slotheyes

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Alternate shots from some scenes! Arrrggggg

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Jack took risks and it cost him his life. Ennis played it safe and it cost him everything.

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Ok so I'm finally getting around to my thoughts on the theatrical rerelease!

The first thing that really hit me was the sense of scale. The long shots, the long silences, the sky that fills the entire frame. Seen in theaters, Brokeback Mountain conveys the physical experience of the Mountain West and the Great Plains like no media I've ever experienced. The sky is staggeringly large. I lived in the Great Plains region for several years, and that's the thing that sticks with me. Unbelievably, the sky feels even bigger over the prairie than it does over the ocean. The sky stretches on forever. It dwarfs the prairie, which also stretches on forever, and you can't imagine the prairie will ever end, let alone the continent, let alone the world. I think that I understood intellectually, having seen the movie on my television and my computer screen, that the shot selection was intended to convey this sensation. Seeing it on the big screen, I felt it for the first time.

The second thing was Heath's performance. It is so completely outrageous on the big screen in the best way. Every inch of him is in this character, every ounce, every atom. Every tiny movement, posture, breath, everything. Nothing is wasted, and when he's that big you see all of it. It was really special to watch.

Third, the audio quality. Thanks to the audio technology in the theater, I heard things I had never heard before. For me, the most remarkable thing was the wind. It was omnipresent. You could hear it in nearly every scene that took place in Wyoming, even the ones that were inside. For me, this felt so true to life. On the prairie, the wind is inescapable. For hundreds and hundreds of miles, it is so perfectly flat that there is nothing is in the way of the wind. It never slows down. It hits you full force. And it's constant. I can't remember where he said it, but Ang Lee observed this about Wyoming, as well, when he and his team visited Wyoming for research and location scouting. If I remember correctly, he described the wind as "maddening" (or something similar).

The scene that particularly comes to mind is one of the earliest scenes featuring Ennis and Alma, at their "lonesome" ranch house before they move to the apartment above the laundromat. She's doing the laundry, the kids are crying, everything is chaotic, and the wind never abates. This is true to life, but it's true to Annie Proulx, too! In Annie's writing, the environment is always a character in the scene. It's not just a place for the action to unfold. The environment is why the action happens, and it tells you everything you need to know about the action and how to feel about it. The constancy of the wind, of the presence of the outside world pressing in against ostensibly private places, the inescapability of the movement of a great and terrible world... It's marvelous.

The theater's audio quality also allowed me to hear some dialogue I had never heard before. There's some quiet dialogue that happens during the Second Night In The Tent (tm) scene and then immediately following the "I wish I knew how to quit you" monologue. I had been aware that there was murmuring going on, but I had never heard the words before. Both times, though in very different contexts, Ennis is emotionally overwrought. Both times, we hear very quietly, "I'm sorry." Then, "It's alright, it's alright." The juxtaposition of these lines in two different contexts is heartbreaking. It also feels very intentional to have the beginning of the story and the end mirror each other in this way-- we get another interpolation/juxtaposition in the latter scene, where we are presented with the "dozy embrace, as Annie terms it, from the "You're sleeping on your feet like a horse" memory right before Ennis drives away following their fight. Through the contrast of tenderness with bitterness, both are heightened.

The last thing I noticed that felt really impactful is something I probably could have noticed on a smaller screen had I been paying more attention. I think I noticed it this time because the big screen experience really drew my attention to the cinematography and shot selection in a new way. The shot of Ennis arriving in Signal at the very beginning of the movie and the shot of him driving home at the very end, right before we see him put the numbers on his mailbox (presumably having just moved in), are identical. It is very early in the morning, or perhaps late in the evening but either way nearly dark, and we see a lone vehicle in the distance as it makes its way across the mountains. The only difference is the direction the vehicle moves Once from left to right, once from right to left.

