How Brokeback affected me

[sagha/Mo]

I went to see BBM this weekend; the late show. I was the only person there, which I think means it will be going from here soon, probably next week. I watch it on DVD but its not the same, I will miss it on the large screen in the womb-like space of the theater. Sitting there, finding the most comfortable posture--feet up on top of the arms of the chair in front--what luxury, not even an usher to tell me it isn't allowed. I thought seeing it all alone might be perferable I told myself, fearing not being able to share it with a friend makes it less memorable. As it began, the truck scrolling from right to left across the darkened screen until the focus of the landscape can barely be made out, (or our iris adjust to the dark) through the very first gleam of hint of dawn. I was reminded of waking up in the middle of the night in the darkened hospital room surrounded by blips, buzzes & pleeps of machines surrounding me, also alone in a room, tubes in & out of old & new orifices as I watched the flat LED light with its squigly blips which were regular like that truck's headlights digging tunnels through the Wyoming night across the screen. Let there be light & there is Ennis , jumps out & heads towards us, desperately poor boy with his pitiful small bag of all what he owned in the world, all alone on his own, orphan angel of heartbreak, mein lieber swann.

The first echoing twangs of "Wings," like someone pulling taut strings of the heart like the harp strings plucked in Lohengrin at the entrance of the Knight. The train thunders through, we (the camera) see, laying on the ground, from under the train carriage, glimpse of half a man against a wall, and again mein lieber swann. there he is, cowboy hat covering his face, Ennis.
I thought to myself, well this is all under control at long last, I can at last watch it with sober detachment & hone in on how the technical details, the music, the lighting, the fade outs, pace of cuts, etc orchestrated by the script gives life by the ensemble acting to make this film.

As someone else remarked yesterday here, it goes by faster at each viewing. I hardly understand some of my friends' complaint that "it was so slow." I want it to last longer, to linger, to hang out, go to new routes, amplify more for me, let me just lurk to see them again. I can't wait for all the scenes that were edited out, that might appear on the DVD, that one day film scholars might reconstruct like the expanded versions of Das Boot or Touch of Evil. Again I was pulled in, beside myself even knowing too well their inexorable fate that traps them, nothing, no one can intervene. Like many others have reported here the involantary tears came much earlier & for a longer time of BBM on each successive viewing.
           --Sagha

[sagha/Mo]

A local publication has accepted my submission, although they shortened it, of a review of BBM. Perhaps, it will be of interest. I also have a reply to the gay critic of the Hot Button I'll post, in hope you too might call him on his wrongheadedness--Sagha

                            We Might Not Make It to the Mountain Top
Brokeback Mountain is a film of perfect pitch in almost all its parts. For me, though, what makes it bigger than all its awards is the immanent spirit of Matthew Shepard that hovers over all and gives this film the grounding in a reality recognized by all of us as the incontrovertable truth of this film.

Matthew, a slightly built young son of an ordinary American family, was lured from a campus bar in Laramie, Wyoming, shortly after midnight on October 7, 1998, by two other young men who told him they were gay.

They drove him into a landscape as wide and as open as our idealized notion of our democracy’s inclusiveness and tied him to a split-rail fence. He was tortured and beaten by his attackers, then left for dead in the chill of the night. The cyclist who found him unconscious, some 18 hours after the attack, at first mistook him for a scarecrow, his face caked with blood, except for the rivulets down his cheeks cleansed by his tears. He died in the hospital, his family at his side holding his hands. Candlelight vigils were held across the nation by shocked and disbelieving millions, most of them though not all, gay.

Tragedy also finds all of the main characters of “Brokeback Mountain.” The story starts in 1963. Jack and Ennis, inarticulate teen-age high school dropouts, are working together as sheep rancher's hands. Their beautiful surroundings even more remote, wide open and suggestive of the American democratic ideal than the region just east of Laramie where Matthew Shepard was left for dead. One of the scriptwriter's daughter lived very near that sacred spot, attending school with Matthew.

