Author Topic: Double meanings: Lines that can be taken more than one way  (Read 121663 times)

Offline nakymaton

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Re: Double meanings: Lines that can be taken more than one way
« Reply #120 on: June 05, 2006, 11:10:27 pm »
I think the "one shot thing" line takes on a very different meaning when Ennis says it in the film. In the story, Jack's responding to Ennis's "I'm not no queer," and the whole string of responses seems like Jack's protesting a bit too much... giving a bunch of different excuses, trying to find whatever works to relieve Ennis's fears. I don't give any weight to any of them in the story. But coming from Ennis's mouth, it's something else... Ennis doesn't say much, and when he speaks, it's worth listening.

Personally, I don't think that Ennis intended to have sex with Jack again after the first time, and that Jack is trying to give a reason why they can continue. I don't think Ennis intended for the second tent scene to happen... he seems to be fighting with himself until he finally heads for the tent. And he doesn't seem sure that's what he wants until he finally begins to respond to Jack's kiss.

(I wish Mikaela were here for this conversation... I think she had an insight based on the subtitles on the version of the movie that played in her country. We had a conversation like this before, but, ummmm, I can't remember what she said. It was really good, though!)
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Offline serious crayons

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Re: Double meanings: Lines that can be taken more than one way
« Reply #121 on: June 06, 2006, 01:01:38 am »
II don't think Ennis intended for the second tent scene to happen... he seems to be fighting with himself until he finally heads for the tent. And he doesn't seem sure that's what he wants until he finally begins to respond to Jack's kiss.

Man, this movie is so incredibly ambiguous. I see the exact same scene and read it as, Ennis sitting by the campfire already knows that he wants to go into the tent but he's really nervous about it -- not just because he's homophobic but because this is something he's never done before (maybe with a woman, either) and he's both excited and fearful. When he finally does go in, he is perfectly willing but it's such a foreign experience for him that he's not exactly sure how to proceed and it takes him a while to relax into it. But, with help from Jack's "s'alrights," he does!

Offline serious crayons

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Re: Double meanings: Lines that can be taken more than one way
« Reply #122 on: June 06, 2006, 02:47:38 am »
Double meaning on the lighter side: “Your folks just stop at ‘Ennis’?” Well, actually, they did. He’s the youngest Del Mar.

Cute one, Barbara! And we definitely could use some lighter side.

Unfortunately, I'm now going to take a turn for the much heavier/darker side.

"For all I know, he done the job."

I've been thinking about how chilling that is, the way Ennis phrases it. Not "for all I know, he done that horrible crime," or even simply "for all I know, he done it." I realize this can partly be chalked up to Ennis' manner of speaking. But to call it "the job" is, at some level, to equate it with an expected or necessary task.

Now, I'm not saying Ennis thinks of it that way.  I don't believe he does. But it's like he's been conditioned not to question it as much as he should. Why wasn't he more horrified by his father's attitude? Clearly he was seriously disturbed and even traumatized by the experience of viewing the body, realizes his father's potential involvement would have been wrong, but the extent to which he outright condemns him for it is ambiguous. In other contexts, he speaks of his dad as a fairly good guy ("now my dad, he was a fine roper ... I think my dad was right.").

So that's not so much a double meaning as an ominous implication about how abusive upbringing can warp minds.




Offline Mikaela

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Re: Double meanings: Lines that can be taken more than one way
« Reply #123 on: June 06, 2006, 07:21:58 am »
In other contexts, he speaks of his dad as a fairly good guy ("now my dad, he was a fine roper ... I think my dad was right.").

So that's not so much a double meaning as an ominous implication about how abusive upbringing can warp minds.


I've been thinking about this quite a lot these last few days – the relationship between Ennis and his father. How the film leads up to that absolutely crucial scene of Ennis's father dragging his sons along to see the body and teach them the lesson about what happens to “queers”. Other related topics....


While Jack starts bitching about *his* father from the get go, Ennis actually makes us like his father at first.

