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I was reading a few things on lj about Brokeback Mountain today and I realized I was kind of surprised by the views on the movie, especially concerning adultery and it makes me think
Years ago I read this article in GQ that I really liked. It was about the different way that adulthood was viewed today (or in the 90s then) as opposed to the way it was viewed in, say, the 30s-50s, as evidenced by Hollywood, which both reflects the culture and shows you what you're supposed to want. Now of course back then people had their own things they didn’t get that we’d find just as silly. I’m not going to romanticize the past. But the main point of the 50s movies the author talked about was that adulthood to him as a kid always seemed to be presented as being a dangerous—and alluring—ground full of choices and loss. Whatever you chose, you give something up, and that something didn’t go away or die. It was still part of you. He felt this was far more acknowledged in movies back then, where as nowadays if you've got a person choosing between a family and a job--well, he chooses the family. He chooses the family and so becomes totally fulfilled and loves nothing more than being at his kids' Little League games. The parent who disappoints their kid for a job is a bad guy, one who must learn by the end of the movie.
The author specifically talked about all the pictures that used to feature adultery. The 50s is sort of known for being this homey time when Mom cooked dinner and had it waiting when Dad came home from work. The author’s mother was a housewife, but she used to take him to the movies to see all these stories of people living her life who were tempted to throw it all away for passion, sometimes destroying themselves in the process. He felt the movies were acknowledging that no matter how responsible you are, part of you still wants passion or something exciting—whatever the movie’s temptation stands for, for you. There's nothing wrong with wanting it or fantasizing about it, and the movies are a great place to indulge those feelings of wanting more without actually hurting anyone.
So I was just...I don't know, I'm surprised at how many people seem to come down on this idea that BB is wrong because it's adultery!! I mean...yeah? It's not like the movie doesn't present it as hurting other people or as something you could try at home. It just also acknowledges that these people want something and take risks to get it. Meanwhile the other side judges the men for not just coming out like they did when faced with their own conservative town, or for not being brave enough to choose love when love conquers all. And their situation can't excuse it because whatever they're going through the critic has something sort of like it in his/her life and they would have made a different choice.
All this just seems to completely miss the point. First because this is very clearly a movie about a small number of very specific people. There are no Everymen in Brokeback Mountain. Any argument against the movie that starts with, "I would have..." or "why don't they..." I think just misses it because the point of the movie is to look at the choices of these specific people (who are not you at all) and see the meaning in their life. You can take meaning from their story but your story has no relevance to them at all, really. One can acknowledge that Ennis and Jack were affected by poverty or lack of education or homophobia without implying that any of these things spell doom for everyone else. I think you have to do that with this movie, not because it’s just a rule you're supposed to follow but because I think the movie does a very good job of showing the individuality of these two people and their unique reactions. I've honestly yet to hear a solution to the movie that addressed the issues with which the characters themselves seem to be concerned.
But besides that I can't help but think about that article again and the way the author talked about people denying this conflict in life so everyone is always supposed to own their life completely. If you choose a family it's supposed to be totally fulfilling, if you're offered love there's no reason for not grabbing it except cowardice or laziness, in which case you don't deserve to long for what you've lost. Only I think this is a lie and adulthood really still is all about giving things up and wondering about the road not taken. The producers have said they made this movie with one audience in mind--women, and they seem to have appealed to the very things the author of that GQ article talked about--people who crossed the line and reached for that other life, took the risk and usually got punished terribly for it but damn, it was cathartic to watch even if killed them. I guess I just feel after reading so many articles that seem to talk about the movie from the perspective of the viewer's guide to life instead of the characters' (adultery is wrong, period; they hurt their wives and kids, period; they should have risked it all to be together, period; they had other options, period) makes me feel like...have we forgotten what movies are for?
There have always been people, presumably, who made their movie choices based on what they approved of and rejected movies that didn't conform to that. But is the point of The Postman Always Rings Twice supposed to be about not liking the extra-marital affair? Is Backstreet about how great it is to choose the lover over anything else? Oh wait, the guy's married...are we supposed to be siding with his wife and kids we never see instead of our heroine, the mistress? Should we judge Olivia de Havilland's character in All This and Heaven Too for giving up her son? So is it bad to be crying buckets at the end?
I do understand that sometimes you just can’t help but react to the movie as yourself, so I don’t think anybody who doesn’t like BB is stupid. I mentioned Backstreet above and I hated Backstreet. I couldn’t be sympathetic to the idiot woman. But I don’t think that people who loved the movie liked it because they thought it was great to do what that woman did. It probably appealed to a lot of people who felt, on some level, that they could identify with her despite not being in that situation.
