But, something I found very striking during this viewing is that when Jack and Ennis start arguing during the "maybe Texas" camping trip when Ennis is washing dishes in the stream... Ennis loses the bucket (specifically the bucket) which starts to float down stream. It's the bucket that he's chasing after in the stream as that scene concludes. It seems that this is very foreboding... and maybe an indication that things are slipping between Jack and Ennis... that Ennis's hold on Jack is becoming more tenuous or more problematic. Maybe it's a warning to Ennis that he needs to watch out or work harder to hold on to Jack, etc.
Hi Bud,
I usually think of Jack as the coffee pot and Ennis as the bucket, because Ennis is more often shown with some kind of bucket interaction. But maybe the relationship is more abstract than that.
Maybe instead of vessel=character, it's bucket=relationship, coffee pot=love, or something of that nature.
When Ennis is standing in the stream, watching Jack ride up the mountain, is he washing a coffee pot or a bucket? Either way, this action seems very significant.
When Ennis goes shivering into the tent, he knocks over a bucket, which falls clanging to the ground, as if some kind of relationship equilibrium is being upset.
The next morning, the coffee pot and bucket are side by side, as they are again in the dozy embrace, right? The two are together.
When Alma storms off to work, signaling trouble in their marriage, Ennis kicks over a bucket full of ashes, I gather representing the ashes of their marriage.
And, yes, when Ennis loses his grip on the bucket and lets it float downstream, I think it's about him losing his hold on the relationship.
