How Brokeback affected me

[PetterG]

I saw the movie 3 days ago and have been totally depressed. I would like to see it again but don't think I could handle it. I think it made me take a look at my life and how I am "Ennis". I have been hiding for 30+ years because of the fear of what others think. I have my BBM that I go to once in a while but then return to my "normal" life and am miserable. This movie has caused me to seriously concider "coming out" and hopefully stopping the constant lost, empty feeling that I have always had.

Very welcome to this forum. As You can see here there are several others who are in a situation similar to Your.
If this movie will give You (and all the other) the strength to "coming out" it has really done a good job and I don't think that Ang Lee & co can understand what they have done by producing this thing.

[jack]

So honest, so powerful, so painfully beautiful… so subtle and simple, and yet, it speaks volumes.

Can someone now please tell me how I can quit this movie, and stop spending sleepless nights haunted by this story’s beauty?

good luck quitting... until there is a 12 step program i am along for the ride... and their ain't no reins on this one.

[jack]

I saw the movie 3 days ago and have been totally depressed. I would like to see it again but don't think I could handle it. I think it made me take a look at my life and how I am "Ennis". I have been hiding for 30+ years because of the fear of what others think. I have my BBM that I go to once in a while but then return to my "normal" life and am miserable. This movie has caused me to seriously concider "coming out" and hopefully stopping the constant lost, empty feeling that I have always had.

please keep returning here.  you will at least have a safe, nonjudgemental home until such time as you can begin to think about change, and there is a wealth of experience in here, centuries of it (ouch). 

[Ntkguy]

I'm going to see it again for the second time tomorrow night.  First saw it 10 days ago and like so many others of you out there, havent been able to get it out my head since.  LIke so many others, I know in my brain that "its only a movie", but it has messed with my head and my heart like no other movie I can remember.  I left the theater dry eyed the first time, more numb than anything , but I'm afraid this time I'm going to cry my eyes out.  I'm still not sure why I want to torture myself again but its like I cannot NOT see this film again (hows that for a double negative).  I've really enjoyed reading so many inciteful comments and observations about BBM in this forum and I'm going to get a lot more out of it the second time because of them.  Its comforting to know that there are so many other good people experiencing the same thing I am.  Thanks for your support!!

[CellarDweller115]

Why is it so groundbreaking to just see an honest portrayal of gay love? You don't see fundamentalists posting F reviews of comedies where macho actors dress in drag to go undercover. It's fine as long as we are laughable, or dying of AIDS, or lusting after unnattainable straight people.

If I were ever to run into one of the principles of the movie, I would just want to say, "thank you, you have no idea how much this means, to have our story told."

You're so right H.C.

I think that's one of the reason this movie means so much to us.

Finally, a movie where we are the main characters, and not lisping, or arranging flowers, gossiping, having limp wrists, or any of the other stereotypes that get laughs.

[jiml]

Though I live in a huge city, I don't feel much differently than adamblast or billn. I can't imagine finding a nice, simple, masculine guy to spend time with. Someone who would like to hop in my truck and drive to the mountains. A guy who would like nothing more than camping for a week in the woods, or sitting on the deck to watch a sunset, or lay in the hammock by the pool. It sounds ridiculous, but it is true. Sure I have had long term relationships since my early twenties. Two years here, three years there. Now almost two years idle after the last one. There was always something missing. Some integral, natural, unhurried attraction...maybe it is just my imagination and the power of this film that has made me believe I really missed the boat. I think back mostly on the missed opportunities. The things that almost happened but didn't. A guy in high schoool, the hunky guy in college I could never bring myself to come onto. It is easy to romanticize things that never happened, and things that didn't have to withstand the pressures of everyday stresses and the messy business of life, I know. Nonetheless, the movie made me mourn my own losses, but also has given me a glimmer of hope that maybe I can find that guy out there somewhere. The guy who can help me see the limitlessness of the sky, the clear water of a lake, and feel the fury of nature inside of myself and him. Only this time with a happy ending. 

Wow, can I identify with all of that! (Except for the camping stuff ... I'd just as soon never "rough it" again. I prefer a nice hotel room!)

