The fact that Ennis seems to only be mentioning Cassie for the first time during the final camping trip, when Jack asks him if he'd ever get married again... always seems a bit odd to me.
The whole movie made me go "hunh?"! I had to see it 56 times in the theatres :D and post numerous questions on the internet, to finally get it. And I think there's still more to be learned too... The movie morphs with you over time as you change in your ways over time.
I'll try and think of some specific spots in the movie that made me go "hunh?". Off the top of my head, they're not coming to me, perhaps because the specific spots that did that to me were discussed in detail and my questions and concerns were answered long ago...
The thing that always made me go hunh was when Jack took a shot at that coyote without taking the time to aim. As a result he missed his target. It never sat right with me. There was no big hurry. He could have took his time
One technical problem that I'm surprised they let slip through: bad audio in spots. In the scene where Ennis is trying to fix the tent and Jack says "It aint goin nowhere — let it be" Jack's line sounds distorted, as if the mic wasn't placed correctly. The same is true with a few of his lines in the lake fight scene. I imagine (would hope) they fixed that for the recent blu-ray release.
I'd say that numerous mysterious aspects of the timeline provide the biggest "hunh" moments for me.
I agree about the timeline issues.
(OT--which is why I'm putting this in parentheses--but there are timeline issues in AP's story as well. The ages of the children as discussed on the final camping trip don't jive with their birth dates given early in the story.)
Speaking of mics, how about the infamous visible microphone cord on Alma, Jr., when Alma picks her up as Ennis is running off ot the mountains with Jack for the first time? ;D
(OT--which is why I'm putting this in parentheses--but there are timeline issues in AP's story as well. The ages of the children as discussed on the final camping trip don't jive with their birth dates given early in the story.)
Whoa. I never saw that!
Ok here's one, it was when Aguirre talked about "stemmin' the rose".
#1 I had no idea what that meant...(but I had an idea)
#2 Why would Aguirre know what that was?
It was only on my third viewing that I actually understood what Bobby said at the Thanksgiving table, although I had gotten the gist of it from context.
How would Aguirre know or have that terminology? In the manual-labor world, guys can jabber on all day while working (such as Timmy the Asphalt Guy) and every conceivable subject comes up... Ennis later says "I hear what they have in Mexico for boys like you". Same deal.
My hunting/fishing buddies and I discovered a new blooper when we were traveling in Wyoming over Independence Day. Riverton does not have a fireworks celebration on the Fourth, and hasn't had one for over 20 years. That's because fireworks are put on by Lander, 20-odd miles to the southeast where the county seat is and where there is a rodeo beforehand. Riverton hosts the 1839 Rendezvous of the mountain men over that weekend instead. It's a gathering where people stage a recreation of a historic camp, along with demonstrations of shooting, butter churning, and that type of thing.
I suppose the celebration that Ennis and Alma went to could have been in Lander, but it doesn't seem likely.
Heh. Maybe Aguirre had stemmed it a couple of times himself when he was younger. Maybe he's so pissed off because he feels guilty. ;)
My hunting/fishing buddies and I discovered a new blooper when we were traveling in Wyoming over Independence Day. Riverton does not have a fireworks celebration on the Fourth, and hasn't had one for over 20 years. That's because fireworks are put on by Lander, 20-odd miles to the southeast where the county seat is and where there is a rodeo beforehand. Riverton hosts the 1839 Rendezvous of the mountain men over that weekend instead. It's a gathering where people stage a recreation of a historic camp, along with demonstrations of shooting, butter churning, and that type of thing.
I suppose the celebration that Ennis and Alma went to could have been in Lander, but it doesn't seem likely.
Or envious, some folks theorize.
Well, undies by themselves would probably dry pretty quickly in the sun and wind... but I imagine the nudity was to show Jack's vulnerability, especially as juxtaposed with the dead sheep.
Well, it made *me* go hunh? in terms of the actual straightforward storyline. It still does.
Of course there is symbolism galore in it, as in every little thing in the film. That wasn't what gave me pause. Their trick was to make the symbolism meld seamlessly with a realistic narrative, something they normally achieved unbelievably well. IMO this is not one of those places.
