Author Topic: Double meanings: Lines that can be taken more than one way  (Read 121685 times)

tiawahcowboy

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Re: Double meanings: Lines that can be taken more than one way
« Reply #60 on: May 30, 2006, 04:39:02 pm »
An ancient magazine photograph of some dark-haired movie star was taped to the wall beside the bed, the skin tone gone magenta.

More than likely it was one of the male cowboy movie stars from the latter 1940s or the early 1950s. So, it could have been Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, Bill Boyd aka Hopalong Cassiday, Lash Larue, Randolph Scott, Alan Ladd, or Guy Madison, among others.

It it had been a female star, it could have been Dale Evans or Jane Russell.

Offline Brown Eyes

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Re: Double meanings: Lines that can be taken more than one way
« Reply #61 on: May 30, 2006, 07:44:05 pm »
About falling in love with fun...

I do think his sort of stunned reaction is a combination of being surprised at the depths of Cassie's feelings for him and at the shock of an ephiphany as another layer of his feelings about Jack comes more clearly into focus.  I do think he feels bad about hurting Cassie.  He truly seems saddened by the situation with her.  But, of course the primary issue is probably always the Jack subtext. 

I think it's a great observation that Ennis did fall in love with fun.  Maybe this is a clue that the moment when Jack is horsing around and poking fun at himself during the "rodeo cowboys are all f***-ups" scene is truly the moment when Ennis fell in love with Jack.  Also, it's cute to note that the "I haven't had the opportunity" scene (which comes *right* before the first tent scene) is also a "fun" moment... the singing and jovial tone to their drinking binge seem to be a lot of fun.  Proulx makes it clear that Ennis wants to paw the white out of the moon because he can't remember having had such a good time before.

Fun is probably a really important phenomenon to Ennis.  What a tough life our Ennis has had!  Being able to smile and goof around and let his cares go around Jack... and to have fun with Jack's sense of humor might be more deeply significant than Cassie realizes. 

And, more on his reaction to Cassie's observation... I think like Alma Jr.'s discussion about Kurt and marriage... the idea of truly being in love with Jack is probably really beginning to occur to Ennis.  As we've said elsewhere... he's almost made it around the coffeepot to find the handle.
If only Jack had lived!  I truly hope good things would have happened based on these little clues. (There goes my optimism about the situation again...).
 :'(
the world was asleep to our latent fuss - bowie

Offline serious crayons

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Re: Double meanings: Lines that can be taken more than one way
« Reply #62 on: May 30, 2006, 11:22:35 pm »
Yes, I do think he feels bad about Cassie but I'd like to think his expression of epiphany has more to do with Jack.

While we're on the subject, why don't we just go ahead and analyze "This Kurt, he loves you?" and, for that matter, Alma Jr.'s reaction to it.

My feeling is that this line indicates he has had time to think about love and realizes that a) that's what he and Jack had together and b) that's the most important thing there is. He only asks one other question about Kurt ("How long have you known this guy?") where you'd think a father who'd first heard the name of his daughter's betrothed five minutes ago would want to know a lot more than that. (He's such a foreign entity that Ennis refers to him as "this Kurt" as opposed to just "Kurt.")

But Ennis has realized love is enough to outweigh all other reservations. Then his pained gaze out the window shows him wishing he'd figured that out a long time ago.

Alma's response seems a little slower and softer, more sympathetic, than she might be just by the surface meaning of the question. I take it as a sign she knows her dad has gone through a heartbreaking experience with love. She doesn't know the precise details, but she sure as hell knows it wasn't about Cassie.

Offline Mikaela

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Re: Double meanings: Lines that can be taken more than one way
« Reply #63 on: May 31, 2006, 04:55:22 am »
About Cassie, - I do think her impassioned "fall in love with fun" statement is what makes Ennis see her as a real *person*; - with emotions that can and has been hurt. The way he previously talks to Jack about her indicates he doesn't even really listen to what she's saying, he doesn't think about her feelings and he sure can't be bothered to care.

