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Comparison between '03 to '05 screenplay: would we still be discussing this film

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Daniel:
If you notice...this is a deeply emotional statement for Ennis....

It's more like "No ma'am.... we was..... herdin' sheep on Brokeback.... one summer." as though he is finding the statement too painful to say, and at the same time, coming to grips with what had happened to him, and how much Jack meant to him.

"We was herdin' " allows a contemplative/aching pause where "We herded" doesn't.

dly64:

--- Quote from: nakymaton on September 26, 2006, 01:28:09 pm ---I always interpreted it as meaning "Look, this isn't going to happen again"... I still don't think that Ennis knew TS2 was going to happen until he got to his feet and headed for the tent (and even then, I think he was kind of scared, as well as probably excited, and wasn't sure what was going to happen). Yes, I know the verb tenses suggest otherwise, but you know... verb tenses are one of those things that tend to be a bit sloppy with rural dialects. (If somebody uses the subjective tense, they're faking the dialect. ;D )
--- End quote ---

Mel - I agree with you. Somehow, in the film, I felt as though Ennis was saying ... "we did this once and it stops here ..." The story, however, implies that the "one-shot thing" is for the summer. In essence, it could be both. However, the change from the story (which was the same in the 2003 screenplay) and the 2005 screenplay indicates that Ennis is thinking it won't happen again. Furthermore, the way the 2005 version describes Ennis' motivation before TS2 indicates that he is debating what he is going to do ....  then he decides. Maybe that  is why Ang wanted to add that scene ... to reflect the inner conflict between "I shouldn't do this, but I want to do this ..."

nakymaton:

--- Quote from: Daniel on September 26, 2006, 01:44:45 pm ---"We was herdin' " allows a contemplative/aching pause where "We herded" doesn't.

--- End quote ---

Yes! Good way to put it.

There's also, for a brief moment, the possibility that Ennis might say something else. (Not that I could imagine him saying anything else, but...)

But, yeah, the rhythm of the language really works well, even if the tense is strange.

(I'm trying to run through all the different ways of using verbs that I'm familiar with, and I think... I think that using the past perfect tense when the regular past tense ('was herding' as opposed to 'herded') is pretty common in some places. But it does imply a kind of continuity that 'herded' doesn't. Like that summer is still going on in Ennis's head.)

Diane: you mean you don't think that Ang added TS2 in hopes of turning the entire audience into an obsessed mass of goo? ;)

Edit: To be more serious about TS2 and the "I'm not queer" statement... I think that Ang included TS2 because the other scenes that were written just didn't convey the emotion he wanted.

And I think that Jack's "one-shot thing" statement in the story is more of an attempt to reassure Ennis. "A one-shot thing. Nobody's business but ours. Now, could you please keep doing what it was that you were doing back when we weren't talking about the sex?" ;)

dly64:

--- Quote from: nakymaton on September 26, 2006, 01:55:32 pm ---(I'm trying to run through all the different ways of using verbs that I'm familiar with, and I think... I think that using the past perfect tense when the regular past tense ('was herding' as opposed to 'herded') is pretty common in some places. But it does imply a kind of continuity that 'herded' doesn't. Like that summer is still going on in Ennis's head.)
--- End quote ---

It is funny ... I never thought of that line as being strange. I guess I am used to hearing language like that. Stuff like "we was bailin' hay last week ..." Sometimes I have to watch myself so that I don't say something that sounds, for lack of a better word, "hickish". (Even that word is a bit hick …)


--- Quote ---Diane: you mean you don't think that Ang added TS2 in hopes of turning the entire audience into an obsessed mass of goo? ;)

--- End quote ---

He may have done it for that reason, too .... :laugh:

serious crayons:

--- Quote from: dly64 on September 26, 2006, 02:03:05 pm ---Stuff like "we was bailin' hay last week ..."
--- End quote ---

Well, "we was bailin hay last week" makes a little more sense because it's so recent. In a way that "we was herdin sheep 20 years ago" doesn't. But Daniel's explanation makes sense.

Back to "one-shot thing." When Jack says it in the story, it seems like "it's nobody's business but ours" -- a reassurance for Ennis. When Ennis says it to Jack, it seems like a setting of the ground rules.

The way I interpret it is, after leaving the camp Ennis rides along mulling over the night before. The death music sounds ominous, but Ennis seems less disturbed than thoughtful. Then the dead sheep -- a warning. But he kills the coyote, as if vanquishing the bad omen. He thinks about the situation all day before Jack shows up, deciding this is an opportunity. He might as well take his "one shot" at living the way he'd secretly like to.

To me, it's a prolonged, more complex dramatization of the story's "without saying anything about it both knew how it would go for the rest of the summer."

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