MovieChat Forums > Brokeback Mountain (2006) Discussion > Three thoughts

Three thoughts

posted 4 months ago by Imra (1)
1 reply | jump to latest

1. Why didn’t Ennis advance in his career? The movie clearly depicts a substantial economic boom in this part of the US, Ennis doesn’t seem overly unintelligent, he is handsome and tall enough. He is shown to be prioritising work throughout the movie. I understand that his sexual orientation and lost love are weighing on him but I imagine it would be hard work to not move on from being the simplest poor farmhand over 15-20 years while having few other responsibilities (especially after the divorce).

Just an added comment: the rural US is always depicted so poor, lonely and sad in movies and TV, I don’t have the slightest clue why anyone would stay there.

2: The fact that Ennis didn’t do anything to be closer to Jack seems almost like a cop out. I didn’t notice this until after I’d watched the movie and couldn’t sleep. The inability to close the distance feels similar to the way nearly every long running TV show with a romantic duo in it finds bullshit ways to keep them apart for another season.

When you have found your true love and it is all you seem to live for (except maybe your children), wouldn’t you find a way to see each other more often?

After the divorce when Ennis sees his kids once a month, why wouldn’t he move closer to Jack (or in the middle) and drive back to pick up his daughters?

Or even when he was with Alma, he could have convinced her to move to Texas?

I find it hard to believe there was no arrangement to be made where they could see each other more than a couple of times a year.

3: I knew about this movie for years but was putting off watching it because I didn’t like the idea of seeing too much male on male romantic contact. I needn’t have worried. Incredible film that I think even homophobes would have to agree depicts beauty more than rough gay sex. I think it is only the one scene and I didn’t even have to look away.

Let me know what your view is, especially on 1 and 2.

[–] letess (1810) 4 months ago

An excellent movie that should have won the Oscar. Heath’s performance alone is a wonder to watch. A lot of the questions you are asking, you are asking in today’s time - this was in the 1960s. Made in 2005.

Ennis loved where he came from. He didn’t want to leave. Just as Brad Pitt in River Runs Through It and Legends of the Fall - these were cowboys that loved where they were born. And living there in that time was certain death and humiliation if he was found out. That’s why when Heath’s Ennis speaks his mouth is practically shut - he couldn’t let out his feelings. The younger Ennis saw what happened to those two gay men. And we all saw what happened to Jack. I don’t think he had that great of aspirations job wise.

It took you twenty years to watch it because you felt uncomfortable seeing two men - so maybe that can be your answer to the questions you are asking. This movie btw is a great love story and if you cried in Wuthering Heights, you will cry in this one. Lost love deeper than most. Abject loneliness in really lonely locales - like the moors of England or the American West.

This movie was supposed to be made in the late 90s by Gus Van Sant. Many actors were slated to play Ennis and Jack - Josh Hartnett as Ennis and a Joaquin Phoenix as Jack. There were also Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Ryan Phillippe and probably more attached to it - why it wasn’t - I can only assume someone probably thought that maybe the public wasn’t ready for it, even with straight actors and maybe the actors were also not ready. Apparently, the academy wasn’t either as it lost to Crash.