Many Brokies have said they think the tattoo girl is too conspicuous -- especially as one of only a handful of people on the dance floor -- to be just some randomly chosen extra. In other discussions, we've tried to figure out whether Ang Lee meant to say something by casting her and, if so, what.
My favorite explanation is that she emphasizes Ennis' paranoia. Nobody is paying much attention to this unusually tattooed woman (never mind that in a real life small-town tavern, even today, she'd probably draw some glances). And if they aren't concerned about her, maybe Ennis is overreacting to his fear that people on the pavement "know" or even give a damn what he's up to. After all, nine out of 10 of them don't even know where he lives!
Other theories: 1) Like Ennis, metaphorically, she is wearing a costume or "disguise." 23) Her presence indicates it's kind of a dive bar. 3) She shows that times are a-changing, and people are becoming more accepting of differences.
Crayons, You have raised a good point that there are reasons to think that the tattooed girl is not an error on the part of the filmmakers.I have to say that her tattoos are so obvious that it certainly is in the realm of probability that she was placed in the scene, tattoo's and all, for a reason by Ang Lee. I find it difficult to believe that a production company which got so much right, could let this glaring error go by. If she was placed there deliberately and meant to suggest either "Ennis's paranoia", or that the late 1970's were transitional times, then that obligates us to think of the scene in metaphorical terms, not in terms of a realistic portrayal of what such a dive would really have been like in 1970's Riverton, WY.
And that begs two questions:
1-
when do we think about the production values in BM in metaphorical terms? and
2-
When do we fall back on relying on excellence of a realistic portrayal of that period?The answer I come up with is that it is an individual judgement call based upon our own experiences and knowledge.
Part of the reason my sister and I began appraising BM critically for continuity and verisimilitude errors back a year ago, is that this question about how to interpret film interests both of us, especially me. And because we both grew up in a rural area similar in many ways to Riverton and Childress, in the same time periods, my sister being closer to the time period when the story opens, I came along a bit later, we knew that we were able to easily spot inconsistencies.
Last year, an excellent film : "Elizabeth : The Golden Age" was released from director Shekhar Kapur. For those who are not familiar with the film, it is a costume drama set in the middle period of the reign of Elizabeth I of England, during the time of the Babbington Conspiracy and the attack of the Spanish Armada. The film was released with a director's commentary that is
very helpful in understanding the work habits of Shekhar. He explains that the film evolves from a straightforward historical drama into an "operatic" phase at the end. Much of the drama towards the last 30 minutes is beautiful stylization without a determined attempt to keep to verisimilitude. We are very fortunate to have the commentary of Shekhar as he explains his work habits as a director better than most director's commentary tracks do in other films.
I wish that Ang Lee would make a gift of a new released director's track on DVD to answer many of the questions that we have about the film. Meanwhile, maybe like Freud said, "a cigar is just a cigar" or maybe it is an exciting metaphor about something else entirely.
