"It ain't right."

[mvansand76]

That is so true! Whenever I see Jack and Ennis sitting at the campfire, way apart, like any two ordinary straight campers, I get this Brideshead Revisited flashback of Sebastian resting his head in Charles's lap. Now wouldn't something like that have been great... (and rather more likely, too).

Also, after the Thanksgiving row with Alma when Ennis gets himself beaten up and then we fade out, when we fade in again we see him and Jack on horseback in the mountains. I always feel it would have been really great if the fade in would have been one of Ennis on his back in Jack's arms - or is that too obvious and deliberate a contrast with the previous scene...?

My, look at us... we're rewriting the perfect movie. 

Is there such a thing as the perfect movie? BBM comes really close, but from the start I have regarded it slightly flawed in two ways:

* One being the mid portion of the movie (too slow)
* the other being the intimacy in the latter part of the movie (one reviewer described the chemistry as sizzling in the Brokeback part of the movie but in the latter part of the movie it was hard for him to imagine that they had ever had sex at all).

That doesn't take away anything from the HUGE impact it has had and still has on me, though. I love this movie more than any other movie I have ever seen. 

[moremojo]

Here's one I notice:

The area of the front door in Ennis's trailer seems reversed, in the closing shots, from where we saw it in the opening shots of that last sequence. When Alma Junior arrives and walks towards the trailer with her father, the door is at their right. After Alma Junior has left, and Ennis hangs up his hat, then notices her forgotten sweater and opens the door to see her long gone, the door would seem to be on the left relative to what we had seen earlier (I hope I'm making sense!). I assume that the footage somewhere was laterally reversed, probably due to editorial oversight. But this confused me for a time when trying to make mental sense of the spatial configuration of the trailer (a not unimportant element considering the significance of this closing sequence).

Scott

[welliwont]

Here's one I notice:

The area of the front door in Ennis's trailer seems reversed, in the closing shots, from where we saw it in the opening shots of that last sequence. When Alma Junior arrives and walks towards the trailer with her father, the door is at their right. After Alma Junior has left, and Ennis hangs up his hat, then notices her forgotten sweater and opens the door to see her long gone, the door would seem to be on the left relative to what we had seen earlier (I hope I'm making sense!). I assume that the footage somewhere was laterally reversed, probably due to editorial oversight. But this confused me for a time when trying to make mental sense of the spatial configuration of the trailer (a not unimportant element considering the significance of this closing sequence).

Scott

Hi Scott,

I'll make this brief since I am at work, but I think that Ennis' trailer was a two-door trailer....   

J

[Brown Eyes]

On a light note... I don't like the hat that Ennis starts wearing as he gets older... The one that he's wearing when he meets Jack in the blue parka (when Jack's cooking the corn).  I think the hat is supposed to make Ennis look older.  Well, that definitely works.  But, I still just don't like that hat.
 

On a more substantial note... I agree, that we spend way, way, way too much time in the middle of the movie learning all about characters like Alma, Lureen, Newsome, Cassie, Randall and even silly Monroe and nowhere near enough time learning about the way Jack and Ennis's relationship is actually developing.  I find the other characters interesting, compelling and sometimes sympathetic... but on another level I'd much rather have the attention placed squarely on Jack and Ennis (as happens in the story).  I mean the first 4 years of Ennis's marriage go by in less than a full page in the story.  I could live with something equivalent in the movie.  I'd like to hear more of their casual conversation between Jack and Ennis (not just arguments) instead of the rapid cuts away from their camping trips... or the silent images of them riding their horses, etc.  I know that there's a point to this (that we're supposed to feel the passing of time, the frustration of "never enough time", etc.).  But, it really bothers me sometimes.
 

[serious crayons]

Let's get specific, in fact. Of course we all (or many of us, anyway) would like to see more out-and-out love scenes. So don't take this as a rejection of those, not at all. Bring them on.

But what I think is most acutely absent from the movie are scenes of lesser casual physical intimacy. They're either intense -- TS1 and 2, reunion -- or they're just talking BUT NOT TOUCHING. Once they become lovers, the only other time they touch that I can think of is when Jack strokes Ennis' cheek after the Earl story. But I could use a lot more of that, especially under happier conditions.

Personally, on this issue I think Ang went way overboard with his restraint. Or would that be, Ang went way underboard?

[Meryl]

But what I think is most acutely absent from the movie are scenes of lesser casual physical intimacy. They're either intense -- TS1 and 2, reunion -- or they're just talking BUT NOT TOUCHING. Once they become lovers, the only other time they touch that I can think of is when Jack strokes Ennis' cheek after the Earl story. But I could use a lot more of that, especially under happier conditions.

Personally, on this issue I think Ang went way overboard with his restraint. Or would that be, Ang went way underboard?

I assume you're counting the motel scene in with the reunion?  Then there's that poignant little moment in the post-divorce scene when Jack starts to caress Ennis as if to pull him in for a hello kiss and Ennis removes his hands and leads him over to meet the girls.  That always makes me hurt. 

Yeah, if Ang has one fault, it's restraint. 

[serious crayons]

I assume you're counting the motel scene in with the reunion?  Then there's that poignant little moment in the post-divorce scene when Jack starts to caress Ennis as if to pull him in for a hello kiss and Ennis removes his hands and leads him over to meet the girls.  That always makes me hurt. 

Well, and then later I thought of TS3 and the dozy embrace. I don't know how I forgot about all of these. OK, never mind, I guess I was wrong. Turns out there was enough after all.

KIDDING!!!! Never enough physical affection, never enough. 

[JT]

Then there's that flash back scene during their final fight when Ennis came up from behind and cuddled Jack.  That was one of my favorite scene of them together.  That was love and closeness not just about sex.  It was so sweet and perhaps Jack's happiest moment ever.

[welliwont]

Awright you guys, yer doin it again, yer bashin my movie....    I am goin to have to un-notify myself from this thread.  I thought this was a thread about bloopers, but it has transmorgrified into a BBM bashing thread!   

Yer too much for me!  I am goin to have to quit this thread!     I can't for the life of me figur why y'all want to burst yer own ballooons!

J 

[Ellemeno]

This has always seemed off to me -

In the "Ennis, you know someone name a Jack?" scene, when Ennis picks up that very first postcard from Jack and reads it, there are already marks of wear and wetness on the lower corners where he holds it with his thumbs, as though we're seeing the tenth take of those freshly-wetted hands holding the postcard.