I guess I sort of feel like no movie about adultery is really about making a statement about adultery. Or true love. Even in Fatal Attraction, the ultimate anti-adultery movie, the audience must be "with" Michael Douglas during the affair at the beginning just as much (or in order to) be "with" him when he’s being stalked. And even that movie at the time wasn't really talked about as having anything to say about adultery at all, so much as, well, AIDS, iirc.
Years ago I read this article in GQ that I really liked. It was about the different way that adulthood was viewed today (or in the 90s then) as opposed to the way it was viewed in, say, the 30s-50s, as evidenced by Hollywood, which both reflects the culture and shows you what you're supposed to want. Now of course back then people had their own things they didn’t get that we’d find just as silly. I’m not going to romanticize the past. But the main point of the 50s movies the author talked about was that adulthood to him as a kid always seemed to be presented as being a dangerous—and alluring—ground full of choices and loss. Whatever you chose, you give something up, and that something didn’t go away or die. It was still part of you. He felt this was far more acknowledged in movies back then, where as nowadays if you've got a person choosing between a family and a job--well, he chooses the family. He chooses the family and so becomes totally fulfilled and loves nothing more than being at his kids' Little League games. The parent who disappoints their kid for a job is a bad guy, one who must learn by the end of the movie.
The author specifically talked about all the pictures that used to feature adultery. The 50s is sort of known for being this homey time when Mom cooked dinner and had it waiting when Dad came home from work. The author’s mother was a housewife, but she used to take him to the movies to see all these stories of people living her life who were tempted to throw it all away for passion, sometimes destroying themselves in the process. He felt the movies were acknowledging that no matter how responsible you are, part of you still wants passion or something exciting—whatever the movie’s temptation stands for, for you. There's nothing wrong with wanting it or fantasizing about it, and the movies are a great place to indulge those feelings of wanting more without actually hurting anyone.
So I was just...I don't know, I'm surprised at how many people seem to come down on this idea that BB is wrong because it's adultery!! I mean...yeah? It's not like the movie doesn't present it as hurting other people or as something you could try at home. It just also acknowledges that these people want something and take risks to get it. Meanwhile the other side judges the men for not just coming out like they did when faced with their own conservative town, or for not being brave enough to choose love when love conquers all. And their situation can't excuse it because whatever they're going through the critic has something sort of like it in his/her life and they would have made a different choice.
All this just seems to completely miss the point. First because this is very clearly a movie about a small number of very specific people. There are no Everymen in Brokeback Mountain. Any argument against the movie that starts with, "I would have..." or "why don't they..." I think just misses it because the point of the movie is to look at the choices of these specific people (who are not you at all) and see the meaning in their life. You can take meaning from their story but your story has no relevance to them at all, really. One can acknowledge that Ennis and Jack were affected by poverty or lack of education or homophobia without implying that any of these things spell doom for everyone else. I think you have to do that with this movie, not because it’s just a rule you're supposed to follow but because I think the movie does a very good job of showing the individuality of these two people and their unique reactions. I've honestly yet to hear a solution to the movie that addressed the issues with which the characters themselves seem to be concerned.
But besides that I can't help but think about that article again and the way the author talked about people denying this conflict in life so everyone is always supposed to own their life completely. If you choose a family it's supposed to be totally fulfilling, if you're offered love there's no reason for not grabbing it except cowardice or laziness, in which case you don't deserve to long for what you've lost. Only I think this is a lie and adulthood really still is all about giving things up and wondering about the road not taken. The producers have said they made this movie with one audience in mind--women, and they seem to have appealed to the very things the author of that GQ article talked about--people who crossed the line and reached for that other life, took the risk and usually got punished terribly for it but damn, it was cathartic to watch even if killed them. I guess I just feel after reading so many articles that seem to talk about the movie from the perspective of the viewer's guide to life instead of the characters' (adultery is wrong, period; they hurt their wives and kids, period; they should have risked it all to be together, period; they had other options, period) makes me feel like...have we forgotten what movies are for?
There have always been people, presumably, who made their movie choices based on what they approved of and rejected movies that didn't conform to that. But is the point of The Postman Always Rings Twice supposed to be about not liking the extra-marital affair? Is Backstreet about how great it is to choose the lover over anything else? Oh wait, the guy's married...are we supposed to be siding with his wife and kids we never see instead of our heroine, the mistress? Should we judge Olivia de Havilland's character in All This and Heaven Too for giving up her son? So is it bad to be crying buckets at the end?
