Brokeback Mountain Forum @ ennisjack.com
The Movie & Story => Characters, Quotes & Scenes => Topic started by: jimnick on Jan 05, 2006, 09:56 AM
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So subtle and heartwrenching when Ennis finds his long lost shirt, still bloody, sheltered inside of Jack's still bloody shirt all those years later. Jack had secretly protected them, hidden deep in his "closet". How poetic is that? Ennis of course takes the shirts and hangs them behind a door in his trailer, close at hand but just out of sight to the casual viewer, so like him, true but, notice that it is his shirt that is now sheltering Jack's shirt. When it's no longer possible to do in life he is wrapping his love around Jack and swearing "A Love That Will Never Grow Old"
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So subtle and heartwrenching when Ennis finds his long lost shirt, still bloody, sheltered inside of Jack's still bloody shirt all those years later. Jack had secretly protected them, hidden deep in his "closet". How poetic is that? Ennis of course takes the shirts and hangs them behind a door in his trailer, close at hand but just out of sight to the casual viewer, so like him, true but, notice that it is his shirt that is now sheltering Jack's shirt. When it's no longer possible to do in life he is wrapping his love around Jack and swearing "A Love That Will Never Grow Old"
Yes, to see that one shirt is tucked carefully inside the other: this image has a 'protective', nurturing feel to it.
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It's like the tenderest thing in whe whole world. I bought the soundtrack yesterday and have played it ceaselessly; in the truck, on the laptop at the jobsite, on the computer at home. I'm not an emotional guy but this story has gotten to me deep and how. I bought the book "Wyoming Stories" and read Brokeback Mountain three times today. Going to see the movie again tonight. I know I'll bawl. Some fine construction worker I am, huh?
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It's like the tenderest thing in whe whole world. I bought the soundtrack yesterday and have played it ceaselessly; in the truck, on the laptop at the jobsite, on the computer at home. I'm not an emotional guy but this story has gotten to me deep and how. I bought the book "Wyoming Stories" and read Brokeback Mountain three times today. Going to see the movie again tonight. I know I'll bawl. Some fine construction worker I am, huh?
I have not yet gotten the soundtrack. Thanks for the comments. Like the film, the soundtrack is simple, straightforward, and goes straight to the heart. And why be afraid to brawl when one is so moved?
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I have not yet gotten the soundtrack. Thanks for the comments. Like the film, the soundtrack is simple, straightforward, and goes straight to the heart. And why be afraid to brawl when one is so moved?
you do know you can listen to it on the http://www.brokebackmountain.com/home.html web site...there is a music player with the complete soundtrack!
x Froggy
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you do know you can listen to it on the http://www.brokebackmountain.com/home.html web site...there is a music player with the complete soundtrack!
x Froggy
Thanks Froggy! As usual, you are a font of information. :)
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Just happy I can help! ;)
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thanks, Froggy, You're super!
Jim
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Jim you are right! The shirts scene and the last scene are just pure poetry, not seen oftenly on movies. Thanks for bringning us this subjet. Actually those 2 scenes are the ones that brought me to tears.
Love from Montreal,
Pierre
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So subtle and heartwrenching when Ennis finds his long lost shirt, still bloody, sheltered inside of Jack's still bloody shirt all those years later. Jack had secretly protected them, hidden deep in his "closet". How poetic is that? Ennis of course takes the shirts and hangs them behind a door in his trailer, close at hand but just out of sight to the casual viewer, so like him, true but, notice that it is his shirt that is now sheltering Jack's shirt. When it's no longer possible to do in life he is wrapping his love around Jack and swearing "A Love That Will Never Grow Old"
It is one of the scene that tore me apart at the end. I didn't notice the change of shirts until later when my friend pointed out.