Well, Annie Proulx said that when she was interviewing a ranch foreman/herder boss, he said something like "we send two up together so they can poke each other when it gets lonely". (Although I wonder if he was exaggerating/embellishing that for her, since she was angling for info about rural homoeroticism... but that's another conversation.) In such isolated male-only work environments, quick mutual "relief" may not have been such an anomaly. But Aguirre was still disapproving in this case, since J + E's romantic horseplay went far beyond that.
How would Aguirre know or have that terminology? In the manual-labor world, guys can jabber on all day while working (such as Timmy the Asphalt Guy) and every conceivable subject comes up... Ennis later says "I hear what they have in Mexico for boys like you". Same deal.
To this day, I still don't fully understand the scene with Jimbo in the bar. I'm not sure I ever will either... :laugh:
If you were to capture the exact seconds where we saw Jack look into the eyes of the rodeo clown, and into the eyes of Lureen in the back seat, and into the eyes of the Mexican lover (the cinematographer, it turns out), and in to the eyes of Randall, it always seemed to me to be much more pressing than the way he looked at Ennis.
The thing that has always made me go "Hunh?" from the very first viewing, right up to the present day, is the age Ennis is portrayed at the end of the movie. At the beginning of the story, AP says that J&E are "not yet 20." The course of their relationship covers 20 years, meaning Jack would have been 39 when he died. Ergo, Ennis would have also been 39. And yet Ennis is portrayed as a hunched over, shuffling, wrinkled senior citizen with matted, graying hair when he visit's Jack's parents at Lightning Flat, shortly after Jack's death. But he was only 39! That's a young man! Not yet 40! He was made-up to look like a 59yo. And in Ennis' close-ups towards the end of the film, the make-up crows-feet around his eyes are very obvious to me. It looks like make-up. This was particularly obvious to me on the big cinema screen. I wish Ang Lee would have made Ennis look more like 39 and less like 59.
Wonderful TOTW, Laura. I can see this is going to be a classic "never go out of style" topic for all of us to think about and write about. Alll thoughts posted so far have given me something to think about.
One technical problem that I'm surprised they let slip through: bad audio in spots. In the scene where Ennis is trying to fix the tent and Jack says "It aint goin nowhere — let it be" Jack's line sounds distorted, as if the mic wasn't placed correctly. The same is true with a few of his lines in the lake fight scene. I imagine (would hope) they fixed that for the recent blu-ray release.
Well, Annie Proulx said that when she was interviewing a ranch foreman/herder boss, he said something like "we send two up together so they can poke each other when it gets lonely". (Although I wonder if he was exaggerating/embellishing that for her, since she was angling for info about rural homoeroticism... but that's another conversation.) In such isolated male-only work environments, quick mutual "relief" may not have been such an anomaly. But Aguirre was still disapproving in this case, since J + E's romantic horseplay went far beyond that.
How would Aguirre know or have that terminology? In the manual-labor world, guys can jabber on all day while working (such as Timmy the Asphalt Guy) and every conceivable subject comes up... Ennis later says "I hear what they have in Mexico for boys like you". Same deal.
One technical problem that I'm surprised they let slip through: bad audio in spots. In the scene where Ennis is trying to fix the tent and Jack says "It aint goin nowhere — let it be" Jack's line sounds distorted, as if the mic wasn't placed correctly. The same is true with a few of his lines in the lake fight scene. I imagine (would hope) they fixed that for the recent blu-ray release.
I believe they have. In June I watched the Blu-ray version and I'm sorry you couldn't make it for that viewing, because the audio was much, much improved. In fact, you could hear everything said in the tent scenes crystal clear!! (It may have been attributable to Adam's great speaker system as well!)
Shirley, ( ;D) friend Laura won't mind if we talk about bloopers in the story too.
Okay, it makes clear that Alma Jr. was born in September of 1964. That would make her 19 in late 1983. Ennis and Jack were 19 in 1963, so Jack died in 1983 when he was 39 years old. But later in the story, it says that she is 17 in 1983, so you're right about the discrepancy. It's there in the movie as well, since Junior and Ennis had their last filmed conversation quite a while after Jack's death, when Ennis said to AJ: "You're nineteen, you can do what you want."
