no subject
Glad you had a good audience! I went with my mom, too. I tried to convince her to come with me by telling her it had pretty boys kissing . . . which so utterly did not sway her that now she thinks I have weird kink. Well. Ahem, I do, but pretty boys kissing is a rather normal one in my long list.
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
As far as Heath Ledger's makup - he's outdoors all the time, herding and ranching in very harsh weather. Crusty is exactly how you look.
I've read over 100 comments/reviews at imdb and almost universally, gays feel the problems depicted are societal in nature, straight (usually) women find it's Ennis himself that's the cause.
I'd say it's a combination. Ennis is an emotionally closed off, reserved person. That's his essential nature. But he does open up with Jack (we especially see it in that flash back to an earlier time they last time they are together.) But because society and especially his father have drilled it into him that this is wrong (and life threatening besides), Ennis refuse to reach out to the one persom he loves completely. So, the problem is Ennis but the initial cause are outside of Ennis.
Teh again, I think that's what makes the movie universal, It's our own oersonal prejudices, emotional failings and cowardices that speak to us all, because all of us have issues that hold us back.
I tkink the last line means a lot of things. Certainly what you said, but also that he swears he did love Jack. Something he never admitted before.
no subject
gays feel the problems depicted are societal in nature, straight (usually) women find it's Ennis himself that's the cause.
That's interesting! I definitely think it's a combination, also. To say all the problems there are just Ennis's fault is to miss a big point--pretty much the point of the movie. That is, Jack didn't have Ennis's problems of connecting with others, and what did he get? Killed. But because Ennis is already reserved and introverted, society's behavior towards homosexuals serves to make him downright paralyzed. Society forced a kind of . . . I want to say unnatural kind suppression onto one that was already, in some ways, naturally repressed.
And definitely that's what makes it universal. I expected to see about individuals vs. society--and it was that. And I can relate to that, even though I'm not gay. But it was also the individual vs. himself--and it was that, the fear, the not connecting, the inability to reach out and communicate--which I could relate to most.
I'm not sure about the last line being an oath he loves Jack. I don't think that's something he ever needed to say. But I love how it's just . .. there. We can interpret it any way we want to. And the short story is like that too, which pleases me immensely (I've read it now!)
no subject
You know, I don't agree with you that Ennis is particularly fucked up. Some people just are emotionally closed off and don't know what they're feeling. We love them anyway! What I'm trying to get at is, for me, that's not so much a character flaw as a character trait. Some people with that trait are lucky enough to have happy lives, just as some people who are emotionally honest and expressive and loving have bad relationships and very unhappy lives. *shrugs*
I liked the way the relationship with his daughters was expressed as well, very subtly; for instance you're not told anything directly but you see that he's taking only one of them for a visit. And that is, sadly, the way estranged father's relationships with their children tend to dwindle away. And then, as you said, the girl that maintains a relationship with him is the one that's quiet, like him. And he can more or less express affection by punching her gently on the shoulder. I know guys like this. Bless em.
no subject
I see what you mean.
But I guess I have trouble saying it's not a flaw to be emotionally closed off. Some people are, and some can be happy that way, but it seems to me rather like they're getting lucky. That is, it's something natural and common, but I see it as like to being less smart than others are, or clumsy--or, like me, completely without street smarts/common sense. That is, we're all born with certain weaknesses, and some of them are things we should try to overcome.
I should clarify that I don't think natural quietness, or reserve, or a need to privacy, etc, are the same as being emotionally closed off. Some quiet people are accused of being so, but that's because whoever says isn't making an effort to really listen, or to read emotions that are expressed in other ways than words.
no subject
I had read about that in reviews before I saw the film - laughter at precisely those two scenes.
I had read the short story before seeing the film, so I knew that Alma witnessed the kiss and it's a gut punch. So why the laughter? Kind of a knee-jerk Springer "oh no you didn't!" response? Maybe some kind of Cheaters left-over? (I watch too many cable clips shows, evidently.)
I had a similar experience to the one Jane mentioned above - people clapped and cheered when Jack stood up to Lureen's dad. Otherwise it was pretty quiet, other than sniffles. I watched it with
Considering that I live in Oklahoma (where "red" man has two meanings) the older crowd quite took me by surprise. A large group of women (50ish?) left the theatre at the same time we did - all in the tears. When they all realized they were all sobbing, they laughed and hugged. It was gorgeous.
This is a movie I'll have to purchase and re-watch to explore all the nuances - I sort of glided along on the scenery and Heath's silent, but very physical reactions (like the knee-bopping, chain-smoking moment at the window as Ennis waits to see Jack for the first time since Brokeback.) I'm always slow to pick up on imagery and subtext in film - hell, I just realized that King Kong had racial subtext - and that was only because I read an article about in Details.
Lovely review darlin'!
no subject
Maybe that's it. It makes more sense than actually thinking it's funny. Still, that moment is just so sad!
It was a mixed crowd - I'd guess about 85% straight (although who knows?) although there were a few gay male couples and lots of groups of women. The thing that surprised me was the *age* of the crowd. I'm 35 - so when I say older, I mean older - 60+.
This doesn't really surprise me. I expected to see a lot of older couples because whenever I go see something controversial, "risque", or both, there seem to be a lot more older people. Especially at little art theatres, there are always a lot of older couples. I think because those kinds of films are thought to be highbrow and "cultural." But at the same time, I can't imagine my grandparents seeing this movie. At my theatre, there were mostly 30-somethings, but I've heard since that many older couples have been going to see it.
It was gorgeous.
Sounds wonderful! I'm afraid I didn't notice many audience reactions as I left the theatre . . . I had broken my shoe and had to walk very carefully to keep it on.
like the knee-bopping, chain-smoking moment at the window as Ennis waits to see Jack for the first time since Brokeback
loved that, so much. And yes, I'll definitely have to go back and rewatch a lot.
hell, I just realized that King Kong had racial subtext
Dude. That aspect was just . . . just weird. I have a review to post on that movie, too. I thought it sucked so so hard.
Thank you for reading!
no subject
Oh, no! Shoe damage!
no subject
I saw this movie with my dad, and he was the only man in the audience. I saw it too long ago to remember if any of these women were gay, but I'm sure that some of them were. But I didn't have the experience that you did- no one laughed at the parts that you mentioned. I think everyone took the movie pretty seriously (not that's why those people were laughing, but anyway).
I am really glad that this movie was made. Because even with TV shows like Will & Grace and The L Word, being gay is still seen as being an outsider in RL. I think it's important for straight people (including myself) to see these types of relationships, because it helps to bring them into the "norm." And if having a same-sex partner is seen as normal, I think this world would be a whole lot better off. Of course... I'm not sure we'll ever entirely get there. But maybe even if we recognize that same-sex relationships are okay, then that would be making progress. Anyway. Sorry, I went on a bit of a rant there. =P =)