[Spunabout]

I left the movie benumbed, in the thrall of all that constitutes it:  the searing pain and the torturous might-have-beens wrapped so tightly in an all-encompassing cocoon of haunting beauty.  Everything that unfolded on the screen was presented with a blinding clarity, beauty, and purity.  Even the elements that might have been ugly in lesser hands – the impoverished dwellings, the dirty ancient vehicles, the terrors and betrayals – were sheer poetry.

I did not cry.  Pain is no stranger to me.  I have made friends with my mortality.  I have struggled with my own life and improbable love.  But my mind was thoroughly blown, as it has been by other films of equal artistry and gravitas, like Schindler's List, but really, more so.  I could not help but ask myself why.  Why was this movie so very powerful?

I think it is because Ang Lee has done nothing less than create a new pair of archetypes, in both the literary and Jungian sense.  He took Proulx characters and made them bigger, universal, made a new mythos.  He created an alternative yin and yang.  (I think the black and white hats symbolize that.)  I believe this is why the movie plays like a waking dream:  our dreams are the mists of myth, filled with archetypes.

At some point, during the course of the film, some aspect of my psyche was so engaged that it is as though it were relentlessly yanked from my subconscious, and that bit of self became Jack Twist.  I identified with him.  Then Jack was brutally, tragically killed in the movie.  It was as though that bit of myself had been violated and allowed to die.  That aspect of self could not help but go into shock, to cycle through the elements of post-traumatic stress (PTSD):  feeling helpless, persistent re-experiencing of parts of the event (the movie), numbness combined with heightened sensitivity, feelings of detachment.

(I have the impression that many of those posting here experienced some aspects of “artistically induced PTSD” in response to the movie.  Other elements can include withdrawal, hypervigilance, difficulty sleeping, etc.)

What did this movie do to me?  It stunned me.  In every sense of the word.

Does this mean that I should not have gone to this movie?  Not at all.  Human beings are drawn to stories, myth, and stimulation.  It's why we love movies and other art in the first place, or drive fast, or engage in thrill seeking, from bungee jumping to going to Halloween haunted houses.  No matter how strong the reaction to this movie, it can be processed.

It hurts so good.

[dancam22]

I agree with Spunaout's post.  Like a Medieval Passion play or Greek drama, a religious experience, calling up the deepest emoitions.  Love, sacrifice and redemption.  The film brings forth our own myth in all its power and glory.

[MellorSJ]

If I were ever to run into one of the principles of the movie, I would just want to say, "thank you, you have no idea how much this means, to have our story told."

Ouch... 

[BillN]

Spunabout, you have done a wonderful job in putting into words what many of us have felt, thank you

[Spunabout]

Thank you for the kind words.  I guess I can't help but be analytical.

[jack]

Thank you for the kind words.  I guess I can't help but be analytical.

nonetheless, many of us that are equally analytical are walking around wondering what happened to our lives. and why does this live inside us so, and identifying with jack or ennis or both.

i noticed something odd today.  i didn't cry very much at the movie, i was stung by the short story, but i cry nearly every time i read a positive review, one the extolls the acting, or in particular, sees the largfer picture, or recognizes the broken hearts and their universality.  i think i think "they got it, they finally f***ing got it. and i am overwhelmed with feeling.

[sparky]

[Wow, can I identify with all of that! (Except for the camping stuff ... I'd just as soon never "rough it" again. I prefer a nice hotel room!)

Oh man, Jim, come on !

Packing in with horses, tents for a few nights, campfires, tequila...it is a riot !

[jack]

a sleeping bag, a marine, a cliffside cave on oahu edging over the pacific, with the light of a full moon and no sound but the wind and the waves.  that's all the camping i ever want to do.

[gnash]

I left the movie benumbed, in the thrall of all that constitutes it:  the searing pain and the torturous might-have-beens wrapped so tightly in an all-encompassing cocoon of haunting beauty.  Everything that unfolded on the screen was presented with a blinding clarity, beauty, and purity.  Even the elements that might have been ugly in lesser hands – the impoverished dwellings, the dirty ancient vehicles, the terrors and betrayals – were sheer poetry....

....It hurts so good.

very nice to read this, spunabout... i did cry at the movies and am teary eyed by your post. i dunno what it is. i can't even cook beans without gettin choked up. was tempted to eat them out of the can, even.

glad to keep seeing all the posts from people that feel this way, makes ya feel less alone.  peace to all.