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For me, when Ennis finds the hidden shirts in Jack's closet, the moment is quiet and private and sacred. Painfully sacred. There is something almost spiritual about it. For here, in a plain little room, Ennis realizes the depth of his love for Jack. The whirling wind on Brokeback Mountain blew through their shirts. The blood-stained sleeves reminded Ennis in a cowboy way of his passionate need for Jack. The shirts held the embrace of someone he loved so desperately who was now gone. The shirts inside of each other affirmed to Ennis that Jack's love was as close to his heart as ever. There is something peaceful and sacred about clothing. Often times we've come to know about a surviving spouse who goes to great lengths to preserve the clothes of his or her deceased love one. It's a sacred way to remain connected, afraid to ever let go.
"You know, I go back into his closet and can still smell his cologne. It's hard to explain but it just makes me feel close to him."
"Every Easter, she wore this old yellow sweater that reminds me of her so much. It still hurts."
"Sometimes I just like to put his military jacket around me so that he's close to me. No one understands except for me."
The shirts were Ennis's way (and previously Jack's way) to hold onto and preserve what precious mattered more than anything in his whole life. Their lives were so genuinely intertwined on Brokeback; thankfully, the shirts, one inside of the other, provide Ennis (and the audience) with that heartfelt reminder.
stationbbm
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For me, when Ennis finds the hidden shirts in Jack's closet, the moment is quiet and private and sacred. Painfully sacred. There is something almost spiritual about it. For here, in a plain little room, Ennis realizes the depth of his love for Jack. The whirling wind on Brokeback Mountain blew through their shirts. The blood-stained sleeves reminded Ennis in a cowboy way of his passionate need for Jack. The shirts held the embrace of someone he loved so desperately who was now gone. The shirts inside of each other affirmed to Ennis that Jack's love was as close to his heart as ever. There is something peaceful and sacred about clothing. Often times we've come to know about a surviving spouse who goes to great lengths to preserve the clothes of his or her deceased love one. It's a sacred way to remain connected, afraid to ever let go.
"You know, I go back into his closet and can still smell his cologne. It's hard to explain but it just makes me feel close to him."
"Every Easter, she wore this old yellow sweater that reminds me of her so much. It still hurts."
"Sometimes I just like to put his military jacket around me so that he's close to me. No one understands except for me."
The shirts were Ennis's way (and previously Jack's way) to hold onto and preserve what precious mattered more than anything in his whole life. Their lives were so genuinely intertwined on Brokeback; thankfully, the shirts, one inside of the other, provide Ennis (and the audience) with that heartfelt reminder.
stationbbm
Well put definitely, you simply can't get rid of things that remind you of someone you love.
Shakespeare put it as like keeping the grief is liking keeping them in the room with you.
It's strange how one life can do that to us, it's like we go through our lives and just do things day to day
not knowing one day or one event can just alter everything. I do think if Ennis hadn't met Jack he would
have sleep walked through his life sort of.
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I'm back on the SHIRT thing again. Excuse me, please. I was going to let it go but I can't, so here I am again. I offer you all my sincerest apologies.
In seeing the movie again last night, I happen to notice that when Ennis is away from camp and Jack is in the buff, except for boots and hat, doing laundry in the river, he is washing Ennis' shirt (the one that eventually gets blood stained). He's wringing it and beating it on rocks and then picks up a stick and starts whacking it. I think this is subliminally telling us that he is also wrestling with his new understanding of what has happened between them. Did anyone else pick up on this, or maybe I am crazy
Jim
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Actually, the whacking of the shirt is to get rid of the water and nothing more. My granny used to do the laundry by hand and I remember she used to do that, including slapping the shirt on a hard surface to get as much water out of the laundry before sun drying it....
