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

[Kerry]

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.

[LauraGigs]

That's a good point, Kerry.

[LauraGigs]

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.

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?

[Brokeback_Dev]

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.

[Jeff Wrangler]

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.

Me, I don't think he looks that old. And don't forget, he's had a hard life, most of it spent working outdoors in all kinds of weather in a dry climate--and that endless Wyoming wind. That would tend to age someone's appearance--and Ennis doesn't strike me as the type to use many skin care products. ... 

[Kelda]

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.

me too and i dont stray into the open forum very often these days. Thanks laura!

[Brown Eyes]

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 agree that there are moments- particularly the "ain't goin nowhere" moment- when there seems to be an actual techncial problem with the sound.

But, I was thinking about this more last night, and it occurs to me that those technical difficulty moments should be distinguished, I think, from moments when we're deliberately not meant to be able to hear the conversations between Jack and Ennis.  These moments happen usually when the camera is quite a distance away.  I think these instances are meant to make us realize that we're intruding on private moments (not unlike Aguirre).

[Brown Eyes]

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 also wanted to follow up on these conversations about terminology for sex and slang.... It's interesting that in this quotation that Laura points out, the term "poke" is used.

For anyone who has read Lonesome Dove and the other books in the Lonesome Dove series, you'll recognize this as a quintessential Lonesome Dove term.   It's almost the only term used to refer to sex... and in the case of those books, hetero sex.

[Front-Ranger]

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!)

[Jeff Wrangler]

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!)

Tell you what, I remember quite well that the quality and clarity of the audio varied depending on where I was sitting in the theater.