At Jack's Parents

[janjo]

A late comment:  Various authors writing about powerful, emotional love sometimes say that the concept did not exist before the age of troubadors, Abelard/Heloise etc.  But as far as I am concerned, that just means the 'concept' did not exist -- i.e. a word, and phrases, and a literature.  But the lack of a literature does not mean peolpe did not experience the same feelings which we feel today.

Actually, I find 'romantic love,' as often portrayed by troubadors, quite artificial.  Somebody pointed out that it often involved a woman of higher class than the troubador himself, i.e. unattainable.  I  would go fuirther and say that it was expressed almost invariably by a troubador (almost always common, sometimes low nobility fallen upon hard times) toward a rich noblewoman (his hostess and employer -- or, at least the wife of same).  It seems the whole basis of the 'love' was impossibility, so I have to wonder if it was the 'romantic love' we talk about now under that name.  Delicate pinings and sighs, but rarely led to elopement (save in Verdi).  I'd say troubador love was a 'force of civilization'!

Abelard/Eloise are another story entirely;  no delicate pining for them, and look how they ended up!
 

I completely agree with you, Dal. Love is much more biological, emotional and psychological than the "romantic, concept makers" ever seem able to fathom.

[fofol]

Love is of course mystical and spiritual, and also psychological and emotional. It is nice to have the symbols of roses, love hearts, etc, too, but in reality other than as expressions of feelings that are sometimes hard to fathom, they have little to do with the reality of love.
Jack never sent Ennis roses, valentine cards, or even a photograph, but he did keep the shirts. They were something known only to him, and to a lesser extent because she probably didn't know the whole story, by his mother.
Love relationships are deep, and pretty much unknowable except to the people involved in them.
There are theories amongst the more cynical that love is just a way of rationalising sexual lust, but this does not work for me at all, probably because I try not to be more cynical than necessary, and because I see the evidence that this is not so before my eyes.

Social and literary commentators often try to pick love relationships apart, with descriptions of hetero normative behaviour, and analysis of marriages as contracts made for reasons of power, financial gain, and land. All of these are true. That was, and is what sometimes still happens.
It denies love though.
People do, and always did, also marry for love. Or they marred for power and land, and had love affairs too.
These love affairs sometimes put their marriages at risk, and caused them great trouble, but they still could not help themselves.
Sometimes they were with people of the opposite sex, and sometimes of the same sex.

Love is not controlled by the head. It can't be planned for, it is difficult to measure qualitatively or quantitatively, but it still happens all of the time, and is a real fact of life.
It is uncontrollable, even if we can't see it. It is a psychological and emotional reality.
Ennis managed to at least on some superficial level deny what was happening to him during Jack's life, but after his death the loss was too great for him to bear and he could deny it no longer.
Death truly reveals the depth of feelings on many occasions.
What can't be seen and what can't be measured is a reality, a fact, and changes lives irrevocably.
 

   Love is also accepting pain, aggravation and cleaning up after your love when they have been sick.  It is paying the bills, driving errands, kissing the physical, emotional and spiritual boo-boos better.  Love is other-directed; sexual relationships, which often masquerade as love, even to the 'lovers,' are in fact self-directed.  Nobody seems to be teaching this.

    Did Ennis have the knowledge to understand that his feelings for Jack were love?  It certainly was love, for all the sacrifice he made to meet Jack for those fishing trips, but Ennis "knew" from the hardest of lessons that love was what happened between a man and a woman that made babies - iow, Earl's corpse and dad's laughter knocked him away from all thought and reason about emotions and drives.  This phenomenon does happen often enough that it has a name - PTSD.  We see Ennis's PTSD 'melting' at the Twist's kitchen table as the meanest Daddy aims to hurt Ennis with the 'truth,' but instead shocks his heart open.

   *for those unfamiliar:  PTSD is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Externally, symptoms vary widely, but internally, there is always a disconnect between 'knowledge,' feelings and external reality.  (Their lives are the evidence that both our boys suffered from it.)

[BayCityJohn]

Crossing Borders

Born in Taiwan, schooled at NYU, and trained in the trenches, Ang Lee broke new cultural ground with universal stories like Brokeback Mountain and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. But the one thing he won’t do is repeat himself.

“It’s a good day to do an interview,” says Ang Lee on a quiet morning in midtown Manhattan. The director is in a brief lull as he moves from one office to another before embarking on his latest cinematic adventure. So the space where we meet is relatively empty, and though Lee is low key and serene, it is his formidable presence that fills the room.

There is a paradox at work here. Despite his mild manner, Lee has been something of an artistic daredevil, flying from one genre to another and consistently taking risks. With his still controversial Hulk, he tried to bring genuine human feeling to a comic book superhero; with Lust, Caution, the lineaments of the erotic thriller were applied to something deeper, more profound. His last feature, Taking Woodstock, was a coming-of-age story set against the counterculture upheaval of the ’60s, which doesn’t sound particularly subversive, except when you consider it was as much a coming-out story as it was a coming-of-age story.

Born in Taiwan, Lee has directed an impressively varied array of humanist films, including The Wedding Banquet, Eat Drink Man Woman, The Ice Storm, and Ride with the Devil. He was nominated for a DGA Award for his Jane Austen adaptation, Sense and Sensibility, and won DGA Awards for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Brokeback Mountain, for which he also received the Academy Award for best director.