The first thing we learn, is that Ennis's father and mother are dead. Even though we know nothing else, that leaves us feeling sympathy towards them by extension just as we feel sympathy for Ennis. It also puts us off guard, thinkin that if Ennis is taciturn, painfully shy and insecure it may have to do with losing his parents at that crucial age –  and not with anything his parents did to him *before* they died.

Then Ennis goes on to tell us something positive about his father, a good memory – “My father was a fine roper” - and when he says that his father thought rodeo cowboys were all fuck-ups, he does it with that certain glint in his eye that somehow makes you think his father must have had the same glint in his. And “My father was right”, however much spoken in jest, also casts Ennis’s father in a positive light, through the very fact that Ennis actually says it, so in contrast to Jack’s comments about *his* father.

And then - bam! - we're hit with that incredibly ugly scene. Things are very far from being what they have seemed at the surface, and it hits the movie audience with all the more effect exactly for going so contrary to the expectations of the older Del Mar that Ennis’s words have created up till then.. We learn that not only was Ennis's father abusive and cruel to his sons, not only does Ennis think him capable of torturing another man to death and seeing it as nothing more than a job needed doing, but his attitudes (and actions, if he actually *was* one of the men who "did the job") both as specifically attributed to him as a single person and as symptomatic of the general attitudes in their time and place, were central to warping or destroying something of the most personal and precious there is in his son. It is revealed as the reason for the tragedy of Jack and Ennis as it unfolds, and forms the focal point of the entire story – the hub that many lives and the whole story revolves around.

The scene with the father and his two sons is all the more forceful because we don't ever get to see father's face - he's just this big, dark, nondescript shape forcing the two boys along, making them watch that horrible sight. The father being faceless speaks of the scene being illustrative of "general opinion" more than of one specific person's violent prejudices. And the fact that there are two boys, not just Ennis, seems a reminder that his father (and their society) wasn't particularly targeting Ennis - every boy according to the thoughts of people like Ennis's father should be taught this lesson.


It makes a sad and distorted kind of sense that Ennis *would* speak well of his father – he does after all “think his father was right” not only about Rodeo Cowboys but about “queers”, however much that means his daddy would have killed him too for being what he is. Ennis himself keeps beating himself up over “this thing” inside him…... The internalized homophobia in Ennis does indeed seem to make him somewhat ambivalent about his father's action - it seems difficult for him to forcefully condemn the means when he's so much in tune with the end.  :'(  And the personal trauma of that day in the dry landscape filled with glaring light must have been hidden so deep down that only Jack can make Ennis bring it forth. I suppose it’s a safe bet that Ennis never tells that tale to anyone else ever, nor lets anyone see how deeply it affects him - and that he never talked with his brother about it either.


That big heavy hand at the boy's neck must have made Ennis feel all the more helpless and powerless to do and be anything else than his father wanted. I can imagine him still feeling the weight of that hand more than once in his dealings with Jack.


The death of Ennis's father takes on a new meaning for the audience after the flashback scene - his death surely served to cement his opinions in Ennis's mind. It made it impossible for Ennis to ever rebel against him, meet him on equal footing, have it out with him, oppose him and move on. Perhaps he would never have managed to do so, perhaps he’d never have wanted to, but his father dying forever removed the choice, that possibility. Now his father’s memory is immutably fixed in time with his opinion of queers, and nothing Ennis can say or do will be able to change that. And anyway………. you’re not supposed to “speak ill of the dead”.


I wonder if perhaps it was a blessing in disguise that Ennis only had daughters and no son. I’m not alt all sure that he’d have managed raising a son with the affection and sensitivity and open love he showed towards his daughters – his inherited ideas of what a boy should be and how a boy should be raised might have made for a difficult relationship for both father and son.