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From the short story:
"The closet was a shallow cavity with a wooden rod braced across, a faded cretonne curtain on a string closing it off from the rest of the room. In the closet hung two pairs of jeans crease-ironed and folded neatly over wire hangers, on the floor a pair of worn packer boots he thought he remembered. At the north end of the closet a tiny jog in the wall made a slight hiding place and here, stiff with long suspension from a nail, hung a shirt. He lifted it off the nail. Jack's old shirt from Brokeback days. The dried blood on the sleeve was his own blood, a gushing nosebleed on the last afternoon on the mountain when Jack, in their contortionistic grappling and wrestling, had slammed Ennis's nose hard with his knee. He had staunched the blood which was everywhere, all over both of them, with his shirtsleeve, but the staunching hadn't held because Ennis had suddenly swung from the deck and laid the ministering angel out in the wild columbine, wings folded.
The shirt seemed heavy until he saw there was another shirt inside it, the sleeves carefully worked down inside Jack's sleeves. It was his own plaid shirt, lost, he'd thought, long ago in some damn laundry, his dirty shirt, the pocket ripped, buttons missing, stolen by Jack and hidden here inside Jack's own shirt, the pair like two skins, one inside the other, two in one. He pressed his face into the fabric and breathed in slowly through his mouth and nose, hoping for the faintest smoke and mountain sage and salty sweet stink of Jack but there was no real scent, only the memory of it, the imagined power of Brokeback Mountain of which nothing was left but what he held in his hands."
This line stood out to me: "He pressed his face into the fabric and breathed in slowly through his mouth and nose, hoping for the faintest smoke and mountain sage and salty sweet stink of Jack but there was no real scent, *only the memory of it, the imagined power of Brokeback Mountain of which nothing was left but what he held in his hands.*"
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He's hurtin' real bad. The poor man is broken hearted.
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I saw that shirt reversal today.... so choked up :'(
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Jimnick,
regarding the laundry, it's interesting to notice (and this was pointed out to me by brilliant posters on the IMDB board) that Jack is washing Ennis' shirt, and later when we see the beginning of Ennis and Alma's "domestic bliss" she 's doing the laundry by hand in the sink when he walks in . . .
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borger1582
You're right, Alma was handwashing when Ennis comes home. Kind of iron(Pardon the pun)ic that they move into town over a laundromat, isn't it? All that washing and he couldn't come clean...
Jim
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I say it again, my favorite scene. So subtle, silent, no word is necessary. Actually the whole time at Jack's parent's house is awesome. The feelings of the father, the one's of the mother. Roberta Maxwell did a wonderfull job, everything is in her eyes, she understands Ennis and there is no doubt the parents know about Jack and Ennis relationship. She accepts it, period. Her son was loved after all.
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Did you see how Jack's mother so longingly was hoping Ennis would visit them again, almost like accepting him like he was a part of their family now, like a surrogate son, since they had lost their only son. He knew Ennis was a big part of Jack's life from the things that must've been said to them. I'm still not sure if his dad really had much feeling for Jack however, but certainly his mother does.
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The father does not accept homosexuality at all, just the way he tells Ennis about this "other" friend from Texas that Jack would take to his parent's house and start a new life. He just wanted to hurt Ennis. Not to mention the denial of giving to Ennis the ashes of Jack: "I know where is Brokeback Mountain!". Yes I agree with you , Jack's mom was ready to take Ennis as surrogate son. And she would have give him the ashes.
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There was a suggestion in another posting somewhere that Jack's mother slipped him some of the ashes in the paper sack, but I don't think that was the case, since on my last viewing, I noticed the shot of her taking a folded empty papersack by the kitchen counter and then giving it to Ennis to put the shirt in.
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dirtbiker
... actually it is Jack's mother who puts the shirts into the bag. She gets the bag from the counter and opens it and Ennis hands off the shirts to her as he is moving them toward the bag. Notice how she pauses, ever so slightly, as the shirt(s) are go in. I think that Ennis carefull folded the two shirts together so that is wasn't appearant that there were two shirts, but I think she knew by the feel and weight of bundle that there were. She pauses a little and has an understanding look in her eyes. She does a great job.
Mothers ALWAYS know...
Jim
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She pauses a little and has an understanding look in her eyes. She does a great job.