This shot clarifies something for me. In the short story, Ennis is living in Signal by the time he and Jack go on their final trip together. In a conversation with Jack, he refers to "a woman who worked part-time at the Wolf Ears bar" (Cassie, in the film) "in Signal where he was working now for Stoutamire’s cow and calf outfit." In the movie, however, Ennis is clearly living in Riverton at this point. We see him leaving the Riverton post office with his postcard stamped "DECEASED." The choice to put this mirrored shot right before the shot of Ennis putting numbers on his mailbox says to me that Ennis has now moved to Signal. Only in the film, he doesn't move until after Jack's death. Why now?

In a way, this is Ennis and Jack finally moving in together. Moving to the town where they first met, the closest town to Brokeback Mountain. Brokeback Mountain, which Jack called "all we got." Brokeback Mountain, which he wanted for his final resting place.

TLDR; Go see it in theaters.

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I'm obsessed with the theory that Jack and Ennis never actually kissed on Brokeback Mountain (in the short story version). That their first kiss was the moment of passion when they find each other again four years later, after they're both married to women.

We know Jack thinks that when they spooned, Ennis did "not then embrace him face to face because he did not want to see or feel that it was Jack he held." We also know that the first time they had sex, Ennis "hauled Jack onto all fours," meaning that Ennis didn't have to look at Jack's face. Jack didn't ask to have sex in this position -- Ennis instinctively, and very very quickly decides that he won't look Jack in the eyes when they have sex.

I just can't believe Ennis would have brought their faces together for a kiss. If they kissed, then Ennis would have had to look at Jack before and after they pulled together.

Their reunion is the absolute greatest turning point in their relationship. On BB Mountain, they're able to tell themselves that it's "a one-shot thing," a summer hookup because there's no women around. But one-shot things don't feel physically ill when they separate. One-shot things don't spend years worrying that they might have left on bad terms.

Ennis kisses Jack and that marks the transition -- they can not longer pretend it's a one-shot thing, and now they have to figure out what it means to be true star-crossed lovers.

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thinking about how in Brokeback mountain Ennis would be 71 when gay marriage was legalized and jack would still be 39. I think about this a lot.

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Brokeback Mountain (2005)

There are probably a lot of films out there that don’t get made, for lack of funding, support from producers/directors, a lot of artistic direction which goes unused, untold, uncared for; one of the miracles of life is that Brokeback Mountain, of it all, is something that exists. 

For Annie Proulx’s short story to have been so widely acknowledged and both praised and criticised in 1999, for Ang Lee to be able to direct a feature length film adaptation of it in 2005, starring two young talents whose careers would be defined by these beautiful performances, for it to win three academy awards, to be nominated for five more: every bit of it comes to me as a miracle. 

My favourite element of Proulx’s collection is that she so starkly characterises the Wyoming state as though it can’t possibly exist, entirely fantastical, an extremity, a farce. Namely in People in Hell Just Want a Drink of Water, wherein a disabled, mute young man dies from an infection because his neighbours castrate him with a dirty knife. My personal favourite is The Mud Below, all about a short, smart-ass rodeo cowboy who throws his life away in pursuit of 8 second glory, destroys his body for, nothing, he finds in the end. The collection ends with Brokeback, arguably the most normal and human story, of course the novelty being in the protagonist’s sexualities. And you can feel the fantasy in this film still, the setting, the huge, empty, middle-of-nowhere places Jack and Ennis sneak off to, in Ennis’ recollection of Earl’s corpse as a boy, even in Jack’s death, which we do not truly know the reality of: these all provide some myth to Brokeback, that make you consider perhaps no one lives like this, no one has ever been beaten to death with a tire iron, because Wyoming is not a real place. Interested mostly in geography, Proulx does not hide that the sparsely-populated state comes alive through her stories, and Ang Lee I think does an impeccable job of translating the sentiment. The gushing rivers, empty roads, fierce and strong animals, the unbelievably tiny population, clunky vehicles, characters’ accents, the costuming - each of these factors express the importance of location cleanly. It’s Wyoming that prevents the two coming together as much as it is the thing which puts them beside one another: Wyoming’s storm forces Ennis inside the tent, Wyoming’s hardened landscape keeps his mind small and heart afraid. 

