Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
what possessed Jack to take that shirt in the first place?
belbbmfan:
--- Quote from: nakymaton on May 29, 2006, 03:51:31 pm ---
There's an odd detail in the published screenplay... Ennis's shirt, the one with the blood on it, is described as being denim. So it wasn't the screenwriters who envisioned the color scheme. It's interesting... I don't know when the published screenplay was locked in, and I know there are a lot of details that are different. But the colors associated with the two characters seem so symbolic -- I can't imagine Ennis wearing a denim shirt, unless he wanted specifically to be reminded of Jack on the mountain.
--- End quote ---
this is from a post by Casey Cornelius over on imdb:'Diane Ossana has stated that she, Ang Lee and the designers consulted and used images from Richard Avedon's famous volume of portraits "In the American West" for the 'look' of the film.
Here is the portrait of Montana ranch-hand, Richard Wheatcroft, astonishing evidence that he was obviously the prototype for the look of Heath Ledger's Ennis, right down to the pattern in his shirt.
http://www.temple.edu/photo/photographers/avedon/avedon6.html
two portraits on the page, scroll down to see Wheatcroft.'
And another poster (Robert Plant) pointed out that the photo of the bartender Carol Crittendon reminded him of Cassie (strapless t-shirt, necklace, hair are very similar)
http://www.temple.edu/photo/photographers/avedon/avedon.html
I love that, during their time apart, the other's signature color appears is present in their life in shirts (the shirt Ennis wears writing to Jack 'You bet' is brown and blue) and cars. Such wonderful, touching symbolism.
Shakesthecoffecan:
A relative with a lot of children told me recently when her husband dies the first thing she is going to do is change the locks. People want momentos, and in Ennis's case this would be his only chance to get something that had belonged to Jack, and since it was both their shirts, we'll of course, he was heir to that combination. It belonged to him more than it did the Twist's.
nakymaton:
--- Quote from: latjoreme on June 04, 2006, 12:18:17 am ---Sometimes I start to think (*putting on hardhat*) that Jack wasn't really all that committed to Ennis after that first summer. I have said, in debates about Jack's behavior in the last scene on the mountain, that I don't think he seems as upset as Ennis about the summer ending. And when Jack drives off watching Ennis in his rearview mirror he looks merely wistful, whereas Ennis in the alley is heartbroken and torn apart. After they part, Jack goes on to consider other men (well, one man anyway: Jimbo), seemingly open to the idea of a future with someone else, whereas Ennis goes haplessly along with the plans to which he's already committed, but for four years misses Jack constantly.
So, as I said, sometimes I start to think this way. Then I remember the shirts. And they change everything. They're undeniable evidence that Jack knew, even as they were leaving the mountain, how much Ennis would always mean to him, no matter what the future held.
--- End quote ---
I actually go back and forth between these two viewpoints. In thinking more about this, there are two different actions that Jack did: he took Ennis's shirt in the first place, and then he layered the two shirts together (the pair like two skins, one inside the other, two in one). And though Jack's taking the shirt in the first place is significant, it's the way they are put together and hidden there that's so devastating. So I end up going back to the question of when Jack put the shirts together.
Part of me (a big part) thinks he didn't do put the shirts together until after the reunion. During Jack's time rodeoing, he seems to be trying to get over Ennis -- going to Texas (so far away), trying to pick up Jimbo, marrying Lureen. Would Jack have waited four years to send a postcard if he already knew that he wasn't ever going to really get over Ennis?
After the reunion, Jack knows how powerful the relationship is. That kiss on the landing... but then having his suggestion of ranching together turned down... but then Ennis's comment that "there ain't no reins on this one." All those conflicts and contradictions -- there's a part of me that thinks that it's those things, and not the joyous fling on the mountain, that Jack's dealing with when he puts the shirts together.
But then again... there's Jack's memory of the dozy embrace. And there's that year (well, nine months or so) when Jack's at Lightning Flat, before he goes back to Signal and asks if Ennis has been there. I guess maybe Jack could have put the shirts together, and then gone to Signal and seen no sign of Ennis, and then gone off to Texas to try to forget about him, until the memories got to be too much, or Jack got too lonely, or Jack got tired of being rejected by rodeo clowns and his father-in-law.
**
Thanks for those links to the photos, belbbmfan. They really do look like the movie costumes.
**
Hey, shakestheground -- I think you're the 2nd person who has mentioned that it makes complete sense for Ennis to take the shirts, so he can remember Jack. And I agree completely! I was wondering more about Jack's motivation -- Jack takes the shirts at the end of that summer on the mountain, when he's got his whole life ahead of him, when Ennis is still alive, though engaged to be married. And I wondered what Jacks motivation was.
starboardlight:
--- Quote from: nakymaton on June 05, 2006, 12:15:48 am ---I actually go back and forth between these two viewpoints. In thinking more about this, there are two different actions that Jack did: he took Ennis's shirt in the first place, and then he layered the two shirts together (the pair like two skins, one inside the other, two in one). And though Jack's taking the shirt in the first place is significant, it's the way they are put together and hidden there that's so devastating. So I end up going back to the question of when Jack put the shirts together.
Part of me (a big part) thinks he didn't do put the shirts together until after the reunion. During Jack's time rodeoing, he seems to be trying to get over Ennis -- going to Texas (so far away), trying to pick up Jimbo, marrying Lureen. Would Jack have waited four years to send a postcard if he already knew that he wasn't ever going to really get over Ennis?
--- End quote ---
I'm not so sure about that. Jack kept his own shirt unwashed, with the blood on the sleeve. So he intended to keep his own shirt along with Ennis's. He may/may not have tucked them together at first, but the two shirts were a set in his mind, right from the moment he took them.
welliwont:
--- Quote from: atz75 on May 29, 2006, 09:10:34 pm ---So, this must mean that Ennis came down from the day with the sheep, after his hillside chat with Jack and changed his shirt before the second tent scene.
::) :D
--- End quote ---
Just when you think you have absorbed every nuance of this masterpiece, voila! another detail to mull over. 8)
--- Quote from: starboardlight on June 05, 2006, 12:31:02 am ---I'm not so sure about that. Jack kept his own shirt unwashed, with the blood on the sleeve. So he intended to keep his own shirt along with Ennis's. He may/may not have tucked them together at first, but the two shirts were a set in his mind, right from the moment he took them.
--- End quote ---
I always wonder what Jack told his mother about the shirts, he had to stop her from washing them somehow, and a mother's first instinct would be to wash them and to try to get the bloodstains out. Of course by the time she might have seen them the bloodstains could have been set already.
"Don't throw out them two dirty shirts ah'm leavin' up there in ma closet, Ma. 'N don't wash 'em neither, jus leave 'em be."
"The one's wid the blood on 'em? Why Jackie, you know I gotta try and get that blood out quick as I can."
"Juss leave 'em be..."
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