I do understand that sometimes you just can’t help but react to the movie as yourself, so I don’t think anybody who doesn’t like BB is stupid. I mentioned Backstreet above and I hated Backstreet. I couldn’t be sympathetic to the idiot woman. But I don’t think that people who loved the movie liked it because they thought it was great to do what that woman did. It probably appealed to a lot of people who felt, on some level, that they could identify with her despite not being in that situation.
I guess I sort of feel like no movie about adultery is really about making a statement about adultery. Or true love. Even in Fatal Attraction, the ultimate anti-adultery movie, the audience must be "with" Michael Douglas during the affair at the beginning just as much (or in order to) be "with" him when he’s being stalked. And even that movie at the time wasn't really talked about as having anything to say about adultery at all, so much as, well, AIDS, iirc.
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And these films are, of course, for the most part not actually making a statement about adultery.
But I reserve the right not to see a film because it contains 30 years of adultery (no matter who you think they're being adulterous against) because of how much that bothers me.
And, you know, maybe it's wanky to say so, but I don't go to films to have my views challenged, to cry, or to grow as a person. I go to films to be entertained.
And, quite frankly, 30 years of adultery doesn't entertain me. (I have also, for the record, not seen any of the other films you mentioned either. I have, however, read Brokeback Mountain the short story, and decided, based on that, that the film held no interest for me what-so-ever.)
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30 YEARS. (feels sorry for wives)
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Saying that you can see you have no interest in seeing the film for whatever reason, imo, is not wanky. I hate it when people try to argue you out of things that you know are going to annoy you. It's not a duty to see this movie, and it doesn't make you a better person because you want to see it. Especially since really, what you're describing is the whole point of the movie--it is years of painful adultery that hurts everyone and doesn't bring happiness. Lots of people wouldn't want to see the movie just because it's a downer even if adultery didn't bother them at all.
Off the top of my head I remember being completely annoyed by what I saw about "The Exorcism of Emily Rose," and even if somebody told me it was scary and I like scary I'd still say that I know sitting through the movie would just annoy me because I couldn't stand things about it.
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There's nothing wrong with wanting it or fantasizing about it, and the movies are a great place to indulge those feelings of wanting more without actually hurting anyone. AS LONG AS YOU DON'T ACTUALLY DO IT!!! isn't that the hidden message? i mean, this is Baktinian carnival at its best, right? The system contains an outlet that supposedly subverts it but as it is provided by and contained within the system, it never actually succeeds in unsettling it...ideology par excellence...
also, i'm sure if we looked at many of the films, the transgressing heroines would get punished, right? then again, Ennis gets punished and yet our sympathies are with him...or are they? Are we supposed to return to our small lives sad that we can't have and follow these grand feelings or content b/c we're not screwing up our and our families' lives?
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I think the wrong that he does his wife is made hugely clear in the film: what I think makes it very strong is that we sympathise, to an extent, with the narrow palette he's given himself. More than most films, this film shows that actually, there aren't any easy answers. The homophobia is real, the options are few. Whichever way you move, somebody gets hurt.
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also, i'm sure if we looked at many of the films, the transgressing heroines would get punished, right? then again, Ennis gets punished and yet our sympathies are with him...or are they? Are we supposed to return to our small lives sad that we can't have and follow these grand feelings or content b/c we're not screwing up our and our families' lives?
I don't think those movies are the opposite of BBM. Some of them are different--The Postman Always Rings Twice, for instance, is a film noir where passion leads to murder etc. But Backstreet is about a woman who's someone's mistress for 30 years and iirc the end of the movie is about sympathy for her. Not just sympathy but respect. It's very much like Ennis, imo, where you're not sure if you're supposed to admire her for her passion or be happy we didn't throw our own lives away. But that's the thing-you can't really say that the movie is telling you to feel a certain way. Especially since Ennis, unlike the heroine of Backstreet, is less likely to ask for sympathy as a character. With her I think the movie more invites women in the audience to identify with her by presenting idyllic memories of the early love of her girlhood. I think that's a step harder in BBM.
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One of my favorite movies is The Lover, based on Jane March's semi-autobiographical work. Rotten Tomatoes gives it horrible reviews. What moved me so much was the hopelessness of the character's situation, the existence of their love despite any way to resolve their inevitable demise, and all the emotions that they both have in this situation. It's brilliant. I don't mind fluffy movies, I enjoy heavy and light topics equally depending on my moods. Entertainment is where we find it. I wonder, for those who are strongly opposed to such adultery based films, does it feel bad to like it and enjoy it because that means that you endorse the activities and choices of the characters? I have a friend who could not tolerate watching Fatal Attraction because he was so strongly opposed to adultery. He actually left the room. It struck me as human and realistic that the character cheated. That movies mimic real life should remind us of its voyeuristic qualities. We listen with fascination to gossip of people we know who did outrageous things, whether cheating or some other act. We watch with horror and titillation the events of the news. Maybe it's just like a train wreck, you know you shouldn't watch, but vulgar curiosity makes it near impossible to tear your eyes away. The beauty of the film is that it is fiction, or at least, if it isn't, it's history, not a trainwreck.