Listening to Lee describe his working methods, one is struck by the compassion of his vision. He said he was honored to do the DGA Interview, and seemed to regard the occasion as a chance to articulate his artistic principles—not just for members, but for himself. “It’s great,” he says, “to have gotten to a place where I can share advice and experience with my fellows in this way.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Q: One of the most dramatic moments in all your work is the scene when Ennis Del Mar visits Jack Twist’s parents at the end of Brokeback Mountain. How did you go about setting the mood?


A: Well, it goes much farther back from the point when you step on the set. And that scene is, as it happens, my favorite scene in the movie. It’s a very stoic scene, a scene about a person who’s not there but had been brought to life so vividly by Jake Gyllenhaal, who all of these characters have lost. For my visual inspiration I referred to Andrew Wyeth, and also the Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershoi, for those stark, white doors. So the first thing to do was find the right house, the right space, and of course that’s the task I brought to the production designer, Judy Becker. And to shoot that scene I used a style that I had worked with in Hulk. I shot with two cameras, capturing the actors from both sides, and then changing lenses and doing it again. It’s a very irregular way of coverage. When you edit it together, you can apply certain emphasis to certain reactions, emotions. Shooting this kind of coverage can confuse some actors. But of course it did not confuse Heath [Ledger], Peter [McRobbie], and Roberta [Maxwell], all of whom I just loved. It was a strange day. I wanted a lot of sunshine for that scene, and I got it, and I remember walking to the set and just feeling that this was going to be a great day. Still, a scene like that, it’s the actors and their faces, they make it all.


http://www.dgaquarterly.org/BACKISSUES/Spring2010/DGAInterviewAngLee.aspx

[ChangeINeed]

Nope! Jack never brought Randall up on Lightning. I'm sure he mentioned him to his parents, desperate after his last meeting with Ennis, but that's all. My evidence:

1. Their last meeting took place late spring, during the May of 1983 (page 20 of the short story)

2. Jack always visited his parents after  his fishing trips with Ennis

So, when his father says: "Then this spring he got another fella gonna come up here with him..." he just wants to sprinkle salt on Ennis' wound, because he is very well aware of who his is. I've seen a hundred times how he spits every word, how he waits the last one to take effect before telling the next. Ennis shallows like he chokes, then his eyes are full of tears. Mission accomplished.

3. The touch of the mother on Ennis' shoulder. A slight, gentle push and the next moment the suggestion of visiting Jack's room, almost irrelevant with the purpose of the visit. She was like trying to assure him : "Shh.... It isn't true. Go see for yourself. You'll find the proof you need up there".And he found it, indeed.

[janjo]

CIN, you have it perfectly!

[morrobay]

Nope! Jack never brought Randall up on Lightning. I'm sure he mentioned him to his parents, desperate after his last meeting with Ennis, but that's all. My evidence:

1. Their last meeting took place late spring, during the May of 1983 (page 20 of the short story)

2. Jack always visited his parents after  his fishing trips with Ennis

So, when his father says: "Then this spring he got another fella gonna come up here with him..." he just wants to sprinkle salt on Ennis' wound, because he is very well aware of who his is. I've seen a hundred times how he spits every word, how he waits the last one to take effect before telling the next. Ennis shallows like he chokes, then his eyes are full of tears. Mission accomplished.

3. The touch of the mother on Ennis' shoulder. A slight, gentle push and the next moment the suggestion of visiting Jack's room, almost irrelevant with the purpose of the visit. She was like trying to assure him : "Shh.... It isn't true. Go see for yourself. You'll find the proof you need up there".And he found it, indeed.

I love your words here.

[chuckyv]

I am looking for a still photograph from the scene at the Twist ranch, I saw it on the forum at least a year ago, but have not got the patience to search for it. It is a black & white shot of Roberta Maxwell standing near to Heath Ledger, taken in the kitchen. Anyone remember where it is on the forum ? I am planning a large pen & ink drawing of this image, to include in a future re-drawing of a booklet I made in 2006/2007. I have so far completed some large images which I am going to include.The forum has grown to encyclopaedic proportions, so it really is a needle in a haystack, but I do hope someone will know where the image is. Thanks!!

[baeyt]

There's a rather moving review over on Yahoo (among all the trash) that is especially in love with this scene:

http://movies.yahoo.com/mvc/dfrv?mid=1808403312&s=rc_d&rvid=255-628017&i=1&spl=1&ys=YRVWHtUTldPEcu5q0YqHOg--

Can anyone share me contents of the said review? Page not found in Yahoo!

[Sandy]

Welcome to the forum baeyt.

You might check out the archived threads in the "Impact" section of the forum where reviews were discussed. However, they may contain links that are no longer functional. Some reviews, I believe, were cited in whole or in large part. Good luck and see you on the threads.

[suzycreamcheese]

Thank you so much Roberta Maxwell.  You were perfect.

[fofol]

Thank you so much Roberta Maxwell.  You were perfect.

Ang Lee evidently thought so also: he is quoted as saying that the last scene in the Twist's kitchen is his favorite scene in the film, because of the actors and the day itself.