But going back to the subject of Ennis and Jack...
In some ways, I look upon Jack's death as the moment of satori (as in Zen/Chan Buddhism) whereby Ennis is released from his own world of illusion. But this analogy has its limits, because what happens after this is that Ennis seems to enter into another world of illusion -- a world of dreams alternating between pleasure and pain.
In the latter sense, one can think of BBM as a Buddhist moral: as a warning on the pitfalls of passion and the subsequent pain it engenders. It is very similar for example to the Buddhist interpretation of the medieval Japanese romance "Genji Monogatari", of which I am a devoted fan. In such works of art, the beauty of love is made manifest, even as it undermines it as part of a world of illusion.
As you can see, there is a deep dichotomy in all this -- especially in the attitude towards love.
Thank you tpe for your views on what a Buddhist perspective on Brokeback Mountain might be. They've certainly given me much to think about, even if we might differ about "love" and the Buddhist search for a (universal) transcendence of "suffering."
(In Buddhist tradition, Siddhārtha Gautama, the first Buddha, was a prince. His father, a king, was told by an astrologer that his son would either be a "universal leader" or a "universal teacher." His father, in order to make his son a universal ruler, sought to eliminate all sights of physical suffering from his son's life. But the prince saw the carcass of a cow and sought an answer to suffering. I believe there are versions of this same story, too.)
You might be reluctant to embrace a Buddhist view because you correctly see Buddhism's primary goal (value) as the "end of suffering." From my understanding of what you've said, this brings Buddhism into conflict with "love" as a first principle (in a ranking of a hierarchy of values). Perhaps you also associate the "desire" for love with a "devotion" to love.
From a Buddhist perspective, such an association linking "desire" and "devotion" might be a misperception, an illusion. Certainly, for example, Buddhists are devoted to the end of suffering. But to "desire" an end to suffering would be self-defeating - in the Buddhist perspective.
Similarly, a "desire" for love might be confused with a "devotion" to love.
I think manhattangirl makes a good point. ("...In the final confrontation didn't you get the idea that Jack was releasing himself from Ennis so Ennis's suffering can end? I can't help but think of scene where Jack watches Ennis drive off for the last time.")
There can be different interpretations of this last scene of Ennis & Jack seeing each other for the last time. Ennis has just told Jack, "...I quit all those jobs," saying that "because of you [Jack], I'm nothing..." (offering to Jack an explanation of seeing him less frequently now than Ennis had in the early years of his marriage to Alma).
If Jack takes at face value what Ennis is saying to him, he is hearing Ennis tell him that the "thing" (as Ennis describes the emotions of their kiss at the bottom of the steps going up to Ennis's & Alma's apartment over the laundromat in Riverton, WY) has brought Ennis to this point of suffering (in the May 1983 argument). Is there much point in continuing their ride further?
From this interpretation of their May 1983 argument, Jack's favorite memory of Ennis (holding him from behind, rocking him into a trance, humming him a song...) is a last temptation, a last tie holding him to Ennis that he decides to break. (Jack, after the flashback, watches Ennis drive off with great sadness in his eyes.)
Jack decides to give up the pleasure that Ennis's company brings him. He does this out of his devotion to Ennis's welfare. He loves Ennis more than the "feeling" of romantic passion Ennis brings to him. (In other words, Jack loves Ennis more than what the "thing," as Ennis describes it, brings to both of them.) Devotion to Ennis (out of love for him) decides the question for Jack. He must leave Ennis to do what is "right" by him. Jack does what he thinks is in Ennis's best interest.
While I think I disagree this is the best interpretation of what is going on in Jack's mind - in response to Ennis saying ("...because of you [Jack], I'm nothing!") - it nonetheless clearly illustrates the difference between a "desire" for love and a "devotion" to it.
I don't think Ennis wanted Jack to stop seeing him. After all, Ennis sent a postcard to Jack in Texas to tell him that November was "still" set for them (to see each other) that is returned marked "deceased." Ennis wanted to continue his "ride" with Jack.
I think Ennis wanted to see Jack on his own terms (and not more often than that). Ennis started seeing Jack less frequently. This may have happened after his divorce from Alma because a part of him needed the "balance" of his marriage to Alma to keep seeing Jack. In other words, without Alma as a counterbalance, Ennis wanted to hold himself back from Jack.
It might be said that this is a matter of Ennis being homophobic about his own homosexuality. I feel it might be something more.
I find I best understand who Ennis is when he's with Alma, not when he's with Jack. With Alma, all sides of Ennis's personality (good and bad) come out. It's possible to see the whole human being. With Alma, Ennis's emotions are better tempered, more restrained because of what Alma's personality contributes to their marriage partnership.