Jack and Ennis, overtaken and overwhelmed by their feelings for each other, know exactly how harshly they’d be treated by Wyoming’s "tough necks" if their secret were exposed. We see, and believe in, their love for each other, but even more we see them trapped in the claustrophobic boundaries of an American culture that adamantly rejects the essential nature of tens of millions of its own citizens. Jack and Ennis live in fear, shame, doubt and self-loathing that is constricting and deforming, arguably even more so than the intolerance and hatred they’d have to face from the larger society if they came out.

Annie Proulx, author of the short story the film was based upon and an alternative juror in the Shepard trail, said in a recent interview, "I think this country is hungry for this story." She’s right. Two streams, one a cinematic work of art, the other an historic readiness in our our nation to look beneath its vanity, separated by nearly a decade, but flowing into a single current, make a powerful force. The heartrending mysteries of hate and loss that suffused Matthew Shepard’s death begin to be reconciled by the tolerance pouring out of theaters showing “Brokeback Mountain.”

The immanent spirit of Matthew Shepard, then, has brought us a great distance farther on the path to the mountain top, the mountain top to which Martin Luther King blazed an earlier path of nonviolence but would not himself reach, just as he told the garbage workers of Memphis the night before his death. Tolerance is the only path, our experience of this film avers, that will get us to the top of that Brokeback mountain where we can see, in every direction beyond the years, alabaster cities that gleam undimmed by human tears.

[NickInIdaho]

Dear Nick,
       I think that you are darling.  And also very brave & courageous to take on the responsibilities you have, clear-eyed and open-hearted. I really don't know if I would have had the emotional stamina at your age. Obviously you are very strong. In a certain manner, you are also free & liberated since you have put all the cards on the table, forthrightly. And just as you have accepted yr partner's liaisons, with love and understanding-- even the beautiful child we all congratulate you for--so you can expect that understanding and support from your partner.

It's easy for me, sitting here, to blithely toss off advice I know, but I would just say out loud that I want to go see BBM again, would you like to come with me or take a pass this time? (implying there well might be another opportunity tp see tje film with you after the next viewing & maybe after that one too) It doesn't have to be some lubricious gay indulgence, assignation or temptation to go see BBM again. Not at all, it is just because it is so comforting in its truthtelling. I would say simply that I was very moved by sincerity and loyalty of the characters and I find I'd like to look more closely to the details that are missed on first viewing; that you would like to see how the whole orchestration of dialog and detail within the beauty of each frame creates an astonishing presence of empathy and compassion for the viewer; that you would like to study his technique. Anyway you've made it clear you are not excluding yr partner, but would like that person to come with you; yet you accept that different people have different tastes. Best of luck, & know that we admire you.
         
                                                   --Sagha

edited by moderator to remove download information. We do not encourage or condone downloading

Thanks Sagha - it is great to know that I have a "family" of sorts here. Your encouragement is wonderfully accepted.

BTW - no baby yet - waiting for contractions to get closer together! 

[leopoldo]

There have been a number of movies in my life --- one of which is definitely Brokeback Mountain --- which have caused me to question a number of my life-decisions and which have given me a sudden spiritual restlessness that is so often lacking in post-adolescent life. Accomplishing those two tasks within an audience is one, albeit just one, of the tasks of a great work of art, although many great works of art are great in working entirely other effects upon its audience. And much of the shine of this particular movie comes from its effectiveness in awakening the “hungry, restless heart” in each and every one of us. And yet…

Maybe it’s just impending old age --- or something --- but when I feel that hungry restlessness within my heart, I am also on my guard. Hungry restlessness is the norm in adolescent life, when even the law of gravity seems to be suspended, but it becomes an aching pain later on when one begins to discover that there does not seem to be anything “out there” to truly satisfy it. Yes, there are indeed exceptions to the rule, true lovers who find themselves in finding each other and who bond together for a life-time of deeply satisfying commitment. But how many such people are there out there? And going even farther, how many such people can there be out there?

People are attracted to one another because of a very powerful fit between certain facets of their respective personalities, but in most cases, the other facets of their personalities --- along with the social baggage that comes with them --- muck up the stream and, in many cases, dam the river dry in the end. Ennis and Jack, who are perhaps the truest lovers on the American screen at the present time, have hardly a complete relationship: indeed, there is an indication --- at least to me --- that their final confrontation by the river bank indicates that, if Jack had not died, he might have ended up breaking off the relationship with Ennis. And ultimately, in any case, all that is left of the relationship in the end is a set of bitter-sweet memories in the surviving partner, hardly an outcome that guarantees happiness for him during the rest of his life.