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The point really sort of seems to be: this happened. What do you think? It's just interesting I've read many negative reactions to the movie (often from people who haven't seen it) who seem to suggest that it's dishonest or shouldn't be shown because it promotes a lie when, as you said, these things happen.
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However, I do find the idea of this choice being a case of rock-and-a-hard-place & definitive of adulthood compromise vs the bright-eyed idealism of youth to be inspiring & pretty on the money. Well, there's also a reason I'm a romantic rather than a hardcore realist, isn't there :> However, I do enjoy things for their artistic value even if I disagree with them on idealistic grounds-- which you didn't mention as a reason to have the issue besides personal projection. It's not so much that I want everyone to be like me in stories (*shudder*) as I just feel bad and dislike enduring tragedies of this nature most of the time. It's probably the sort of tragedy that makes me most frustrated and pissed at the world in general.
The 'adultery is bad, mmkay' objection is just -odd-, though this is a pretty extreme case of it, I suppose. I personally only care about adultery if we've been set up in the story to root for or identify with the committed couple-- if the story is -about- them, then I'm really pissed abotu adultery, and if the story isn't then I don't care. In other words, I have no morals, only more romanticism to offer~:)
I do think people used to watch movies in a more sophisticated fashion several decades ago, but I also think people used to expect different things from them & movies used to be -made- differently, with different goals & intelligence levels in mind. Now, most movies -are- made almost entirely for entertainment, and they didn't used to be in quite the same way. It's all interconnected, I think, the shifts in watching with the shifts in creating. The creators probably blame the audience for setting the trends and vice versa; in general, also, pop culture used to be more-- um-- intellectual, just a bit.
It's kind of depressing that you're supposed to always choose your family & be uncomplicatedly happy, but those are the dumb 'family' oriented movies, also. There's this recent film with Richard Gere as an academic and his over-achieving daughter that didn't seem to fit into that mold. In general... I do think it's possible not to regret your choices in life, but for that you must know both who you are & what you want, and most people find that difficult. However, the way I see it, if you don't know these things, you've sort of... failed in a major way (well, yeah, so most people have failed, in terms of self-realization). Not that nostalgia or vague wondering is 'wrong', of course it isn't, but when you know and you're really satisfied with what you're doing by and large, doing something else seems like an academic exercise. Compromise is inevitable, naturally, but I still don't think you have to give in....
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However, I do enjoy things for their artistic value even if I disagree with them on idealistic grounds-- which you didn't mention as a reason to have the issue besides personal projection.
Oh no, I didn't mention that because I think that's a different thing. I think I tried to throw in one line trying to make that distinction but I didn't make that very clear. We can't help our reactions to things and sometimes we *are* going to completely disagree with stuff in a story and we should say so. I think that's part of interacting with a movie. It's just that this movie seems to have been leapt on by so many agendas, many of which aren't *really* what the movie's about. And then they do what people do so often in HP fandom is that they change the storyline to fit their agenda, so suddenly the movie is celebrating the love story and giving no sympathy to the poor families left behind, or it's saying it's a good thing that Jack and Ennis don't come out. Your problems with the story, at least as far as I remember, are your real reaction to the actual character as presented, I think. I mean, yeah, there are some things that are your own issues--but we all have those. Nobody is totally objective, and my own reactions are just as much about my own issues. But you're saying, "This is why watching this character bothers me," and "why this bothers me" or "this is why I like this" is, I think, showing that you are really interacting with the movie just the way movies are usually intended to be interacted with.
I do think people watch movies differently because they are made differently, you're right. There's the entertaining movies and then the ones that are supposed to Make You Think in a way that's outlined for you in the press. Also, I definitely think that you can not regret your choices--I don't think the movies of the past were really about regretting your choices. Usually I think the people did wind up happy with their choices. It just said you were allowed to consider what you gave up without having to say, "I never wanted to do anything with my life but be your mother!" or whatever.
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First I wasn’t sure whether I agreed (with you or with the author of the article) that movies are an outlet for example for responsible people who can imagine throwing it all away for passion; I do think movies, as other stories, mean to me a journey into someone else’s life. Just like you said, “To look at the choices of these specific people and see the meaning in their life.” Then I realized that there are of course many kinds of movies, and the audience can react to them differently.