Ennis has something in common with his father in relation to all this: They both go to great lengths to ensure that some specific event doesn’t happen – only to have it happen anyway, and with a cruel vengeance. Ennis’s father possibly goes as far as killing a person to ensure that his sons grow up "right" and straight and with the proper opinion of queers – but his younger son turns out to be queer nevertheless, and with a terrible crushing load of mental baggage to go with it. And Ennis in his turn tries to avoid the fate of gay bashing for himself and for Jack through keeping the two of them apart all those years, but the gay bashing (in Ennis’s mind) happens anyway, the only difference being all the happiness he denied them in the period inbetween.

Fathers and sons, “dysfunctional” families, meeting a prophesied fate through trying to avoid that very fate, psychological themes related to sexuality; – I bet Oedipus and any number of other Greek tragedy characters would have welcomed Ennis with open arms.

Ennis even manages to add a further layer to the tragic dimension with the ambiguity in the story – what if Jack *wasn’t* the victim of a gay bashing, what if his death was only a freak accident? Ennis kept them apart for all those years ostensibly to keep them alive….. and then death strikes blindly anyway, unrelated to anything else in the story. If that isn’t the greatest irony, and tragedy, of all…… I’m sure Ennis’s dad would have thought it absolutely hilarious.

-------

(I’m really sorry this turned out so long. I was thinking of perhaps creating a separate thread on this, but I suppose the topic of parents and children, esp. fathers and sons in BBM must have been debated to exhaustion and beyond a long time ago, before I ever came to this board.)
« Last Edit: June 06, 2006, 08:04:26 am by Mikaela »

Offline Mikaela

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Re: Double meanings: Lines that can be taken more than one way
« Reply #124 on: June 06, 2006, 07:49:56 am »
I think she had an insight based on the subtitles on the version of the movie that played in her country. We had a conversation like this before, but, ummmm, I can't remember what she said.

The subtitles said "What happened was a one-time event" - with the unambiguous implication that Ennis did not intend continuing the relationship beyond the one night. But in this, the translator had no more and no less knowledge than any of us, I suppose. The line is open to interpretation whether there's a script available or not. And the way the same line's placed in the short story, and in the corresponding published translation, gives no lead, as Jack doesn't say it there until they've been having sex for some time.

I must admit that having gone back and forth on it, I finally arrived at Latjoreme's view as mine some while back:
Quote
He does intend to continue the thing for now, though. He knows how he feels about Jack and realizes that this is a big chance for him (Ennis) to be 19 and do what he wants. But he's also cognizant of his upcoming marriage, and believes that once they descend back into society that's all over, "this thing" can't work.

That seems to go with the time Ennis gives himself all that day thinking through what has happened and what it means, the gravity of his portrayal in those scenes before and as he sits down next to Jack, and the fact that he speaks in present tense. I would have expected some sort of violent outburst and physical expression of frustration directed at Jack if Ennis had meant for it to be over there.

Still doesn't mean it's easy for him to actually go through with, though. His handwringing at the fire - the very picture of conflicting emotions. Everything he desires and craves only a few steps away, but still at war with everything he knows "to be right".   
« Last Edit: June 06, 2006, 01:37:00 pm by Mikaela »

Offline Mikaela

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Re: Double meanings: Lines that can be taken more than one way
« Reply #125 on: June 06, 2006, 08:13:09 am »
Ennis nearly follows in his father’s footsteps by threatening to “do the job” to Jack: During the final lake scene, “What I don’t know...”

Yes.  And his "boys like you" line very well might have made his father proud, too.  :'(

Arguably, Ennis may even have beeninstrumental in bringing about Jack's death through trying to avoid that very fate. Ennis keeping the two of them so firmly apart made Jack seek out other men, - and if Jack did die in a gay-bashing then it was him being with other men that made the bashers target him, - with no Ennis there to help fight them back.

Offline serious crayons

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Re: Double meanings: Lines that can be taken more than one way
« Reply #126 on: June 06, 2006, 09:19:55 am »
(I’m really sorry this turned out so long. I was thinking of perhaps creating a separate thread on this, but I suppose the topic of parents and children, esp. fathers and sons in BBM must have been debated to exhaustion and beyond a long time ago, before I ever came to this board.)