I think that we have to remember that Brokeback Mountain is, fundamentally, a tragedy, a tragedy not merely of a proscribed lifestyle but also of a deep, complex personal relationship, and that the reason why it resonates so strongly, not merely with gay people but also with straight people as well, is because it reminds us that life is, basically, tragic. Seeing Brokeback Mountain makes us committed to re-examining our lives, to reconsidering life-choices that may have been made too quickly and too easily, and to taking another chance on life on the rare occasion when the “restless, hungry heart” --- which has such wisdom in such matters --- gives us the green light to take that chance. But all of these considerations occur, must occur, within a fundamental awareness of the inherently tragic nature of life.

Indeed, it is the inherently tragic nature of life that makes its delights all the sweeter for being so few, so fleeting, and so bittersweet. Maybe, in the end, all that we have, can have, is Brokeback Mountain. We may want more; we may strive for more; but maybe that is all we can get. And yet even that little is infinitely better than nothing at all, a lesson which is perhaps the greatest of all the lessons that we learn from this magnificent film.

What a truly painful, truly true way of seeing. But it is a way of seeing. Often I'm found peering through my own pair of tragic specatacles, and BBM encapsulates that for me - how life can be and often is a world of suffering for so many. But then I have to retrieve my other way of seeing: it might seem futile, but we got lucky enough - that 1 chance in billions - to exist genetically and even though we suffer, we love too. Surely we have to cling on to the fragile beauty of everything we love. We're here for a blink in eternity - a random bit of genetic luck that we even came into existence. We TRULY have to make the most of it and avoid being like Ennis for as much as we can, even if, finally, we end up alone. It's the striving that counts.

aaah.

[gblady]

     --Sagha

I got to see BBM twice alone in the theatre, and I just loved those experiences of it......I am a pretty private person, raised as an only child, and love solitude.   Being able to be in the theatre and have noone elses responses, just mine....I felt was a priceless gift.  I sat 5th row, dead center....and just reveled in the scenery, music, nuances, beauty, love, grief....I could sob to my hearts content.  I truly feel that I have been so attracted to this film (going for #14 this week) because it has messages, lessons, gifts for me.  Just as Ang said that to him there was a Spirit, or force that was the movie, and he was just a conduit of that energy, I feel that I am to open myself to recieve the gift.  I hope this is making sense, I know what I am trying to say, but words feel inadequate at times.  Anyway, BBM has caused changes and shifts in me that are nothing short of miraculous....

[BillN]

A local publication has accepted my submission, although they shortened it, of a review of BBM. Perhaps, it will be of interest. I also have a reply to the gay critic of the Hot Button I'll post, in hope you too might call him on his wrongheadedness--Sagha
 

Sagha, thanks for letting us share your review, I see the parallels and it makes me feel very sad. Taking action to remind people of the need for tolerance is what we need more of, thank you for doing that.

[WLAGuy]

I am surprised that people have not gotten all over me regarding my most recent post. It was a frightening one for me to conceive, much less to write. Maybe most of us will end up just like Ennis, sitting by that window, flicking that lighter like mad, twitching like crazy, and staring down into the driveway --- without seeing anybody ever arrive, down below… May life be far more fortunate to us than that, and yet, that is a tragic possibility that we have to conceive if the cards don’t fall just right, as they so often don’t…<SIGH>

I'm not sure why you were afraid people would want to jump all over you for your post, jpq.  You were simply stating how you feel, and while some people might not feel the same way, no one can tell you that your feelings are invalid, or wrong, or that you shouldn't be feeling them.  (Now opinions, of course, are fair game.    ) 

[Boris]

I am 61 so feel I am also of the vintage of Ennis and Jack. However background different as I lived in a city and was brought up to be religious. After psychological treatment I became engaged to a lovely girl but about 6 months later (during which she told me I kissed her like I was her sister) we broke off the engagement and while the families were in discussion (both sides criticising me) I went off and had my first sexual experience at age 27.
I think I must be 100% gay. I have no sexual feelings for women (though many as friends) and have therefore given any married men who try to  pick me up a very quick brushoff. I always felt they were trying to have the best of both worlds. I would have loved to have children. The film has given me a greater understanding of guys who are pressured into marriage and kids and spend the rest of their life trying to reconcile the love for their family with their dominant gay urges. I could have been one of them if I had had the slightest sexual feeling for my fiancee. I still do not want to match up with a married guy as I want more than sex out of a relationship but I will have more understanding for them. I want a relationship where we can go out and enjoy all facets of life together. I had this once for 18 months but that was 25 years ago. He is still a friend but has lived with another guy for over 10 years. I have never found anyone else.