Alma is willing to go to great lengths to make their marriage "work." Ennis rushes the girls into the grocery store where Alma is working, dropping them off so he can go to a ranch job he's just been called to. Alma, taken by surprise, protests. She quickly regains her composure and suggests to Ennis she can call her sister to take care of them. Their young daughter, Alma, Jr., pulls a jar out of a stack of jars causing them to collapse. Instead of exploding in frustration and rage, she apologizes to Monroe, the grocer, her employer.
Nor does Alma immediately confront Ennis upon his return from his night out with Jack (spent at the Siesta Motel together in bed) when Ennis & Jack reunite at the bottom of the landing steps up to their apartment over the laundromat. She saw them kissing each other through the screen door. She's deeply hurt. She barely holds back her tears. She "knows what she saw," as Annie Proulx puts it. But she doesn't get in a fight with Ennis about it when he returns the next morning (with Ennis immediately leaving, again, almost as soon as he walks in the door, to go on his first "fishing trip" with Jack). She also fails to discuss it with him (until it's too late and only brings up her suspicions in their Thanksgiving kitchen argument). She does what she thinks will hold their marriage together.
With Jack, it's different. The emotions between them are so strong that it is the "feeling of emotion" between them that dominates them when they are with each other. Their personalities, the differences in their personalities seemed to be pushed aside.
In her narration of their May 1983 argument, Annie Proulx describes the fissure that opens up between Ennis & Jack as "clouds of steam" pouring out of vents cracking, rupturing the ground they stand on, releasing all the differences of opinion, disappointments, etc. between them that they had covered up and pushed aside over all the years they had been together. After the argument, Ennis & Jack had "patched things up almost to the way the way they were before." The important word in Annie Proulx's phrasing is "almost" (to the way things were before).
When Jack goes next to his parents' ranch in Lightning Flat, WY, he tells them his plans for who he wants to bring in as a ranch partner (on the Twist family ranch) have changed. He's now saying he's bringing in a Texas ranch neighbor (not Ennis del Mar).
I don't whether Jack decides at last, despite his flashback to his favorite memory of Ennis, that he must "quit" Ennis (in favor of Randall, his Texas ranch neighbor). Perhaps the decision is made later.
Jack, once too many times, watches Ennis leave him. Perhaps the sadness of seeing him go finally produces a resolve that Jack must end the loneliness he can sometimes hardly stand that he feels for Ennis. In either case, earlier or later, or whenever it happens, Jack chooses an end to his suffering rather than continuing to ride with Ennis.
But Randall is no escape from illusion or suffering, either. You described the Buddhist metaphor of a "bridge of dreams." Jack crosses that bridge. He leaves the illusion of his dreams of a life together with Ennis (or the illusion of his passion for Ennis that the "thing" gives them).
For a moment, crossing this bridge away from Ennis, Jack sees the pointlessness of the suffering of the loneliness he feels when he's not together with Ennis. But rather than renounce suffering, Jack continues over the bridge of dreams to the next dream, a similar illusion with Randall, perhaps.
With Jack gone, Ennis is left with his night dreams of Jack. Sometimes the pillows are wet, at other times, it's the sheets that are wet. On a good day, Ennis has dreamed of Jack the night before as: he was at 19, wavy hair and buck teeth. On a bad day, the "garish" can of beans with a dirty spoon sticking out of it sitting on a log has marred the dreams. Is the "garish" can of beans (with the dirty spoon sticking out it), the mature Jack (with a mustache and fixed teeth)? Ennis cries on those nights. Is it the mature Jack he misses most?
Ennis is caught between what he "knows" and what he "tries to make himself believe" (wishes to believe). In the last scene in the movie, the screen is split between an old photograph of Brokeback Mountain and the view of a field of "amber grain" outside Ennis's trailer bedroom window.
Jack told Ennis in their May 1983 argument that Brokeback Mountain is "all we have" (seeing each other only a few times for a short time in the following years). Ennis holds the two bloody shirts to his face (that Jack has saved from their last day on Brokeback Mt. together when Jack accidentally bloodied Ennis's nose and Ennis knocked Jack out when Jack tried to staunch the bleeding - with Ennis left asking himself in the years before their 1967 reunion at the bottom of the landing steps leading up to Ennis's & Alma's apartment over the laundromat if Jack never tried to contact him because he was angry Ennis had hit him then). But he can't catch the scent of Brokeback Mt. It has vanished.
Brokeback Mt. is only a memory. It has faded with time.
The world outside Ennis's bedroom window is there now, in the "present moment," to use a Zen phrase.
I remember reading a post soon after the movie was first released in December 2005 describing Ennis's choice as being between "Brokeback Mountain" and the "pollution of the plains." But the flat field of waving grass is what is there for Ennis. Buddhism describes a reed growing in a field as having the "strength" to withstand a hurricane because it bends in the wind. The grass outside moves back and forth, the wind rippling across it in waves.