Mothers ALWAYS know...
Jim
yep they do!
Poor woman..it must be horrible to lose a child... :-[
It is one of the sadest scenes...she knew why she'd sent Ennis up to see Jack's room, and when he hands her the bag, she just knows, and nods...great scene!!!
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God bless all mothers!
Hey wouldn't it be great if the studio auctioned off the shirts? Would you bid?
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Something I have not been able to really figure out were the shirts in Jack's childhood bedroom.
I think they were the shirts when they first fought and had their encounter. Later Ennis said to Jack that he left his shirt up on the mountain and it was not mentioned again.
Then we see two shirts one inside th other hidden in the closet.Is this the *lost* shirt?
J
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http://www.ennisjack.com/index.php?topic=316.0
have a look at this thread
x Froggy
ps: i'll redirect this post over there if you don't mind
;)
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http://www.ennisjack.com/index.php?topic=316.0
have a look at this thread
x Froggy
ps: i'll redirect this post over there if you don't mind
;)
Oh shoot I messed up ! I will go check out that board.
Sorry!
J
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As if you didn't already have enough reason to cry over the shirts...Get your tissues ready!
Okay, so we know what Ennis does with the shirts in Jack's closet -- but what about Jack?
Do you think Jack ever picked up those shirts and held/cradled them, etc. as Ennis did? Or did they just sit in the closet all those years?
I can't help but picture Jack going into the closet and holding those shirts every time he was at his parents' house after one of their fishing trips. He would have been so lonely the first night without Ennis, missing him so much that it hurt. I see him going into that closet, picking up the shirts, cradling them in his bosom, taking them with him into that cold hard bed and falling asleep crying softly into them. Once asleep he might've dreamed that he'd finally gotten Ennis to come live in Lightning Flat, that they were finally happy together, only to be bitterly disappointed the next morning that his dream had not come true.
Those shirts may well have had more than Ennis's blood in them -- they may have been stained with 20 years' of Jack's tears...
:'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'(
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As if you didn't already have enough reason to cry over the shirts...Get your tissues ready!
Okay, so we know what Ennis does with the shirts in Jack's closet -- but what about Jack?
Do you think Jack ever picked up those shirts and held/cradled them, etc. as Ennis did? Or did they just sit in the closet all those years?
I can't help but picture Jack going into the closet and holding those shirts every time he was at his parents' house after one of their fishing trips. He would have been so lonely the first night without Ennis, missing him so much that it hurt. I see him going into that closet, picking up the shirts, cradling them in his bosom, taking them with him into that cold hard bed and falling asleep crying softly into them. Once asleep he might've dreamed that he'd finally gotten Ennis to come live in Lightning Flat, that they were finally happy together, only to be bitterly disappointed the next morning that his dream had not come true.
Those shirts may well have had more than Ennis's blood in them -- they may have been stained with 20 years' of Jack's tears...
:'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'(
Did I needed that? :-\
SOB! :'( :'( :'(
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Oh, I'm sorry, Chameau! You must be a glutton for punishment like me. Today I woke up dreaming about this so of course I wanted to share it on this forum!
But I like what you say in French (sorry if I mangle this): :'( Pleures un bon coup, tu pisseras moins... ;)
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Oh, I'm sorry, Chameau! You must be a glutton for punishment like me. Today I woke up dreaming about this so of course I wanted to share it on this forum!
But I like what you say in French (sorry if I mangle this): :'( Pleures un bon coup, tu pisseras moins... ;)
;D ;D ;D
Oh, I'm sorry, Chameau! You must be a glutton for punishment like me.
??? we won't go there!
Pleures un bon coup, tu pisseras moins... ;)
;D
May I suggest you to drink a lot of water!
You won't p*ss it, have tissues ready friend.
Cry my friend cry! This is the place!
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The shirts in the closet --- so "closeted." Thanks, justlikethisalawys Just like this :'( :'( :'( always.
