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A Picture of Two Americas In 'Brokeback Mountain'
By Stephen Hunter
By Stephen Hunter
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(…) It's when the movie moves upstairs at Jack's parents' house that "Brokeback Mountain" achieves its true power and universality. The subject then becomes not homosexuality but closets, which Lee presents, again literally -- that's a real closet there -- and metaphorically. Ennis is alone in the room, but he feels a presence and looks into the closet where he's metaphorically lived the most meaningful and happiest days of the life. He ducks in as if prostrating himself before an altar, drops to his knees and, hidden way in the back, finds Jack's shirt, smeared with blood from a fight they'd had; and within Jack's shirt is his own shirt, with his blood from the fight. It's all that remains of Jack, and this man, who can ride and rope and fight (we've seen that) and kill (coyote and elk) finally has a tender moment as he brings the garments to his face and rubs them against his cheek. Presumably the people who will be sickened by that sight have either a) not come in the first place or b) left an hour or so earlier after the first scene in the tent. Those of us who are left get the full emotional weight of the scene as the repressed man finally allows himself the redemptive pleasure of a little expression.
We see the shirts again shortly; now, however, their order has been reversed, so that Ennis's shirt encloses Jack's, in a gesture, too late but all the more poignant for it, of protection. The site of the shirt, however, is still the closet: It's Ennis's closet in his trailer where he lives alone, essentially an exile from each society, gay and straight. On the inside of the closet door, he has taped a photo of what may be the actual Brokeback mountain, or just a mountain that his imagination has taken as Brokeback. It's an image of paradise, as the whole train of mountain imagery is generally glorious, going all the way back to James Hilton's Shangri-La. The picture makes homosexual America a Shangri-La.
But when he opens the door, it swings out on its hinges and comes to rest against the wall. By a cleverness of design that is brilliant, it is next to the window of the trailer, and through the window, we see another America. The composition of the shot is genius-level work. Both images are framed -- the mountain by the frame of the photo, the reality by the frame of the window, and both are enclosed in a third frame, the screen. The meaning is clear: the movie is offering choices. Shangri-La or . . . ?
And what's the image of the real America through the window? Why it's flat. It's a dreary rural wheatscape, if you will, with no features to interest the eye, no textures to assuage the soul. There's nothing interesting to it. It expresses someone's idea of repressed America, where gay men are forced to bury their personalities and violent conformism is the rule of the day. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein, there's no there there.
Lee has made his point viscerally; he's not in a pulpit, but he's no innocent either. He's speaking louder with images than most of his ideological opponents do in words.
(…) It's when the movie moves upstairs at Jack's parents' house that "Brokeback Mountain" achieves its true power and universality. The subject then becomes not homosexuality but closets, which Lee presents, again literally -- that's a real closet there -- and metaphorically. Ennis is alone in the room, but he feels a presence and looks into the closet where he's metaphorically lived the most meaningful and happiest days of the life. He ducks in as if prostrating himself before an altar, drops to his knees and, hidden way in the back, finds Jack's shirt, smeared with blood from a fight they'd had; and within Jack's shirt is his own shirt, with his blood from the fight. It's all that remains of Jack, and this man, who can ride and rope and fight (we've seen that) and kill (coyote and elk) finally has a tender moment as he brings the garments to his face and rubs them against his cheek. Presumably the people who will be sickened by that sight have either a) not come in the first place or b) left an hour or so earlier after the first scene in the tent. Those of us who are left get the full emotional weight of the scene as the repressed man finally allows himself the redemptive pleasure of a little expression.
We see the shirts again shortly; now, however, their order has been reversed, so that Ennis's shirt encloses Jack's, in a gesture, too late but all the more poignant for it, of protection. The site of the shirt, however, is still the closet: It's Ennis's closet in his trailer where he lives alone, essentially an exile from each society, gay and straight. On the inside of the closet door, he has taped a photo of what may be the actual Brokeback mountain, or just a mountain that his imagination has taken as Brokeback. It's an image of paradise, as the whole train of mountain imagery is generally glorious, going all the way back to James Hilton's Shangri-La. The picture makes homosexual America a Shangri-La.
But when he opens the door, it swings out on its hinges and comes to rest against the wall. By a cleverness of design that is brilliant, it is next to the window of the trailer, and through the window, we see another America. The composition of the shot is genius-level work. Both images are framed -- the mountain by the frame of the photo, the reality by the frame of the window, and both are enclosed in a third frame, the screen. The meaning is clear: the movie is offering choices. Shangri-La or . . . ?
And what's the image of the real America through the window? Why it's flat. It's a dreary rural wheatscape, if you will, with no features to interest the eye, no textures to assuage the soul. There's nothing interesting to it. It expresses someone's idea of repressed America, where gay men are forced to bury their personalities and violent conformism is the rule of the day. To paraphrase Gertrude Stein, there's no there there.
Lee has made his point viscerally; he's not in a pulpit, but he's no innocent either. He's speaking louder with images than most of his ideological opponents do in words.
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(Αναδημοσίευση από την εφημερίδα Washington Post 02-02-2006)
(Αναδημοσίευση από την εφημερίδα Washington Post 02-02-2006)
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