Author Topic: Did Jack wait too much time for Ennis to come around?  (Read 7172 times)

Offline nakymaton

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Re: Did Jack wait too much time for Ennis to come around?
« Reply #10 on: June 08, 2006, 01:13:40 pm »
I think Jack was having those 5 minutes of wonderful from Ennis before that spur of the moment trip he makes to Wyoming. After that, I don't think he was happy anymore. For me, there's no point in meeting someone once or twice a year, just for just a week or less, then spend the rest of the months feeling miserable most of the time, forcing yourself to have sex with people you don't like, crying your eyes out every night because you miss that person so much that you can't hardly stand it. I think it's humiliating, it's a torture, especially if you know that situation is not going to change. But that's my opinion.

"He said it was his favorite place. I thought he meant for drinking. Jack drank a lot." (Quote's from memory and may be wrong; I cry too damn much at that point in the movie to remember the dialogue.)

We only see hints of the toll that the post-divorce years took on Jack. I mean, he doesn't look quite alive again, not in the way he does laughing after demonstrating that rodeo cowboys are all f***-ups, or in bed after the reunion, or when he sees Ennis on the pre-divorce fishing trip. And we know he sought out other men. But we don't see the drinking.

I don't know what I would tell Jack, though, if I could talk to him. Like ednbarby, I've gotten out of a bad relationship... but you know, it's a heck of a lot easier to move on when the potential new partners 1) are the right sexual orientation most of the time and 2) don't have to worry about letting the world know they're attracted to me. Jack didn't have those advantages. He was still a small-town guy, too, even though he moved out of Wyoming and had more money than Ennis.

It's just a goddamn bitch of an unsatisfactory situation.
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gattaca

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Re: Did Jack wait too much time for Ennis to come around?
« Reply #11 on: June 08, 2006, 01:36:51 pm »
I can't speak for Jack (and I don't need to) - all I can say is that I'd have done it. I'd have stuck it out. I have before, and I would again.
Is it worth that 5 minutes?

You bet.

Offline jpwagoneer1964

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Re: Did Jack wait too much time for Ennis to come around?
« Reply #12 on: June 09, 2006, 01:20:35 am »
Jack loved Ennis and would not and could not give up on him. On the last fishing trip he said "tell you what....the truth is..... sometimes I miss you so much I can hardly stand it". Even after the bitter arguement in the final moments of that last trip he rushes to comfort Ennis after so much was said" Its all right...its all right". I think he does come th accept that it may never me more than this and to "let it be" as it is and always has been.
Thank you Heath and Jake for showing us Ennis and Jack,  teaching us how much they loved one another.

Offline starboardlight

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Re: Did Jack wait too much time for Ennis to come around?
« Reply #13 on: June 09, 2006, 02:25:51 am »
Jack deserved to feel better about himself, to feel fully loved and that he belonged with someone. We all do. In the movie there are many scenes where Jack is shown feeling out of place. He felt he didn't belong anywhere, not with Lureen, not with his family, not with Ennis, because Ennis kept rejecting him, and not with society. That is why I think he should've loved himself some more.  At least it's something I learned for myself, although I know that, as David points out, love can be blind, deaf, mute and stupid.

yes, he does deserve so much more. I understand your frustration. You just wish it could work out. You wish Jack wasn't disappointed over and over again.

I do think that even to the very end, Jack knew that Ennis loved him. I certainly think that he felt like he belonged with Ennis, and that's why it was worth it for him to come back to Ennis as long as he did.

It is difficult to imagine going through a life time of that, but for most gay men and women, that's not even an option. For rural men of that time, finding love an exception. Mostly, it's just anonymous encounters.
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Offline ednbarby

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Re: Did Jack wait too much time for Ennis to come around?
« Reply #14 on: June 09, 2006, 01:49:03 pm »
It is difficult to imagine going through a life time of that, but for most gay men and women, that's not even an option. For rural men of that time, finding love an exception. Mostly, it's just anonymous encounters.

This makes me so sad for all gay men and women experiencing this.  But it also gives me a good measure of happiness for Jack and Ennis and those like them that they found each other.
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Offline whiteoutofthemoon

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Re: Did Jack wait too much time for Ennis to come around?
« Reply #15 on: June 09, 2006, 03:26:26 pm »
Someone said that in one of the preOscar interviews, Jake was asked how Jack really died in the movie, and he responded "Jack died the moment they couldn't be together".