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After seeing BBM for 4th time, I thought about those shirts, and wondered too if Jack had ever cradled them in his arms the way Ennis did when he disovered them. I wondered about them because, after their final farewell, Jack had told Ennis he would be going up to see his folks for a couple of days, and because of the way they parted, wondered if Jack held the shirts to him and thought about all the amazing times they shared up on Brokeback, and hope they gave him some comfort and realisation that Ennis did love him. I really want to believe that Jack did, because after that visit to his folks, he goes back to Texas and is killed. I'd like to think that he touched those shirts and smelled Ennis and Brokeback, just one last time.
** feeling very emotional now ** :'( :'( :'(
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After seeing BBM for 4th time, I thought about those shirts, and wondered too if Jack had ever cradled them in his arms the way Ennis did when he disovered them. I wondered about them because, after their final farewell, Jack had told Ennis he would be going up to see his folks for a couple of days, and because of the way they parted, wondered if Jack held the shirts to him and thought about all the amazing times they shared up on Brokeback, and hope they gave him some comfort and realisation that Ennis did love him. I really want to believe that Jack did, because after that visit to his folks, he goes back to Texas and is killed. I'd like to think that he touched those shirts and smelled Ennis and Brokeback, just one last time.
** feeling very emotional now ** :'( :'( :'(
Christie these are my thoughts exactly. In my mind i've built up this whole back story, all the parts we didn't get to see, and in it i see Jack taking those shirts out of his closet, holding them, smelling them, remembering...trying to recapture in his mind the moments over the years that have meant so much to him...trying to hold onto a part of Ennis that could never be his. Those two unwashed shirts must have held a wealth of joy, sadness, tenderness and heartbreak for him, i acn't believe that he hung them there all those years ago and never touched them again...his love and need for Ennis was just too strong.... :'( :'( :'(
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Aimi, do you think every time he was disappointed or let down by Ennis, he went up to his parents and just held those shirts, to remember what they'd had together?
In one way, I wish that the missing gaps between the fight and them coming down the mountain were filled in, so we knew how Jack managed to take Ennis's shirt. Jack did a good job of remaining impassive about that when Ennis said he couldn't believe he'd left his shirt up there....and all the while, he had stolen it away, just like Ennis had stole his heart.
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I do think that. From what i have interpreted of Jack's character and how he felt for Ennis i can't think of it any other way. He stowed those shirts at his parents house NOT at his own house where they could be discovered, so any time he felt he needed to be close to Ennis and recapture the essence of their time together he could find refuge there and reflect. Christie did you notice how bare and cold the room seemed? I know they were a poor family but the only things that reflected any warmth for me were the little toy rodeo cowboy (Link to Ennis' carving? Genius from Ang Lee IMO) and the shirts. There was nothing else in that room for Jack to go back to only to hold part of his beloved Ennis.x
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Those shirts may well have had more than Ennis's blood in them -- they may have been stained with 20 years' of Jack's tears...
:'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'(
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After seeing BBM for 4th time, I thought about those shirts, and wondered too if Jack had ever cradled them in his arms the way Ennis did when he disovered them. I wondered about them because, after their final farewell, Jack had told Ennis he would be going up to see his folks for a couple of days, and because of the way they parted, wondered if Jack held the shirts to him and thought about all the amazing times they shared up on Brokeback, and hope they gave him some comfort and realisation that Ennis did love him. I really want to believe that Jack did, because after that visit to his folks, he goes back to Texas and is killed. I'd like to think that he touched those shirts and smelled Ennis and Brokeback, just one last time.
** feeling very emotional now ** :'( :'( :'(
About the cradling part, I'm not sure...from the short story there is this "At the north end of the closet a tiny jog in the wall made a slight hiding place and here, stiff with long suspension from a nail, hung a shirt. He lifted it off the nail. Jack’s old shirt from Brokeback days.". This leads me to believe that the shirts haven't been touch in a while. How long the while is questionable.