I watched Brokeback Mountain

I watched this movie with my friends as a half-joke. “Haha, it’ll have cute gay cowboys”.

Yes, there are cute moments in the movie with the the two cowboys (technically shepherds).

What I connected more with was the decpiction of their relationship.

Slow burn

The film is set in ’60s Wyoming. Not a place you’d expect to see queer people out and about. That’s a theme of this movie.

Throughout the film, you get a sense of loneliness. Vast plains, remote roads, chilly mountains. It paints a picture of a beautiful world that isn’t for you, that won’t include you. Jack and Ennis are out of place in the natural world, as they are in civilization.

Their relationship develops slowly, over months. You can see the longing there, without an outlet to reach out. You can see it in the way Jack looks at the campfire miles away, from his tent atop Brokeback, trying to catch a glimpse of Ennis. Or when Ennis asks for soup, not beans in their rations for the next month, saying “he’s sick of beans”, even though he doesn’t like soup, and had no obligation to think of Jack’s preferences.

In their own little ways, Jack and Ennis care for each other. Even though it’s near impossible for either of them to express it to each other.

Even when one of them finds the opportunity and the courage to express this love, it’s difficult for the other to accept it.

This part was written 6 months later

I’ve had some time to let my thoughts on this movie ferment.

I may (will) get some details wrong.

The most important part of the movie is about the decision to live life as yourself. Jack and Ennis both struggle with this.

The tension in the movie comes from both of them having different views on how to live their lives.

How does Ennis view himself?

Ennis is a very interesting character. He loves Jack, that much is obvious. What he lacks is the courage to go and live a life with Jack. He wants to be a part of normal society. He wants to have a wife.

From what I see, Ennis doesn’t love his wife. He’s happy with her, but he wants to delude himself into thinking that he loves her. He wants to have that nice life where he can just be a normal guy with a family, and it is obvious in the way he treats his homosexuality. For him it is a burden, a foreign thing inside of him he must satiate once in a while with Jack.

What about Jack then?

Jack in my view is more accepting of himself. He knows that he’s gay and that’s a part of himself.

He does marry a woman, he does live a good domestic life. He’s a successful salesman by the end of the movie.

Jack is happy in living however he does, and he’s the one who pitches the idea to Ennis for living a life together.

What makes them unhappy?

Jack and Ennis have very different approaches to their relationship with each other. Jack wants to take the next step, while Ennis just wants to do the minimum amount necessary to keep himself from breaking without Jack.

This comes directly from their own identities. For Ennis his homosexuality is a monster to be satiated, something that he has to keep fed using Jack to keep his “actual” “normal” life from spiralling out of control. It also manifests to him like a temptation he can’t resist, and has to indulge himself once in a while. This is a time when he’s actually himself and actually shows his love for Jack.

^{Ennis takes the cloth from Jack to clean his own wound, not letting Jack clean it}

Jack meanwhile has a healthier attitude towards himself and Ennis, which means that he actually imagines a future with them together. While for Ennis, it is the present, the indulgence in the “sinful” act that is the focus of their relationship, for Jack it is an imagined future that they can share.

Ennis’s first priority is his wife (and kid) becuase he wants it to love his wife, to be defined as a family man, not an outcast.

Jack’s first priority seems to be Ennis, becuase that’s who he loves and he’s ready to leave his family behind for it.

Conclusion

Ennis’s wife finds out about her husband’s relationship with Jack. Obviously heartbroken, she leaves him.

Now that his goal in life has been rendered unachievable because of his wife leaving, Ennis has to come to terms with what he can do.

He’s not able to form the same meaningful relationship with another woman. We even have to question if he had a meaningful relationship with his wife by the time of their divorce. Was there an actual connection or were they just stuck together because of the child?

Ennis finds out that Jack died. He’s left heartbroken. This is where he starts living for himself.

The courage he was never able to muster up, to admit his love and longing for a future with Jack, is wasted now that he can’t be with Jack.

But Ennis, with nothing left anymore, does not have anything to be afraid of. He doesn’t have anything to lose and he is able to start living.

He doesn’t view his love for Jack as a monster anymore, and he is able to express that to himself and Jack’s parents in a better way. He holds on to Jack’s denim jacket and is able to forgive himself for not loving Jack.

Ennis starts loving himself, in spite of the mistakes he’s made in his past, and in spite of however awful he has been to Jack.