Welcome RMBahr!
I get this feeling sometimes that Brokeback has become an obsession for me just cause it's so damn good and so damn important. I'm gonna sit here and type until I explain this obsession to myself. I'll also need to post this over at 'How Brokeback Effected me"
I haven't seen any movie more than 3 times in the cinema since I was 8 and Star Wars came out!
I can understand being a kid (or and adult- I STILL consider myself a SW geek) and wanting to get lost in that universe time and time again- black and white moral issues, heroic deeds, monsters and robots! What's not to like? But why would adults want to get lost in the Brokeback Universe?
The BB-Verse has no robots or lightsabers. It has no absolute black and white moral code. It's not stylized or gussied up with special effects. It's not sexy enough to be porn and not violent enough to be an action movie (thought it has sex and violence to be sure). It's not a particularly Romantic universe either, truth be told. There's very little in the way of candlelight and blowing curtains, no castles or maidens, roses or poetry. The BB-verse is prosaic, naturalistic, ordinary. Trailers and laundramats and dust. Aside from our leads, most of the people in the BB-verse are wrinkled, care-worn,
dessicated even.
So why in hell would you want to return to that place? Why in hell would you want to go back to Ennis' and Jack's piss-poor excuse for a life?
Because it is a
life on that screen. Two real lives with real people going through real things. The BB-verse is a condensed, heightened, super-charged version of what life is actually like. Ennis and Jack are revealed to us more thoroughly and to a greater depth, I think, then any other characters i can remember seeing in any film I've ever watched. I see BBM, and I feel like I know what Jack eats for breakfast and how many holes he has in his sock on a Sunday. I feel like I know Ennis' girls and what life is like in Alma and Munroe's house. I feel like I am on an intimate first-name basis with everyone in the film. How is that possible? Because every bit that I'm shown is psychologically true. Every few seconds I go AHA! as i catch some new nuance and i recognize where it comes from. And, since the cores are presented in full I "know" much more about them by simple extrapolation.
I don't believe in Naturalism, per se- in the idea that a great film is one that shows every little mundane detail. I'm a Romantic in the sense that I believe what's shown on the screen should add up to a sum, a theme, a message- that art must add up in a way that life never does. Give me a vision of what is possible not a mere report of what is.
BBM does have a vision, a message AND YET it's completely honest / naturalistic.
I'm not making myself clear enough...
Brokeback finds the heroism in simply breathing, surviving and being human.
No, not exact enough...
Brokeback feels to me as if
I'm watching a documentary that just happens to add up to a profound human truth. It feels to true to be merely a film (with all that implies- scripted lines, posed shots, etc), and yet it is too rich with thematic meaning to ever be taken for accidental, arbitrary real life.
Perhaps even... maybe this explains it.
I have become an Ennis as I've gotten older. Repressed, cut off, alone inside my own head with a wall up that I hardly realize is there anymore. When I go to see BBM, it feels like I'm leafing through an album showing how i got to where I am- a progression from glorious youth and optimism to this ever-more constricted emotional life. As i return again and again to this album, each time I feel like I catch a glimpse of something- some error I made- some small concession to fear or social pressure- that set me on the path to where i am. Glimpsing it gives me hope- because I can only undo the emotional knots I've tied within myself if I can trace their origin. In a sense, the BB-verse is a superb dramatization of the process by which a human soul becomes repressed. So If you have any repression within yourself, you can step into the shoes of Jack and Ennis and - sharing their young optimistic love- find the shadow of whatever heartache is burning you up inside, glimpse the error that drove you to lock it away, and perhaps slip the knots of hurt, shame, fear or regret and become your authentic self once more.
I think THAT, ultimately, is why I'm obsessed. Brokeback is loosening something in my soul somewhere; some hidden love of life and willingness to love that wants to be rediscovered and reclaimed.
Or maybe it's just the hot boys kissin'...