What has made me go "huh?" is Jack's laundry activities on the day following FNIT. He washes clothes in the nude. Then he rides up to Ennis. But either he had two sets of jeans and there was no need for the nude scene (well, no need as far as the narrative goes - much need when it came to movie audiences. :P ) Or he had only one set of jeans, in which case they should still have been soaking wet by the time Jack rode mountainwards - the day looks pretty cold, no way they'd have dried that fast.
You think?
My opinion: Jack's eye contact is pretty major with Jimbo, true. With Lureen, he's basically acting the whole time. He gives the Mexican a tired, resigned look and nod, followed by a can-I-trust-you look as they start to walk. His looks at Randall are evasive – or matter-of-fact, at best.
Jack gives Ennis major gazes when he sees him outside Aguirre's trailer, during the "most you've spoke in 2 weeks" conversation, and (especially tenderly) in the second tent scene.
You thought his eye contact was more pressing with the others, though?
I still find it facinating that these "straight men" have such common terminology for all of these "things" and that they are so common (and obviously going on quite a bit) that everyone knows what the terminology is and what they're talking about. They just can't actually call it what it is.. Seems ok to do it and acknolwedge that it all goes on, and have slang terms for it all, but don't ever talk about it...
Hey Laura, hope you're well! Yes, IMHO, I thought Ang was trying to make a distinct differentiation between lust and love. First couple times I watched it, before I grasped the importance of the bar speech where Jack reveals he was there the previous year, I presumed Jack was a virgin when he met Ennis. The more times I watched it, I changed my mind on that one and started presuming that he'd been with both men *and* women before Ennis. As such, he would begin to know by that time how to speak your intentions with your eyes. Seems like he never sent out the love vibe to anyone but Ennis. Even the SNIT scene looked more like a love look than a lust look to me. I watched it again last night for about the 300th time now, and still feel the same. Just my opinion, though. I really wish I was one of those smart folks who can extract exact moments from movies, and put them side-by-side-by-side, but I'm not. Oh well, great topic to discuss!
I had a lot of "hunh's" in the movie for awhile.
It took me the 10th viewing to understand everything Ennis said.
;D
We were lucky. We had subtitles. (And a lot of confusion later about the infamous 'I'm sorry' during the SNIT)
I would have put in some scenes at least showing physical affection ;D in the second half of the film. When I first saw it, I remember thinking 'what are they still keeping this a secret for?'
You know one thing that bothers me... After Tent Scene 2, you have:
Tussle scene
Aguirre/pneumonia
Hailstorm
Untangle them sheep/harmonica playing
Then the summer ends. For a lot of viewers, it's just not going to add up to a significant romantic relationship. It just seems so brief.
Obviously, its significance is made clear later by the fact that they agonize over each other the rest of their lives. And the film is all about missed opportunity, I know — and Ang deliberately starves the viewers of the luxury of lingering romance, to help make the point that J + E were also starved of it.
But when some once-only viewers would post on IMDB saying crap like, "Well, it just didn't seem like that big a deal" ::) I can kind of understand why they'd think that, even if I don't agree.
Do you mean when they talk about gay sex, or about sex in general? Because slang terms and vagaries are used all the time about straight sex, too. (I wonder if it's American puritanism, or if it's also common in other countries.) Like, it's never "are you having sex with her?" It's "does she put out?" or some such thing. (Or in Ennis's case, "It's normal and all?")
You know one thing that bothers me... After Tent Scene 2, you have:
Tussle scene
Aguirre/pneumonia
Hailstorm
Untangle them sheep/harmonica playing
Then the summer ends. For a lot of viewers, it's just not going to add up to a significant romantic relationship. It just seems so brief.
Obviously, its significance is made clear later by the fact that they agonize over each other the rest of their lives. And the film is all about missed opportunity, I know — and Ang deliberately starves the viewers of the luxury of lingering romance, to help make the point that J + E were also starved of it.
But when some once-only viewers would post on IMDB saying crap like, "Well, it just didn't seem like that big a deal" ::) I can kind of understand why they'd think that, even if I don't agree.
You know one thing that bothers me... After Tent Scene 2, you have:
Tussle scene
Aguirre/pneumonia
Hailstorm
Untangle them sheep/harmonica playing
Then the summer ends. For a lot of viewers, it's just not going to add up to a significant romantic relationship. It just seems so brief.