Ha, when I first saw your post I thought, Wow! Now I don't feel so bad about my own long posts!   ;)

But Mikaela, this is worth every word! What a thoughtful, sensitive and well-written analysis (and no, personally I have never seen this subject analyzed in this kind of detail -- if you have still more to say on the topic of parents and children, by all means do start a new thread!).

I don't think there's anything you say that I disagree with, and a lot of your observations really deepened my understanding of the issue. Some wonderful points: The idea that we're set up to think well of Ennis' dad, sharpening the contrast and shock when he finally tells the story. The idea that, once his dad was dead, it becomes even harder for Ennis to rebel against his prejudices. The way the flashback is filmed to suggest that its message is conveyed by all of the society to its boys in general, rather just from a lesson from one father to his son(s). The faceless dad, the heavy hand on the neck (and that boy's neck is so thin and fragile looking -- whenever I see that scene it makes my own neck hurt!). The many Greek tragedy-like layers of irony that ripple out as consequences of this murder. All really, really awesome insights. Thanks for writing this!

So here's a question, especially for you story fans (Mel?). How much of this emotional/psychological stuff is there in the story, and how much is fully developed only in the film? Of course, the basic plot is certainly all there in the story. But I'll have to say that when I read it, I do not get as vivid a sense of how much Ennis' father's actions and attitudes emotionally damaged his son. I read it more simply: having witnessed Earl's awful fate, Ennis quite understandably considered it too dangerous to live with Jack. But I admit I don't fully appreciate the story as much as I should or could, so maybe I just didn't grasp this aspect in enough depth.

« Last Edit: June 06, 2006, 11:44:04 am by latjoreme »

Offline Sheriff Roland

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Re: Double meanings: Lines that can be taken more than one way
« Reply #127 on: June 06, 2006, 11:16:18 am »
Catherine brought me here to read your post Mikaela, and I'm Sooo glad she did. Thanks Catherine,  And thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, Mikaela for that wonderfully insightful interpretation of that relationship and it's consequences. It should go straight to the archives. In the very least, you should start a new thread with that post, before it gets buried by well deserved accolades.
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Offline Penthesilea

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Re: Double meanings: Lines that can be taken more than one way
« Reply #128 on: June 06, 2006, 01:11:20 pm »
Roland is right: more accolades from my side. Your long post is very worth reading and you should make another topic on this.
But kudos to the others who have contributed on this thread for the last days, too. So many interesting thoughts in elaborated posts.  :-* to all of you.


Nakymaton asked a specific question:
Quote
Personally, I don't think that Ennis intended to have sex with Jack again after the first time, and that Jack is trying to give a reason why they can continue. I don't think Ennis intended for the second tent scene to happen... he seems to be fighting with himself until he finally heads for the tent. And he doesn't seem sure that's what he wants until he finally begins to respond to Jack's kiss.

(I wish Mikaela were here for this conversation... I think she had an insight based on the subtitles on the version of the movie that played in her country.

I'm not Mikaela, but I saw the movie dubbed in another language. In my language the sentence in question was: "This was a one-shot-thing."
Nothing with "going on here" and clearly in past tense. This backs up your interpretation, that Ennis didn't intend for a second tent scene. But it has only a limited weight, because there are many clear mistakes in the dubbed version. For example, they mix up "elk" with "moose". And, at their last evening together, they let Jack say "Everytime I go to see the ranchneighbour's wife, somebody shoots at me."

My thought on this is that Ennis meant "only this summer", and therefore the present tense. The scene with Ennis at the campfire, fighting with his emotions, still makes sense with this interpreation.

Offline cricket99999

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Re: Double meanings: Lines that can be taken more than one way
« Reply #129 on: June 06, 2006, 02:27:13 pm »
And, at their last evening together, they let Jack say "Everytime I go to see the ranchneighbour's wife, somebody shoots at me."
No way!  :D

« Last Edit: June 06, 2006, 02:29:53 pm by cricket99999 »