Brokeback Mountain and Ennis Del Mar Essay

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Genres and Genre Film
Jennifer Hopes
ENG 225 Introduction to Film
Matthew Warren

Brokeback Mountain - Western
If Brokeback Mountain is to be considered a western this would imply that homosexuality has always been part of the narrative and logic of the western. However, to reject the film as a western would also overlook the ways in which it rewords the genre through contemporary political concerns. Brokeback Mountain was made in a way that it is both a revision and an extension of the western genre. The film mixes traditional western themes and follows a common plot structure of the genre, but at the same time overlooks certain aspects and introduces new concepts and motifs, mixing western with melodrama to create a contemporary western.
The western film genre often represents the wilderness and the beauty of nature. Specific settings include lonely isolated houses, the homestead, the saloon, the jail, the stable, or small frontier towns that are forming at the edges of civilization. “At its simplest, a western is a man and his horse, taking on the struggles of nature and his fellow man” (Goodykoontz, B., & Jacobs, C. P., 2014). A convention used in western films would be the costumes worn. The way there clothes are made to look dirty and rugged shows that they aren’t wealthy, could have just been in a fight, or working on a ranch all day.
Brokeback Mountain is about the simultaneity of love and loneliness. It begins at the end, with a memory, a dream. The main character, Ennis del Mar, awakes and recalls his murdered lover, Jack Twist. The remainder of the story then revolves around the memory of Ennis and Jack’s deep and troubled homosexual love affair, which began during a summer when the two men worked as ranch hands on Brokeback Mountain in Wyoming. Jack and Ennis fall deeply in love on Brokeback Mountain, but they are unable to articulate their feelings or overcome their fears, or even admit to each other or themselves that they are homosexual. And so they leave the mountain and part ways at the end of the summer of 1963 When the two men separate at the end of the summer, Ennis feels so bad that he stops on the side of the road and vomits. In December, Ennis marries Alma Beers, to whom he has been engaged; she is pregnant by mid-January.When the two men finally separate at the end of the summer trip Ennis feels bad and stops at the side of the road to vomit. When the summer ends and they part, it's not clear why Jack waits four years before he contacts Ennis. Ennis has no idea where Jack is and so is unable to contact him. He believes that Jack is angry because Ennis sucker-punched him just before they parted. But while Ennis has little hope that he will ever see Jack again, he seems to have done some thinking about how they can be together if Jack ever does get in touch. When the two men separate at the end of the summer, Ennis feels so bad that he stops on the side of the road and vomits. In December, Ennis marries Alma Beers, to whom he has been engaged; she is pregnant by mid-January. When the two men separate at the end of the summer, Ennis feels so bad that he stops on the side of the road and vomits. In December, Ennis marries Alma Beers, to whom he has been engaged; she is pregnant by mid-January. When the two men separate at the end of the summer, Ennis feels so bad that he stops on the side of the road and vomits. In December, Ennis marries Alma Beers, to whom he has been engaged; she is pregnant by mid-January Yet Ennis and Jack discover that they are unable to forget or truly separate from one another, or the memory of the happiness, fulfillment and love they experienced on Brokeback Mountain. They sneak away together intermittently for short trysts in the wilderness, but their existences primarily consist of emptiness, frustration and misery; and finally the two men’s lives are destroyed, along with their families. Ennis’ marriage ends in divorce and Jack’s marriage become a sham as he secretly
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