Obviously, its significance is made clear later by the fact that they agonize over each other the rest of their lives. And the film is all about missed opportunity, I know — and Ang deliberately starves the viewers of the luxury of lingering romance, to help make the point that J + E were also starved of it.
But when some once-only viewers would post on IMDB saying crap like, "Well, it just didn't seem like that big a deal" ::) I can kind of understand why they'd think that, even if I don't agree.
I had a lot of "hunh's" in the movie for awhile.
It took me the 10th viewing to understand everything Ennis said.
I have to chime in. This is so true. In trying to convey to the audience that same sense of longing, that same sense of "never enough" that J&E felt, he may have overdone it a bit. I read the short story first, so I came to the movie knowing it was a true love story, but many viewers were watching the movie "cold" so to speak.
I look back at the photo of those Brokies who came to the get together at my house, and the look of utter shell shock present on the faces of all who had just watched the movie, pretty well sums it all up.
I would have put in some scenes at least showing physical affection ;D in the second half of the film. When I first saw it, I remember thinking 'what are they still keeping this a secret for?'
I would have put in some scenes at least showing physical affection ;D in the second half of the film. When I first saw it, I remember thinking 'what are they still keeping this a secret for?'
Tell you what, thinking about this, this morning. It might not even have taken much, or much time. Remember the scene (just after Jack's "blue parka" confrontation with Lureen), where we see Jack dumping corn on the cob in a pot over the fire, and Ennis shows up, and Jack gets a big smile on his face? Well, what if we'd had a shot, just after that, of the two of them giving each other a great big ol' hug? It wouldn't even have had to be anything explicitly sexual or even "romantic," just a little bit of something to show us how much they enjoyed just being together.
I'm just thinkin' out loud here. :)
The SNIT was added to the story and it was very passionate and affectionate, love, not just physical attraction. And the thing that really drew me to the movie (and read the story in anticipation of the movie) was the trailer with the reunion scene and Ennis' longing looks just before the reunion scene. OMG, the passion that spoke from that to me made it clear that their connection was a very deep and special one. It gave me goosebumps and still does.
The next day I asked her what she thought of the movie and she said 'it was so-so'. :o I nearly keeled over, couldn't believe what she said. That was the first time I realised this movie was not for everyone to get.
Oh, I loved the SNIT - and I'm glad it was added. The funny thing is, though, that if I go strictly by the ss, I'm not sure it fits what AP describes.
You're a real thinker there, Jeff. :D
Tell you what, that's a very good point. On the other hand, my memory of the scene is that as they begin to make love, Ennis has his eyes closed, which always made me think of what Annie says in her description of Jack's memory of the dozy embrace--that the memory wasn't marred for Jack by the knowledge that at the time the dozy embrace happened, Ennis couldn't bring himself to face the fact that it was Jack--a man--that he was embracing.
It's very subtle--and maybe I'm even imagining it--but I've always associated Ennis having his eyes closed with his not willing to face up to his feelings.
But I certainly agree, we needed to see a tender love scene to illustrate that what they really felt was love.
One thing that always struck me as odd what the amount of child support Ennis was ordered to pay. :o
It was 1975. Being around Jenny's age, I don't have a clear picture of what 1975 dollars would pay for now, but $125 dollars a month for each child seems like an awful lot for that time and place.
I have a small "hunh": I wonder why the screenwriters (or perhaps the director) felt it necessary to change Francine's name to Jennifer (Jenny). I originally thought it was because "Francine" was too French-sounding or perhaps because it seemed "too modern" -- in which case it could have just been changed to "Frances" -- but, according to Wikipedia, Francine was a very popular name in the U.S. in the 1940s and 1950s:
Francine is a female given name. The name is of French origin, derived from French name Francoise, itself the female version of Francois, the French form of Francis. The name Francine was most popular in France itself during the 1940s (Besnard & Desplanques 2003), and was well used in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s (Evans 2006). Short forms are Frannie, Frans and Fran.
It seems to me, based on the above, that Wyomingites Alma and Ennis could have very well chosen Francine as the name for their younger daughter without it raising any eyebrows.
Does anyone care to speculate on why Francine might have been changed to Jennifer?