I actually think it's a step forward in Ennis's life that he does realize the hurt and pain he's caused Cassie - that it sinks in - not only because he can relate it to Jack, but exactly because his empathy and understanding extends to another adult human being than Jack. He truly sees that his way of "standing it" hasn't only affected and worn out and broken him and Jack, but other good people as well. I don't think there's a ever a similar moment in his relationship with Alma, unless the tears in the divorce court can be interpreted that way, but that's not at all how I see them. Since 1963 till that confrontation with Jack when he "can't stand it anymore"  he's only lived in relation to Jack, while other grown-ups he's had dealings with were nothing but shadow figures on his emotional radar.  If that is changing, it's a sign he's finally been jolted out of the rut and has opened up emotionally and it's another sign he's ready for change when it comes to him and Jack as well. I do *so* want to believe he was reaching that point and that the November meet would have been a turning point to the positive for Ennis and Jack.

I sure don't insist on my interpretation though.  :)

Anyway, it does strike me how easily the "girls don't fall in love with fun" can be flipped to mirror the other side of the Ennis/Cassie relationship (not only Ennis/Jack). Ennis sure didn't and couldn't fall in love with fun either, even when it was smiling brightly at him and making him dance to jaunty tunes and requesting foot rubs: Cassie *was* a real fun girl when they first met. 



I'll be interested in reading more about others' opinions on the last scene between Ennis and Junior. I must admit I can't manage to see all the things in that scene what many others see, I envy those who see more in it!  I truly think Ennis was aware that he loved Jack a long time before Jack died - whether or not he used that word to himself about it. But he does think of Jack when asking the "he loves you"? question; no doubt about that; - and it's a bittersweet comfort to see he has such a loving connection to his daughter, that he isn't left completely in the dark. Since the last scene takes place in 1984 and Jack died in -82, the lonely darkness of Ennis's life in the long period between almost doesn't bear thinking on.  :'(
 
« Last Edit: May 31, 2006, 05:05:23 am by Mikaela »

Offline serious crayons

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Re: Double meanings: Lines that can be taken more than one way
« Reply #64 on: May 31, 2006, 08:40:00 am »
The way he previously talks to Jack about her indicates he doesn't even really listen to what she's saying, he doesn't think about her feelings and he sure can't be bothered to care.

That's a good way to put it, Mikaela, and I totally agree he has realized that. Only I think that's expressed in his "I'm sorry" and "I probably wasn't much fun." Those are such a change in tone from his earlier lines, and they sound very sincere. They seem to show that he realizes he has been cruel, and feels bad about it. But then his reaction to her "fun" line provokes what looks to me like a different emotion.

Another reason I'd like to think of his thoughtful reaction to the "fun" line as being about Jack is that it progresses the plot on a bit more -- he may be ready to make some changes in November. Also, because it is the first appearance of the word "love" and because the camera lingers on him for so long, it seems a moment of great significance, suggesting to me it's more Jack- than Cassie-related.

But I don't insist on my interpretation, either.  :)

Quote
I truly think Ennis was aware that he loved Jack a long time before Jack died - whether or not he used that word to himself about it.

I agree, and have argued this point endlessly elsewhere. It just doesn't fit my understanding of human nature that he could behave so much like he loves somebody but not think of it that way (even if, as you say, he called it something else to himself). People who deny love pretend they don't care about the person -- they don't act like Ennis does in the alley or at the reunion, etc.

Still, I can also imagine that attaching the actual word "love" to his feelings for the first time, with all its cultural connotations, might push him to a new level of understanding of how important the relationship is and what it means in his life.

But I'll be interested, too, in what others say.

Offline serious crayons

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Re: Double meanings: Lines that can be taken more than one way
« Reply #65 on: May 31, 2006, 02:50:55 pm »
But I'll be interested, too, in what others say.

Sorry, "others," but I waited around, you never replied, and I got impatient and had to post again myself! (My username should just be "threadhog." And has anyone else ever been egocentric enough to quote themselves?)

Kidding.  ;D I do still await your reactions to the Ennis/Jr. scene and other previous issues.

But I just happened to be glancing around Dave Cullen's forum for the first time ever, and I saw a brief discussion of another interesting line, and got curious to see what you guys would think. When Ennis says "I can't stand it no more, Jack" what exactly is it that he can't stand, and why?

