Talk On The Wilde Side

Brokeback Mountain Polaroids

The first thing that really hit me was the sense of scale. The long shots, the long silences, the sky that fills the entire frame. Seen in theaters, Brokeback Mountain conveys the physical experience of the Mountain West and the Great Plains like no media I've ever experienced. The sky is staggeringly large. I lived in the Great Plains region for several years, and that's the thing that sticks with me. Unbelievably, the sky feels even bigger over the prairie than it does over the ocean. The sky stretches on forever. It dwarfs the prairie, which also stretches on forever, and you can't imagine the prairie will ever end, let alone the continent, let alone the world. I think that I understood intellectually, having seen the movie on my television and my computer screen, that the shot selection was intended to convey this sensation. Seeing it on the big screen, I felt it for the first time.

The second thing was Heath's performance. It is so completely outrageous on the big screen in the best way. Every inch of him is in this character, every ounce, every atom. Every tiny movement, posture, breath, everything. Nothing is wasted, and when he's that big you see all of it. It was really special to watch.

Third, the audio quality. Thanks to the audio technology in the theater, I heard things I had never heard before. For me, the most remarkable thing was the wind. It was omnipresent. You could hear it in nearly every scene that took place in Wyoming, even the ones that were inside. For me, this felt so true to life. On the prairie, the wind is inescapable. For hundreds and hundreds of miles, it is so perfectly flat that there is nothing is in the way of the wind. It never slows down. It hits you full force. And it's constant. I can't remember where he said it, but Ang Lee observed this about Wyoming, as well, when he and his team visited Wyoming for research and location scouting. If I remember correctly, he described the wind as "maddening" (or something similar).

The scene that particularly comes to mind is one of the earliest scenes featuring Ennis and Alma, at their "lonesome" ranch house before they move to the apartment above the laundromat. She's doing the laundry, the kids are crying, everything is chaotic, and the wind never abates. This is true to life, but it's true to Annie Proulx, too! In Annie's writing, the environment is always a character in the scene. It's not just a place for the action to unfold. The environment is why the action happens, and it tells you everything you need to know about the action and how to feel about it. The constancy of the wind, of the presence of the outside world pressing in against ostensibly private places, the inescapability of the movement of a great and terrible world... It's marvelous.

The theater's audio quality also allowed me to hear some dialogue I had never heard before. There's some quiet dialogue that happens during the Second Night In The Tent (tm) scene and then immediately following the "I wish I knew how to quit you" monologue. I had been aware that there was murmuring going on, but I had never heard the words before. Both times, though in very different contexts, Ennis is emotionally overwrought. Both times, we hear very quietly, "I'm sorry." Then, "It's alright, it's alright." The juxtaposition of these lines in two different contexts is heartbreaking. It also feels very intentional to have the beginning of the story and the end mirror each other in this way-- we get another interpolation/juxtaposition in the latter scene, where we are presented with the "dozy embrace,” as Annie terms it, from the "You're sleeping on your feet like a horse" memory right before Ennis drives away following their fight. Through the contrast of tenderness with bitterness, both are heightened.

The last thing I noticed that felt really impactful is something I probably could have noticed on a smaller screen had I been paying more attention. I think I noticed it this time because the big screen experience really drew my attention to the cinematography and shot selection in a new way. The shot of Ennis arriving in Signal at the very beginning of the movie and the shot of him driving home at the very end, right before we see him put the numbers on his mailbox (presumably having just moved in), are identical. It is very early in the morning, or perhaps late in the evening but either way nearly dark, and we see a lone vehicle in the distance as it makes its way across the mountains. The only difference is the direction the vehicle moves. Once from left to right, once from right to left.

This shot clarifies something for me. In the short story, Ennis is living in Signal by the time he and Jack go on their final trip together. In a conversation with Jack, he refers to "a woman who worked part-time at the Wolf Ears bar" (Cassie, in the film) "in Signal where he was working now for Stoutamire’s cow and calf outfit." In the movie, however, Ennis is clearly living in Riverton at this point. We see him leaving the Riverton post office with his postcard stamped "DECEASED." The choice to put this mirrored shot right before the shot of Ennis putting numbers on his mailbox says to me that Ennis has now moved to Signal. Only in the film, he doesn't move until after Jack's death. Why now?

In a way, this is Ennis and Jack finally moving in together. Moving to the town where they first met, the closest town to Brokeback Mountain. Brokeback Mountain, which Jack called "all we got." Brokeback Mountain, which he wanted for his final resting place.