I read a post about BBM that addressed the misunderstanding concerning the movie, and the poster asked if she was meant to empathize only with characters who’d never done anything wrong and who were suffering only because of the mean and unjust world. Where did I recently hear that if you take a character’s internal crisis and make it external, you end up with less interesting characters and a less interesting story? This is a wonderful example of that. Are my thoughts anywhere near what you had in mind? Your description of Fatal Attraction sounds like Michael Douglas was not a some hero with a pure heart that the world punished without his own fault, but an adult, making choices.
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Where did I recently hear that if you take a character’s internal crisis and make it external, you end up with less interesting characters and a less interesting story?
:-D
Yes, I do think this is a lot like that! I mean, the arguments that people have about the movie are good, I think. It's just that you can't flatten the movie out and find a single villain or a single solution to the problem. But a lot of the discussion I happened to see in articles was on one hand good because it *was* discussion and it's great that a movie can inspire discussion. But it was also often trying to shut down the discussion by saying that if you are the "right" kind of person you'd react "this way" to the movie.
Your description of Fatal Attraction sounds like Michael Douglas was not a some hero with a pure heart that the world punished without his own fault, but an adult, making choices.
Absolutely. He has an affair for no other reason than he has the chance, even though he's got a nice family and a great wife. In fact I remember once reading something about it where the person pointed out that the biggest cheer moment in the movie was right after Michael Douglas finally confessed that he'd slept with someone and she was stalking him. First his wife is very hurt and there's nothing he can do--he's a total bastard. Then the woman calls and is again threatening to tell his wife and MD tells her his wife knows. She doesn't believe he'd have the guts to tell her. His wife gets on the phone and tells the woman to stay away from her family and that's the big cheer. It's like the character everyone really connected to was the wife and mother protecting her child, completely separate from her husband. It's a very weird movie, though.
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And nowadays people really have so much more control over so many more facets of their lives. And so many things that couldn't be controlled in the fifties can be controlled now with the flick of a button; and things are known and understood now that were mysteries then. So really, I think it has to do with the technological boom and the push towards science and mathematics that swept the nation and the world right after the fifties. Because with science you do have certain absolutes, and you can almost always get to an answer and then logically explain the way you got there. Often, things are explained in absolutes; there is no ambiguity and everything is pretty black-and-white. And this has proven a very successful recipe for technological progress.
And so, I think, since so many answers have been given, and can be given absolutely, people are beginning to expect absolute answers from every facet of their lives, including ones that don't have absolute answers. We've found a solution for pneumonia; why can't the dichotomy of the human heart be the same way? And then when there is no absolute solution to the problem, people hurry to slap some sort of moral label onto it so that they can feel fulfilled.
Or something like that. It's late, and I've been pondering this for far too long. So that's my two cents right there, badly articulated as it is. Hopefully you can do something with it. XD
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BBM has yet to open here, so even though I've read the short story I read your comments with my fingers over my eyes.
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The additional twist is the incredible shame, if I can call it that, around the homosexual relationship. This relationship is so secret, so taboo, that it can't be tackled directly; equally, the death needs to be sanitised very, very carefully for other people.
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That's an excellent point that often isn't brought up, especially when people see it in terms of our own common distinctions of straight and gay. Ennis certainly seems to see his thing with Jack as a thing with Jack that's not like being married. I suspect he'd see cheating on Alma with a woman completely differently--and wouldn't do it. Likewise Ennis can have an affair with a rancher's wife but not a rancher. I'm sure it would be hard for him to explain, but it's not just a case of his rationalizing, imo. I'm glad you also brought up the love aspect (he LOVES someone else) because I think that both Lureen and Alma would have lived with their husbands occasionally sleeping with a woman that meant nothing to him. Part of the problem is the humiliation to the wife, the usurpation of her place.
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I guess I sort of feel like no movie about adultery is really about making a statement about adultery
Or if it is, it's probably not a very good movie. :)
I do understand that sometimes you just can’t help but react to the movie as yourself
I think, probably, that usually that's what we do. But, being ourselves, sometimes we try to be objective (or just don't care, which sometimes amount to the same thing), and sometimes we can't, or won't. Could it make sense to separate into private and personal? That, normally, you'd have a personal reaction (somewhere along the subjective-objective continuum), seeing things in light of yourself and your experience, unique to you but still maybe relevant for somebody else. And then there's the private reaction that only says something about you, and how you felt, whatever resonated, random moral judgements etc.