I guess the simplest answer is that he can't stand the "it" that "you can't fix," that is, the social rules that he previously said "you gotta stand." I'd also like to believe he's saying he can't stand them being apart, that he misses Jack too much, especially because it goes along with him clutching Jack's jacket. But he also might mean, "I can't stand the contradiction I'm living -- in love with a man, but unable to deal with being gay." Most pessimistically of all, he could mean, "I can't stand going on like this, this relationship with you is tearing me up and I wish you would quit me." (That one I don't really believe, but maybe some people do.)

Offline Mikaela

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Re: Double meanings: Lines that can be taken more than one way
« Reply #66 on: May 31, 2006, 03:41:00 pm »
That line *is* open to a lot of interpretations, isn't it? Once you manage to not just bawl your heart out over it, of course..... Not that it's alone in that respect.

I *think* it probabe that thematically it is intended as an obvious bookend to the reunion scene when Ennis tells Jack when they hook up again that you've got to stand what you can't fix. It's the caption line and motto for their entire hidden relationship. Now, 15 years down the lane, Ennis is saying he *can't* stand it anymore - that leaves open the possibility that he finally might be wanting to have a go at actually *fixing* it? At least, it does indicate a breaking point, the end of the continuous story arc, an impending change.

All that is film technique, though - I don't think it was what Ennis himself meant. I think his words came from a painful and only half-understood realization that the tension on him from the two lives he was living was becoming absolutely unbearable - that those two lives had pulled so far apart that he couldn't manage to maintain the compartmentalization any more - the stress had created cracks and now everything was crumbling under the tension.

The side of him that loves Jack and wants to be with him is under immense stress because the relationship is suddenly openly tenuous and under threath. A break-up can't be ruled out..... not after Jack's Mexico admission and all the bitter and disappointed rest of what Jack says leading up to the "I wish I knew how to quit you". Not after Ennis's own words in response, spoken in fear more than anger. But Jack is Ennis's whole life, his love - in direct contrast to what Ennis says out loud, Ennis would be nothing *without* Jack.  The prospect of losing Jack is beyond frightening to Ennis.

At the same time, the homophobic and "pretending to be straight" side of Ennis has been driving Ennis's actions towards that loss. That side has been demanding more and more of his mental resourcesl - putting more pressure on him every day. The increasing fear that people *knows* weighs on his mind and makes him go against his own deepest wishes and desires, makes him deliberately see Jack more seldom than before. I can't find any other explanation for him sitting silently when Jack says his "sometimes I miss you so much...." line, for him keeping to his decision to cancel the August meet even after that. It would have moved a rock to cancel every other appointment and obligation! And the Ennis of the first few years relationship would have quit his job and gone to meet Jack in August. Ennis uses the child support as an excuse, but to me that's what it is - an excuse. I think in a way the homophobic part of him has subconsciously been forcing him  towards a breaking point. Which finally arrives when Ennis says he can't stand this any more: He can't live both lives. He'll have to chose......  Though when he says that, I don't think he knows or sees all of that or the having to choose at all clearly yet - he's just completely emotionally worn out from it all and can't take any more and says os as he breaks down. But his realization will be gradual over the next months - I think he's well on his way to it, and to even making his choice, when he meets Cassie at the Bus Station cafe.
« Last Edit: May 31, 2006, 06:23:31 pm by Mikaela »

tiawahcowboy

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Re: Double meanings: Lines that can be taken more than one way
« Reply #67 on: May 31, 2006, 04:02:08 pm »
This is not in the original story; because after Jack says, "I wish I knew how to quit you,"  Ennis stood as if heart-shot, face grey and deep-lined, grimacing, eyes screwed shut, fists clenched, legs caving, hit the ground on his knees. Ennis is not quoted as saying anything else after Jack got out of his own truck and he tried to guess if it was heart attack or the overflow of an incendiary rage, Ennis was back on his feet and somehow, as a coat hanger is straightened to open a locked car and then bent again to its original shape, they torqued things almost to where they had been, for what they'd said was no news. Nothing ended, nothing begun, nothing resolved.

Annie Proulx did not write a thing about them touching when they were in the trailhead parking lot. Other than the one time when Ennis kissed Jack that one time at the 1967 reunion where he thought no one was watching, Ennis did not touch Jack in a public place again where he thought people might see. [Oh, the scene with dialog where Jack shows up unannounced after Alma's divorce from Ennis is not a story original.]