Thank you and welcome here. I congratulate you for keeping your principles. I would also have loved to have children and sometimes when I see my sisters with theirs, I feel small sting of envy inside. You have my warmest thoughts, friend and I hope that you are not alone.

Hugs, Boris

[jack]

I am 61 so feel I am also of the vintage of Ennis and Jack.   *snip*
. I still do not want to match up with a married guy as I want more than sex out of a relationship  I want a relationship where we can go out and enjoy all facets of life together. I had this once for 18 months but that was 25 years ago. He is still a friend but has lived with another guy for over 10 years. I have never found anyone else.

  brian, i edited you down to the words thaqt actually spoke for me.  that is exactly what i want, and i believe i deserve no less, and coincidentally, i am 62, also vintage.  welcome to that club, and this fellowship.

jack 

[NickInIdaho]

Somewhere along the line my priorites changed. I'm such an unfulfilled romantic. I want someone who wants those same things- who wants to be visible to another human being. I want someone to worry about- is he catching a cold, is he driving without his glasses, is his boss giving him a hard time? I want to give neck rubs, hide love notes, send flowers, hold hands, trade dreams, share obsessions. I want to read his favorite books, memorize his favorite dvds, be his guinea pig when he wants to try cooking. I want to roll my eyes when his mother calls. I want him to ride me about going to the gym and I want him to push me to be a better person. I want to figure out what drives him crazy in bed. I want him next to me opening night when a play of mine is produced, and I want to be beside him when his dreams are achieved and know I had a hand in helping it happen, even if only as his one man pep squad.

Rich, you moved me to tears with this one - you said it so well, the things I have thought for most of my life. Thanks for sharing this - again, you are not alone in your yearnings.

Geez!  Crying and working just don't mix!!      

Nick

[NickInIdaho]

Ummm. Hi. I'm 34 years old and I live in sunny Singapore. It's a city that's located in South East Asia. Very tropical - sun, sea, and lots of people & tall buildings. Very very unlike the cowboy plains of Wyoming or Canada. When word got around the gay community that Brokeback Mountain was to be shown without any cuts or censorship (because Singapore's government can be quite conservative), we all heaved a collective sigh of relief and flocked in droves to the cinema to watch it. And people have been talking about it since. Amongst friends, in blogs, in local forums...

I went with a gay friend to watch it at the Orchard Cineplex the other day. When the movie was over, he turned to me and asked me how it was. My instant reaction was to wince and I told him "OK... not as sad as I thought it would be. Very contained and claustrophobic for a movie where all you see is a wide expanse of land and space." My friend was a little disappointed, because he obviously felt something I didn't. Then. And I attributed it to the fact that "we live in a cosmopolitan city. I have nothing in common with Ennis or Jack."

Strangely for the next few days, Brokeback kept seeping into my head - it was just like a ghost, haunting me - at work, during lunch ... when I'm having dinner. It just wouldn't leave!! And I wondered why. I had to read the book. And so I went to the bookshop and got myself a copy. After 55 pages, it hit me so powerfully hard. What I saw on the screen, accentuated by the prose of Anne Proulx, got my stomach in knots and my mouth agape. I was stunned, I was awed, and I was frightened.

Suddenly, all my past "lost opportunities", all my past regrets, and most importantly, those days when I used to be innocent with an idealised notion of love that is pure and uncomplicated, and not jaded or cynical like I am now ... they all came flooding back to make me remember what I have once owned and lost through hurt and disillusionment. And I realised no matter if you are a city boy like me, or a cowboy, or a farmer, .. there's always a Jack or Ennis in all of us. Because we have yearned before, we have loved before, we have missed someone before, so much it made us curl up and cry... and these memories all came flooding back.