I'm kind of thinking that people might have adultery sqicks though, only that they're not realising that that's what it its, and that their squick only says something about their own tastes, and nothing about the merits of the film, whether that be as a film, as entertainment, as social commentary, as moral tale, or whatever.
I certainly consider myself to have film squicks. And actor sqicks. It's irrational, but I know I'm not going to enjoy something with my squick as a main focus. For instance, I'm sqicked by Tom Hank's wholesome movie persona (not him as a person, but what I perceive as his persona). I can't concentrate on anything but how that rubs me the wrong way if I see a film containing that. So I don't. But I know this is a very private reaction and that it says nothing about the film. And if the BBM adultery hate people have nothing more than that kind of reaction to use when judging the film to be useless or immoral or wrong, I really don't think their opinions are publicly valid. Although privately, and as a reason not to see the film, or dislike it if they did, yeah sure.
- Clara
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I'm kind of thinking that people might have adultery sqicks though, only that they're not realising that that's what it its, and that their squick only says something about their own tastes, and nothing about the merits of the film, whether that be as a film, as entertainment, as social commentary, as moral tale, or whatever.
Yes--I think the first two posters were coming at it from that angle and were completely right. They know what movies interest them and this one doesn't. It's wrong to act like it's a moral judgment on *them* (like they're homophobic or not romantic) because they have that reaction to it. Not liking horror movies or violence in movies doesn't make you a coward. I hate Gwyneth Paltrow, and that distracts me from any movie she's in.
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The movie sucks because it really doesn't have a lot of art, it's slow and boring, and ithe theme is a crappy mishmash of the self-congratulatory and the simplistic. But then, Ang Lee's Austen was a worse movie, and Crouching Tiger was hardly genius - it barly holds a candle to slightest of Zhang Yimou's efforts.
Hollywood is going gaga over it just as they did over those other two abysmal flicks, chicago and titanic.
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See, now that is a perfectly valid ripping apart of the movie, imo! Like I said above, when I see a movie that drives me up the wall for movies like this I *love* to tear it apart and say exactly why I had no sympathy for the characters, or how I thought their motives were not what they were presented as, or basically all the things you're saying here. The movie not dealing honestly enough with deceit and romanticizing it--that's a good observation, imo, because I think it's specifically looking at the story and these characters and what this movie did. (And of course the Hollywood reaction to it is up for analysis/skewering itself.) I think it's great to take hold of the ideas you feel the movie is really presenting and answering them.
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As for the idea that this is a movie about adultery or promoting infidelity as something romantic well...okay, first of all, the idea that adultery is romantic goes way back to the medieval days of courtly love and probably further back than that, so it's hardly a new concept. There's a movie coming out about Tristan and Isolde and I wonder if people are going to be up in arms about how that movie is promoting a romantic image of adultery. Probably not because that's all gauzy and medieval and we're all supposed to identify with poor, beautiful Isolde who winds up getting married because that's what's expected of her so of course we understand why she winds up in the arms of hunky Tristan! Cue the violins! (Or the Evanescence, judging from the commercials.) Well, whatever the circumstances, gauzy or not, it's still adultery, isn't it?
OK, that was a tangent but the fact is that the story of these people's lives is -- as most real lives are -- very complex. We've become used to simplicity in the movies, to there always being one right way and one wrong way. But there are no clear rights or wrongs in Brokeback Mountain. It's like you said in one of the comments, the only "right" thing Ennis could have done was just not to love Jack and love just doesn't work that way, unfortunately. Since he can't do that, then I suppose, depending on what perspective you're coming from, then the "right" thing for Ennis to do would either be to throw caution to the wind and run off with Jack or to cut Jack off completely and remain faithful to Alma. But why does anyone think that either of those scenarios would have worked out? I mentioned above (and have discussed with you) that Jack and Ennis living together might not have been all peachy, but I strongly suspect that Ennis and Alma would have wound up divorced eventually even without Jack in the picture. Ennis would have been miserable living over that laundry and Alma would have gotten disgusted with Ennis's close-mouthed lack of ambition and the whole thing would've gone to hell. The thing about Brokeback Mountain is that it's almost too realistic in that there's really no "right" way these characters could have acted, no one true way to live their lives that would have ensured happiness for them and a "feel-good movie of the year" experience for viewers.
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It's funny because throughout history there have just been so many reasons to keep people apart in fiction, many of which don't exist today but we can still get into them. Tristan and Isolde, obviously, and all those Medieval courtly romances. Or it could be race, or warring families or class. If the movie is just saying, "Isn't it great we no longer have a problem with these two types of people being together" then yeah that's not much of a story. But if it's also a messy situation where everybody's got an opinion about the situation--that's some good stuff to talk about, like gossiping about the neighbors at the very least.