So, in the way that I read the original story, they just drove off without saying anything further after Jack's last "Ennis?" and then Ennis just assumed that Jack would agree to meet him again in November.

While people refer to this scene in the movie as the "lake scene," their trucks are parked in a trailhead parking lot by a lake.

Exact quote of Ennis's line in the movie, "I just can't stand this anymore, Jack."

I just have to guess what the screenplay writers and the movie script people meant here.

I say that maybe Ennis cannot stand the fact that his soul and body wants to be with Jack because he is actually in love with Jack. But, he has got it fixed in his stubborn mind that because of the hand which other people dealt him and he cannot trade cards so to speak, he can't fix it, he just has to stand it although it is making him miserable.

I find that movie scene where Ennis did show emotion and cried odd in the fact that Larry McMurtry told Time Magazine interviewer that men don't understand emotion.

Quote
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1151802,00.html
 One of the main things you added to the story was women.
In a lot of your work, women turn out to have far richer interior lives than men.


I have always argued that if you want to learn something about emotion, you have to ask women. That's why I've had three women characters who've won Oscars--[for] Patricia Neal, Cloris Leachman and Shirley MacLaine. I've always thought that for my interests, emotionally, I have to seek women to talk about. Men don't talk about emotion. They don't understand it.

Offline serious crayons

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Re: Double meanings: Lines that can be taken more than one way
« Reply #68 on: May 31, 2006, 04:37:22 pm »
Exact quote of Ennis's line in the movie, "I just can't stand this anymore, Jack."

I just have to guess what the screenplay writers and the movie script people meant here.

I say that maybe Ennis cannot stand the fact that his soul and body wants to be with Jack because he is actually in love with Jack. But, he has got it fixed in his stubborn mind that because of the hand which other people dealt him and he cannot trade cards so to speak, he can't fix it, he just has to stand it although it is making him miserable.

I find that movie scene where Ennis did show emotion and cried odd in the fact that Larry McMurtry told Time Magazine interviewer that men don't understand emotion.


Oh, you're right, Tiawahcowboy, it is "can't stand this." I don't know if I've heard the "just" but I'll listen for it next time. Nice to see you discussing the movie (as opposed to the story) now and then!

And your theory makes sense about why he says it.

As for Larry McMurtry's quote about men not understanding emotion -- a lot of people would argue that just because Ennis expresses emotion doesn't mean he fully understands it. In other words, I don't think McMurtry was necessarily saying that men are unemotional.

tiawahcowboy

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Re: Double meanings: Lines that can be taken more than one way
« Reply #69 on: May 31, 2006, 05:13:00 pm »
Oh, you're right, Tiawahcowboy, it is "can't stand this." I don't know if I've heard the "just" but I'll listen for it next time. Nice to see you discussing the movie (as opposed to the story) now and then!

And your theory makes sense about why he says it.

I discussed both of them in the same post, right? I actually prefer to discuss the movie opposed by the story as far as the movie itself is concerned. In certain Yahoo Groups, one of which was especially for those who had read the original story but had not yet seen the movie, we did not have to "argue" about the movie at all.

When it comes to why certain no-name characters in the original story had to be given names and lots of movie scenes, I can only theorize about that, too. Annie Proulx had no such person named "Cassie" who worked at a bar in Riverton. She had no one working at a Riverton bar in her story.

As for Larry McMurtry's quote about men not understanding emotion -- a lot of people would argue that just because Ennis expresses emotion doesn't mean he fully understands it. In other words, I don't think McMurtry was necessarily saying that men are unemotional.

Well, it's like this McMurtry does seem to be from the "Old School," which actually began after the start of the Industrial Revolution in the late 1890s, when boys began to be taught that it was unmanly to even show emotion in another guy's presence. Real men kept their emotions to themselves and just tuffed it out. Anthony Rotundo in his book, American Manhood, mentioned how in America the attitude men had toward themselves and other men changed. If you were to read some of the correspondence between men who were definitely just best friends before the Industrial Revolution, you would think that they were love letters because they used lots of terms of endearment in them.

And, if you read what I copied from Annie Proulx's story, you will see that Ennis himself quickly put himself back in check as far as his emotions were concerned. Jack could not figure out whether Ennis was having a heart attack or throwing a raging fit. And by the time Jack got out of his truck, Ennis acted like he had not even been upset at all.