I've said it.

Island Boy,

Beautifully put!  I had the same reactions...I got the book days later too!  I am starting it today for a third time.

You have found a great place here. Welcome.

Nick

[DaveinPhilly]

Island Boy - I'm thrilled to hear it opened uncensored in Singapore. But even better is the way you found yourself in the film - going deeper into it. Such an extraordinary experience for us all.
Dave

[paintedshoes]

I went to see it again yesterday with the date night group.  When I had seen it with others before, I always felt a little defensive.  Will they love it, will they "get" it, will they have any idea how strong my emotions are about this beautiful thing.  And the answer was almost always "no".  The one exception was the first time with a dear friend who did understand, but before it had hit me like a ton of bricks.

Anyway, last night brought the experience to a whole new level.  I shared this with "true believers", could talk about the emotional impact, the soul-releasing joy and pain of it all.  Thank you's beyond measure to all of you who shared it with me last night. 

[andy]

Island boy, welcome to brokaholics.
I'll be in Singapore next Sunday/Monday. Do you know how long the movie is on for?

[Mejack]

I haven't been able to talk to anybody about Billy for fifty years. Finally, a group of people who I know will understand. After three times at BBM, I think I have the courage to tell some of  it. 

In 1954 I was seventeen and the youngest guy in Florida State Prison. The judge hadn't notice my age till it was too late. Quickly I was moved to Apalachee, the place for youthful, first-time offenders. My first day there, at free-time after dinner, there he was, coming down the sidewalk toward me. He nearly took my breath away. Billy was twenty, good looking, all slender and muscular, with curly hair and blue-green eyes.

He must have noticed my reaction because he came right to me and introduced himself. He knew how afraid I was that first day. Though somewhat inexperienced, I had always been attracted to guys.  It wasn't that way with Billy. Nothing in his experience had prepared him for someone like me. Yet, there was this bond. We both realized it that very moment, and for the next two years, we were inseparable.

Everything was monitored by the guards. There was free-time each day for a couple of hours after dinner. Billy and I always went down to the field to lay in the grass and talk. We shared our innermost feelings, and our dreams. The occasional touch of our fingers together, or looking into one another's eyes. That's all we could have. And we would never let a day go by without saying " I love you." Only once, on a special afternoon, a bunch of guys were on the porch with no guard in sight.  In the mid-1950s, even is prison, nobody had "a boyfriend" except Billy.  The guys started chanting, "Kiss him, Billy, kiss him". So somewhat cocky, and a little bit showoff, well, we had our kiss. Our only kiss, ever.

Billy had another year and a half to go when I was released. Parting day was unbearable. And it was against the rules for us to correspond. I went to New York to start life over.  Two years went by and I had no idea where he was.  But I knew his home was in Griffin, GA so I went there, located his mother, and found where he was staying.  Of course I was unexpected, and Billy was confused. He had a new girlfriend, and they were getting married. The three of us had lunch together, and when we said goodbye we tried to hide the tears.

A year later, I called again.  Ruth answered.  Billy was back in prison, this time for five years in Georgia. She was going across the state the following week to visit him and asked if I wanted to go along.  I did.

My sweet Billy sat across the table from his wife, and me.  What must have been swirling through his mind? He talked to Ruth, and all the while, under the table, entwined his feet with mine. We never saw each other again.

It was to be twenty years before I could get through a day without thinking of Billy. Eventually I met a sweet girl, we married, had four wonderful boys, now grown, and thoughts of Billy slowly subsided. After thirty years and a wonderful family, it was all just something in the past.  Until Brokeback Mountain.

Suddenly, after fifty years, all those emotions came flooding back into my mind. If only I could see him one more time.  If I could only know where he is and what his life is like.  I began searching. But it's been a dead end. My mind is still in turmoil.  And yes, reality has begun to set in.  I still think of Billy as a young man.  He's 72 now, if he's alive at all. He probably doesn't even remember me.  Of course he does. I'm the one who told him a thousand times that I'd always love him. And I do.

Thank you Heath and Jake and Ang. Thanks Ennis and Jack.  But I feel so alone now. . .

Paul