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1. How much are cowboys and/or the regional characters stereotypically associated with avoiding adultery?
2. How does this compare with The Bridges of Madison County?
P.S. OMG Miyazaki films every Thursday on TCM!
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1. I think cowboys in movies at least are more stereotypically associated with leaving the women at home and having closer bonds to men. Err...okay, and then probably if there's a girl the movie ends when he finally gets together with her! I'd say that actually the people in the movie aren't all that adulterous. Ennis barely likes people and would probably rather just pick one person and stick with them. Jack brags about having an affair (with a woman). In general most of the people in the movie aren't that concerned with sex at all. Of course, that's often because their sex lives are unsatisfying.
2. That's one I haven't seen.
p.s. Yes!!!
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Years ago I read this article in GQ that I really liked. It was about the different way that adulthood was viewed today (or in the 90s then) as opposed to the way it was viewed in, say, the 30s-50s, as evidenced by Hollywood, which both reflects the culture and shows you what you're supposed to want. Now of course back then people had their own things they didn’t get that we’d find just as silly. I’m not going to romanticize the past. But the main point of the 50s movies the author talked about was that adulthood to him as a kid always seemed to be presented as being a dangerous—and alluring—ground full of choices and loss. Whatever you chose, you give something up, and that something didn’t go away or die. It was still part of you. He felt this was far more acknowledged in movies back then, where as nowadays if you've got a person choosing between a family and a job--well, he chooses the family. He chooses the family and so becomes totally fulfilled and loves nothing more than being at his kids' Little League games. The parent who disappoints their kid for a job is a bad guy, one who must learn by the end of the movie.
Interesting essay! It was Thorwald Dethlefsen, I think, who said that our society today is a society of children and no rites of passage exist anymore because no-one really grows up.
So, where older movies just portrayed people, the choices they made and the consequences these choices had, today's movies mostly seem to have a PC-political agenda. Which makes sense, as children need to be educated. Don't do this! Do that instead! If you make the wrong choice, you'll get punished. So, get it right for heaven's sake!
Adults otoh can be trusted to draw their own conclusions: to do this will have these consequences. Is it worth it to you?
As to the commentors saying they won't see the movie because they are not entertained by adultery, it reminds me of a colleague years ago who said she hated Basic Instinct (another Michael Douglas movie) and when asked why, answered that it made the statement that all women want to be raped (because in one scene MD's character has rather violent (passionate?) sex with his then girlfriend). I was totally confused, because I hadn't realised at that time people would see movies as how-to manuals or such.
For me that is as if you would say you dislike the MonaLisa because the picture claims all women would look better without eyebrows. To which I can only answer, "huh?" ;-)
Babette
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I have to agree. I mean, I know the whole "Kids today" idea is as old as the hills, but I really do think that something got lost somewhere. In the article I read I remember the author was noticing just trends among his daughter's friends. Anecdotal evidence isn't proof but he just said he couldn't help notice that they were great kids but none of them had any desire to leave home or weren't excited about college. It's like, if you live in a world where kids are the center of everything why would you want to leave it to be an adult? It's a good thing for the adult world to be the one you want to get to.
My own parents happened to just always be very clear on this. I remember when I was in high school any problem I have they just always put in perspective as being just high school and why would you care that much? Not that they dismissed every problem, I don't mean that, it was just they obviously didn't think that high school was that important in your life. Yet I remember watching a TV show where a daughter was crying about not being popular and the mother was crying with her, like this was really something to cry about and high school was your life. Very strange.
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In the context of the society they lived in, these two men could never be happy together, but in their own hearts, they could never be happy apart. No matter what they choose, they are never going to live happily ever after. And it's important for us to share stories about the essential unfairness of life. Aristotle believed that tragedy invokes the emotions of horror and pity, and brings us to a sense of catharsis, essentially by humbling us and reminding us that sometimes the gods are fickle and we can't do a thing about it.
As an aside, I think it is important to acknowledge that these two men were committing acts of adultery. To claim that there is something different about their love because they are both men is to denigrate that love by putting it in a different category as the love their wives felt for them. Love is love, and a promise is a promise. People make mistakes and hurt other people, even people that they care about very much. But when you are in love with someone other than your spouse, and you continue to have sex with that person, it's adultery, whoever they are.
