TOTW 05/09: Things that made you go "hunh?"

[LauraGigs]

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.

[Front-Ranger]

go commando...that cracks me up!!

The reason for the nude scene, IMO, is twofold. As is customary when camping out, you wash yourself AND your clothes at the same time. Or you wash yourself and your pots and pans, unless you are Ennis. In that case, you just roll your jeans pant legs up real tight, wade in, and wash the coffeepot. Unless the coffeepot has boiled over, in which case...but that's another thread!!
But the point that is subtly made is that Jack and Ennis approach life differently. Ennis is all buttoned up whereas Jack lets it all hang out.  

Second reason is that there is a corollary on the mountain to most events that happen down on the flatlands, and laundry is no exception. To explore this idea further, please visit the thread The Laundry Room right here on the Open Forum.

[Brown Eyes]

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.

Yes, I completely agree with this.  I think the montage there of the dead sheep, Ennis's face and Jack's naked body is really important.  Having Ennis in the middle produces a kind of equation.  The vulnerability of the sheep is equated with the vulnerability of Jack (and relates to the longstanding urge Ennis has to protect Jack and keep him safe).  This also speaks to a really old argument I used to make about the sheep being equated to vulnerable gay men in general (or vulnerable at least in Ennis's head).  I think the sheep killed as a victim of predator loss is very much related to Earl, who was also killed by predators.  And, then this relates to Ennis's firm belief later that Jack was also the victim of predators in his own death.

A lot of this, I think has to do with visualizing Ennis's thought process.

[Mikaela]

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.

[Jeff Wrangler]

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.

There is also the point that for whatever Hollywood reason, each of the four "principles" has a nude--or at least seminude--scene. We've seen Heath nude, so we have to (get to  ) see Jake nude. We see Michelle's breasts, so we have to see Ann's breasts. 

Oh, and BTW, the use of this smilie    doesn't mean I find the sight of the women's breasts distasteful. It is to indicate that I think it's kind of stupid that "they had to do this," give each star a nude/seminude scene, whether or not it was necessary to the plot. And I guess that's the definition of "gratuitous nudity." As happy as I am to see Jake Gyllenhaal nude, or even only seminude, and regardless of any symbolism that may be superimposed on it, for me the scene of Jack doing the laundry in the altogether is completely unnecessary. By contrast, the view of Heath "warshing" in the background while Jake peels potatoes--and the muscle in his jaw twitches  --is important to advance the plot--and, moreover, it comes right out of Annie Proulx's text.

[SFEnnisSF]

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.

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...

[SFEnnisSF]

To this day, I still don't fully understand the scene with Jimbo in the bar.  I'm not sure I ever will either... 

[Jeff Wrangler]

To this day, I still don't fully understand the scene with Jimbo in the bar.  I'm not sure I ever will either... 

I think the problem with that scene might be insufficient context. I believe I understand what it's supposed to represent--Jack reaching out to another guy. But I don't think it portrays very well what I think it's supposed to portray (sorry, Ang Lee fans. ...). Jack's offer to buy Jimbo a drink doesn't come off to me as being particularly like a come-on, and Jimbo's reaction has always struck me as hostile out of all proportion. Perhaps if the camera had lingered a bit longer on the guys Jimbo goes to join, or showed them looking at Jack in a not particularly friendly way, but it really doesn't. 

[serious crayons]

I think that scene is supposed to be a little ambiguous, but it doesn't seem completely confusing. Jack's lingering eye contact with Jimbo is supposed to indicate that he's offering something more than just a friendly drink. And Jimbo gets disproportionately hostile because either he's straight and is disproportionately threatened in the way some straight guys are by that kind of thing, or he's gay (some have argued) and feels he's being outed.

As for the guys at the pool table, though -- are they talking about Jack or not? -- I think we're supposed to be unsure about that, just as Jack would be at the time, just as Ennis is at the end about Jack's fate. The idea is that, in that culture, guys like Jack and Ennis would never know exactly what the people on the pavement were saying and thinking. But Jack leaves hastily in any case, either out of frustration or a sense of potential danger.

[Mandy21]

The part I didn't understand was Ang's vision of how Jake G. should look into the eyes of his other lovers, and potential lovers, over the years.  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.  I like to tell myself that it was a question of love (Ennis) vs. lust (all the others), but he also lusted after Ennis, so how do you explain the difference in Jack's gaze towards all of his lovers?  What are we supposed to take from that?