Wyoming does something else, too: it condemns them both. That was Proulx’s prime concern in writing the story and surely Lee’s interest in it, too, since Ennis’ fear and internalised homophobia dominates the narrative so intently. What’s not interesting is the external homophobia they face, because no one is interested in bigotry. The film’s charm is how brazenly homophobic Ennis is, both to himself and Jack. No matter how many times I read or watch Brokeback, I can hardly reconcile just how staunchly familiar the shame, guilt and self-loathing Ennis is so practiced in. His quick and easy violence, the minimal speech, how low he keeps his head: it’s obvious to anyone he loathes himself. But he’s self-righteous, too, and prideful, and determinedly masculine, while strikingly curbed by this self-hatred - it’s a hell of a job from Heath Ledger to have performed so beautifully, an eternally moving piece of art from an insanely talented actor. I think part of what makes Ennis feel so real is this multi-faceted denial and guilt, his queerness and masculine identity coming to a head over his bursting desire and love for Jack, and if you can’t fix it, you’ve got to stand it; Ennis stands it by making himself tough, being gruff and hard, just like Wyoming likes its men, can hardly even keep a woman to stick around, because he is too hard to make love to anyone. 

Wyoming makes Ennis rough, but Brokeback Mountain itself softens him completely. The entire film is freezing cold, the snow storms and frosted rivers and chattering teeth, but that first night Ennis willingly goes to Jack, the glow is warm and he is unclothed and there is heat for once, heat and desire. This intimate scene is my favourite of the whole film, one that doesn’t exist in the original story, and conveys so solidly what is it about Brokeback that gets me so wound up. The pair are only 19 when they go up on Brokeback, but they look younger in the small glow of the tent, namely Ennis of course, whose bashfulness and fear make him so young and sweet. While Jack lies there shirtless, whispering “Its alright, it’s alright,” Ennis yearns to be held, and that is what he cannot reconcile, that he desires comfort and closeness, he doesn’t want to be lonely anymore, and Jack can provide him with that. But a man isn’t supposed to feel lonesome or tired, he is supposed to endure. But "the imagined power of Brokeback Mountain” isn’t strong enough to reach him once he comes off that mountain long enough to fix it, so he stands it, and lives alone in his trailer as an old man, dreaming endlessly of Jack Twist. Although an intimacy scene, Ennis remains clothed, likely because his connection to Jack is not solely sexual; perhaps if it was he would not have been so afraid and ashamed. That scene brings a lurch to my stomach no matter how many times I see it because, in all, shame is almost a pre-requisite for desire, and there’s a staunch hesitation that surely coexists alongside vulnerability. 

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being part of brokeback mountain yaoi fandom when you come from a fandom background where no characters are gay and no queer couples are canon is so epic because the gay people are canonically obsessed with each other from the jump. they meet eyes and joke and laugh and fall in love and they stay in love for 20 damm years.

and yet that's also what makes it all the more sad? they were so in love and in a more just society there would have been no need to make a story about them because they would've just ranched up and grown old together, and that's not compelling media. but that's not how it goes. the story is a pultizer prize nominee and oscar award winner precisely because society is so fucked up and rotten. and they don't make it out alright in the end.

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Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger Brokeback Mountain (2005) dir. Ang Lee

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Brokeback Mountain (2005) dir. Ang Lee

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BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN 2005・dir. Ang Lee

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Brokeback Mountain (2005) dir. Ang Lee

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why has anyone bothered to write a kissing scene after annie proulx wrote this in 1997

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Sharing it on here as well: With some delay, here is my gift for @slotheyes as part of the Jayvik Gift Exchange 2025!

introspective vignettes with a day/night motif; more conceptual and fragmented than plot-focused but there are feelings and kisses · one-shot, 5k, rated T · feelings realisation / yearning / kissing · Jayce and Viktor are in Love https://archiveofourown.org/works/66705409

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getting back in the saddle

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Frame 110 - jayvik Time to Frame It

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Frame 110 - jayvik Time to Frame It

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Frame 110 - jayvik Time to Frame It