This document is intended to spark disscussions and writing assignments for undergraduate students studying the movie Brokeback Mountain (2005). A philosophical and aesthetically challenging story based on the 'E. Annie Proulx' novel about a forbidden and secretive relationship between two cowboys. - What is Brokeback Mountain about? Love? Lust? Homosexuality? Hardship?
- “The film speaks through its silences more efficiently than its dialogue.” Discuss with reference to the use of diagetic and non-diagetic sound.
- Is the film difficult to pindown to a single genre?
- Is the film disturbing? If so, to whom (what type / catagory of viewer)?
- “The mother understood love.”
- Do we feel sorry for the wife and the mother towards the end of the film? If so why?
- Brokeback Mountain doesn't conform to the expected structure of a Hollywood movie , why?
- Because they do not ride off into the sunset? Or even into the dusk like Alan Ladd in Shane.
- Does Ennis understand how much the relationship means to Jack?
- While Jack is still alive?
- Does he understand at the end of the movie? What evidence is there for your answer?
- Do we recognise love in this movie when it is not present on the screen?
- “Girls don’t fall in love with fun!”
- What do women fall in love with?
- Is it different than what men fall in love with?
- Do we see examples of love in the heterosexual relationships depicted in Brokeback Mountain?
- Is love difficult?
- Is love more difficult for the characters in his film than in real life?
- Does Jack’s wife, Lureen Newsome (Anne Hathaway) display jealousy or regret that she didn’t have something with Jack that Ennis did, during her phone call with Ennis. Give examples from the film.
- Lureen (Rodeo Rider)and Cassie (barmaid) make the first move to initiate the relationships. Is this against the norm or are woman more forward in the West?
- Being hurt by others causes the characters to want to hurt other people. Discuss.
- During Cassie (Linda Cardellini) and Alma Jnr.’s conversation does Cassie suggest intent to settle down with Ennis from the beginning? Is that why she initiated the relationship with Ennis?
- Within cultures certain patterns of behavior are pre-determined. The real life scenarios are the expected life scenarios. What are these in this film?
- Why do Jack and Ennis not just admit their love for one another publicly?
- Because of the risk of physical injury, as with the story Ennis tells Jack.
- Because of the risk of being social ostracized (in 1960s-1970s)
- Ennis says he would rather kill Jack than know what he doesn’t know (but by implication suspects).
- How do we differentiate between Jack and Ennis as individuals?
- Ennis reinforces his masculinity throughout the film, for example in the alleyway after Jack and he split up, after the summer on Brokeback, with the two Bikers at the 4th July fair. Is Ennis more more of a man than Jack?
- Ennis spends most of the movie just trying to get buy – both financially and with life in general. Ennis never seems to be on top of his personal situation. What does this device do for the story? How does it affect the viewers opinion of the charater?
- Ennis get’s divorced – Jack does not. What are the implications of this on their relationship.
- Ennis is under the discipline of economic need – he takes responsibility for the circumstances he is in. Does Jack?
- Ennis displays a loyalty of the body. Discuss.
- Ennis lives, Jack dies. Discuss in terms of Ennis' future.
- Is the flashback of Jack's death seen from Ennis’s point of view or Lureen’s?
- Is Ennis projecting his fear of what might have happened to Jack based on his own memories from childhood? Or is the flashback a projection by Lureen who knows (or at least suspects) how her husband really died.
- Are we given any reason to think that Lureen's father might have had something to do with Jack’ s death?
- Does Lureen know or suspect how Jack really died?
- Is there any evidence to suggest that Jack actually did die changing a tire?
- When describing Jack’s death to Ennis is Lureen’s tone of voice “matter of fact,” fake or false, like lines that she has learned?
- Does Lureen and Jack’s relationship starts to split apart after Jack confronts Lureen’s father (L.D. Newsom)?
- At different times in the relationship each of the men is the strong one, is their relationship based in power?
- Jack and Ennis are able to converse about their relationships with their wives but not about their relationship with each other. Why?
- Is Ennis jealous of other Homosexual passions in Jake’s life. Does the following line suggest this.<
Ennis:
I'm gonna tell you this one time, Jack fuckin' Twist, an' I ain't foolin'. What I don't know - all them things I don't know - could get you killed if I come to know them. I mean it.
- When Alma Jnr. tells her father Ennis that she is going to get married he caresses her face in the same way that he did with Jack which, in turn, is the same why that Jack caressed Ennis’ face. Does the physicality of love intrinsically transcend the sexual boundaries even to the extent of transcending biological boundaries? Is it merely a Freudian manifestation, a reversal of the Electra complex?
- Jack: “I wish I knew how to quit you”. In terms of teh work of William James is Jack and Ennis' relationship mere habituation.
- Can Jack and Ennis be described as sexual pragmatists?