This is one of the many messages I got from the movie....this idea of "waiting".  I have this habit of "holding out" for the best situation....the best job, best vacation plans, best situation for relationships....but while waiting, the opportunity just passes by and it's way too too late.  In this regard then, the person who was waiting too much time was not Jack, but Ennis.....and the tragedy of the whole story is that he lost that opportunity for happiness forever b/c he kept pushing it away. 

Jack, on the other hand, is a dreamer....  and dreamers always have an allowance for "that one chance" that things will work out if they wait and try long enough.   So this begs the question, which is of much larger scope, of whether or nor they were better off with the  ways things were, or else, not meeting at all?   Is it better to have loved and lost, or not to have loved at all?   Was Jack better off seeing Ennis twice a year as opposed to not seeing him at all?  Moments of fleeting bliss, vs no happiness ever?   That's a tough one, but at the end, Jack came to realize that it really wasn't enough...there ain't never enough time, never enough. 
"They were respectful of each other's opinions, each glad to have a companion where none had been expected.  Ennis, riding against the wind back to the sheep in the treacherous, drunken light, thought he'd never had such a good time, felt he could paw the whiteoutofthemoon."

Offline alec716

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Re: Did Jack wait too much time for Ennis to come around?
« Reply #16 on: June 14, 2006, 10:32:39 pm »
Is it better to have loved and lost, or not to have loved at all?   Was Jack better off seeing Ennis twice a year as opposed to not seeing him at all?  Moments of fleeting bliss, vs no happiness ever?   That's a tough one, but at the end, Jack came to realize that it really wasn't enough...there ain't never enough time, never enough. 

And, I believe, Ennis only came to the realization of "never enough time, never enough" after Jack died.  Nightmare, nightmare, no going back for Ennis.

Count me in on the side of moments of fleeting bliss, if no moment-to-moment togetherness is possible.  As Eartha Kitt sings, "memories you memorize... to keep your winters warm."  (yes, I am a HUGE fan of Eartha Kitt... is there an online discussion board for people like me?!)

I believe that most people on the planet never get to touch the kind of passion and love that Jack and Ennis shared (and yes, in their own way, the COMMITMENT).  Fortunately, I do get to touch it.  My beloved partner and I live in different countries (same time zone, at least!), and cannot see each other as often as we would like.  We have lived together for extended periods when immigration and other factors have permitted and will do so again.  Thankfully, we are able to get on a fair number of airplanes back and forth in the interim times.  I am aware that that is a significant privilege in life.  And Canada better not get nutty and repeal its current, federal-level recognition of same-sex marriage... we can't return the gold rings waiting in our respective dresser drawers!  We are constantly striving to make changes in our lives so that we can spend more precious time together, and we are on the phone multiple times each day.  I take comfort in the notion that at least the reasons for our periodic physical separations are external, not internal as were Ennis' core reasons for not sharing a day-to-day life with Jack.  I would rather have what I have with whom I have it than have something lesser with someone whose breath I could feel more often  --  NO QUESTIONS ASKED.  And I think that makes me fantastically lucky.

oh my gosh... I just got intensely personally vulnerable with a bunch of people online whom I have never met in person... how did that happen?!  It must be the spells of Brokeback Mountain and the BetterMostians working their magic on me!

and I am guessing that part of the reason for my obsession with Annie Proulx's tale just became pretty transparent.

thanks for listening.

and that, my friends, is this evening's rant.  g'night, y'all.   :-*


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Offline serious crayons

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Re: Did Jack wait too much time for Ennis to come around?
« Reply #17 on: June 15, 2006, 12:03:55 am »
I would rather have what I have with whom I have it than have something lesser with someone whose breath I could feel more often  --  NO QUESTIONS ASKED.  And I think that makes me fantastically lucky.

Once again, another nice rant, Alec! Feel free to rant every evening.

If you can't get intensely personally vulnerable with a bunch of strangers online, who can you get intensely personally vulnerable with?! Me, I am often more intensely personally vulnerable here than I am with friends and family.

Anyway, the quote above is beautifully put. You're right! And not to bring the subject back to fiction, but that's why I'll bet Jack never would have chosen Randall over Ennis.



Offline Phillip Dampier

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Re: Did Jack wait too much time for Ennis to come around?
« Reply #18 on: November 27, 2006, 10:15:24 pm »
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