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And yes, I completely agree adultery is the only thing to call it. That's highlighted in the movie as well, I think. What makes it different than some cases of adultery is, perhaps, that there's a specific reason that the lovers in question didn't just marry each other, but given that they are married, there's no difference. I can see why a lot of people aren't interested in seeing the story because of that--I would just disagree with some things I've read that seem to assume the movie overlooks this when I don't think it does. Ennis' wife in particular is, imo, very sympathetic and portrayed as someone who deserves better treatment. I know I, at least, could not think of any excuse or rationalization for her being hurt the way she was.
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So while I found it refreshing to see a movie acknowledge that love does NOT conquer all, I still had nagging doubts that I finally identified as disappointment that the movie did NOT acknowledge that In Life, There Is No OTP. That everything "morally questionable" about the movie (homosexuality, adultery....bear in mind that I personally do not observe these moral categories, but penty of people do), while complexly presented, was nonetheless underwritten by the Great Hollywood Lie that for each of us, there is One Right Person out there, and our only shot at happiness depends on finding that person and holding the fuck on, whatever it takes.
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Movies these days give us the "perfect solution". In that awful Nic Cage movie where he's a career man who lives his life over again as a family man (was it called Family Man?) and at the end he chooses the family and he's deliriously happy. That's not true. That's a lie Hollywood feeds the viewers and we buy in to it. There's no way he's not eaten away with resentment for having settle for a family and the 'burbs, left wondering how much better his life would be if he'd given it all up for his career. Or something like that.
At least the movies of the old days said you grabbed for whatever you could, if you could, and if it didn't work out, well then you tried, right? And there was always doubt and the feeling that it wasn't perfect. And in the end no one acknowledged that you were right to have done what you did and that they were proud of you. Everything from Out of the Past to Sunset Blvd proved that theory.
If Ennis and Jack had bucked it all and ran off together, then what? Where would they have lived? How would they have made money? Who would have supported them or stood by them? How would leaving the few things they had, like Ennis's kids, have made them happy? Ennis would have mourned for not having his girls in his life and Jack would have been miserable knowing he was the cause of the separation.
That's life: the hard choices. They made theirs and they lived with it. Yes, they were adulterers. Heck, we've had quite a few of those portrayed as the heroes/heroines of films (Fatal Attraction, Unfaithful, the new Woody Allen movie Match Point -- and see how no one's calling it that “Woody Allen adultery movie”?) That Jack and Ennis were adulterers is simply one facet of this stunning movie that offers a glimpse into another life, another world, and that pinning everything on "they cheated" or "they didn't ended up together" misses the beauty of what Ang, Heath and Jake created. Misses it by a mile.
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Concerning adultery and BBM, it was what bothered me most about the film. Actually, it wasn't the adultery per se, but the moment when Ennis physically threatened Alma. For some reason, that made me more uncomfortable than any man-man kissing ever could. Just my simple opinion, which can't compare to the interesting analysis you've written here.
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That was the worse scene in the movie for me too. Actually, it's funny, when I think of some of the scenes that made me feel the worst they were often with Alma. She was stuck there in the kitchen when her husband runs off with this other man, the poor woman who never gets to go out. Had she not seen Ennis and Jack kissing maybe she might have been able to be in denial for a while at least, but there she is having it shoved in her face and not knowing what to do about it. I'm glad she told Ennis that she knew, though it was really scary when he threatened her.
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The fact that they were committing adultery didn’t bother me in the sense that it did not make the characters any less sympathetic. This story is in part about how the prejudices of the time made good people do bad things. When we judge a person’s actions we have to look at the circumstances in which they acted. Ennis and Jack couldn’t live together as they wanted because they might have been murdered for doing that (and in the end, Jack is murdered for doing far less.)
For Ennis it was never an option that he and Jack could be a couple, so he married Alma as he promised, they had children, he supported them and he tried to be a good husband. When Jack found him Ennis carried on with him when he could, but he always looked after his family. He and Alma split up because she found him out and could (understandably) no longer bear his double life. Ennis did not choose to leave her. After that he still provided for his daughters, and he chose to spend time with them when Jack made an unexpected visit, rather than send them home so he could ‘go fishin’. He withdrew from a heterosexual relationship when it became too serious. He did his best within the limitations of himself and the society he lived in, and he should be judged by that standard.
Assuming that homosexuality is not immoral, then Jack and Ennis lived in a society that immorally imposed almost unbearable restraints on the most intimate and essential aspects of their lives. In response, they lived immorally by leading double lives while striving not to hurt their wives and children. If homosexuality had been accepted in 1963 then Ennis wouldn’t have married Alma (heck, he would never have gotten engaged to Alma) and he and Jack would have ridden happily off into the sunset. But that wouldn’t have been much of a story, and that wouldn’t have reflected the reality of the times they lived in. It’s those times that should be judged.
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