For starters, maybe it's as simple as McMurtry, Ossana, or Ang Lee just don't like that name. :)
Hi Fran! I remember reading about this and after searching around a bit, I found out where I'd heard it discussed in the Chez Tremblay forum. Diana Ossana gave an interview at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills on August 4 of last year.
http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,22245.0.html (http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,22245.0.html)
Bettermostian tamarack was kind enough to transcribe the interview (links provided in his initial post). The part about Francine/Jenny is in part 2 of the transcript:
Audience: I just have a small trivia question. There’s a difference between Annie’s novel and your story that centers around the name of the younger daughter, which you changed from Francine to Jenny. I’d like to hear the story behind that.
Oh, it’s a simple story. They have to check on names, and if it belongs to a real person you have to get them cleared, so that’s why the names are changed. That’s the only reason, because we didn’t get clearance from the real people.
When I read her reply, I have to admit that that was one reason I'd never considered!
That's weird. So somewhere out there, there's a Francine Del Mar, and she wouldn't give the OK? But apparently the Jenny Del Mars of the world were fine with it? And Francine would have been a legal risk, even if she wasn't a 20-something woman from Wyoming? Or maybe she was.
Wouldn't they have to make a lot of calls in movies where the characters had fairly common names? If that's the case, I'm amazed movie characters don't all have names like, I don't know, Nightshade Von Tibbleskins or something.
These little moviemaking rules can be strange. A friend owns the prop master's copy of the BBM script. One thing it notes is that the beer and whiskey bottles that Jack and Ennis drink from that first summer all had to have their labels turned from the camera. That's because Jack and Ennis were underage to drink. In their later years, showing the labels was OK.
Thanks, Marie.
Do you think the clearances would be from every "Francine del Mar" living in Riverton, or do you think the geographic area would be larger, like every "Francine del Mar" in the state of Wyoming? Surely, not every "Francine del Mar" living in the U.S..... Imagine the work involved if a character had a common name like Mary Smith.
I think if this legal stuff was up to me, I would only require clearances from a Francine del Mar if her mother was named Alma and her father was named Ennis. :)
In any event, now I know what "Clearances by" and "Additional Clearances by" in the end credits refer to.
I had an uncle that was a steelworker making about 25K that divorced in '74. His obligation was $110.00 per child per month so $125.00 seems pretty steep to me for what Ennis prolly made.
One thing that I noticed from the beginning is that when we first see Ennis cooking over the campfire he is handling the pan with a bare hand. Ouch!
By the time he was cooking up that elk, he was wearing a glove. (And I always loved that he shook salt into his hand to see how much was coming out. How many times have I done that! That was just so real.)
I always thought that Jack's "shoot before you aim" process says a lot about his personality. And he must have found that eagle feather on the ground!
What part of the country was this in, Talon?
I imagine Ennis's payments might have been reduced when Alma married Monroe, although I'm not very familiar with that area of the law.
Would Ennis and Alma's divorce have been "no-fault"? Or would Alma have to have grounds, such as cruelty, infidelity or irreconcilable differences? Although if she had claimed infidelity at that point, the Thanksgiving revelations would not have happened the way they did.
Speaking of mics, how about the infamous visible microphone cord on Alma, Jr., when Alma picks her up as Ennis is running off ot the mountains with Jack for the first time? ;D
I'd say that numerous mysterious aspects of the timeline provide the biggest "hunh" moments for me.The timeline also made my go HUNH. Not the first times I saw the movie though, because I never noticed the clues ( such as the banner) and just assumed that Ennis´s and Cassie´s relationship didn´t go on for very long. It wasn´t until after I had read the shortstory, and someone pointed it out to me in a discussion.
For example, the amount of time that Ennis dates Cassie and that Jack presumably sees Randall works out to be about 4 or 5 years if you look at various clues in the movie (such as the banner in the Childress dinner-dance scene). Therefore, these sideline relationships are fairly significant... if only for their duration. The fact that Ennis seems to only be mentioning Cassie for the first time during the final camping trip, when Jack asks him if he'd ever get married again... always seems a bit odd to me.
Yep, sure enough... great TOTW!
The only other thing that ever made me go HUNH was the first time I saw FNIT. First they were just sleeping and then suddenly...holy... :o
:laugh: