Author Topic: what possessed Jack to take that shirt in the first place?  (Read 37165 times)

Offline silkncense

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Re: what possessed Jack to take that shirt in the first place?
« Reply #30 on: May 29, 2006, 09:55:34 am »
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In my life, I have known men named, Sharon, Shirley, and Sherrill.  Sharon Parks was a great big country boy and nobody fun of his name. Shirley Rogers McKenzie preferred to be called "Roger;" his mother name him after a male Cherokee relative whose full name was "Shirley Rogers." Sherrill Booker told people to just call him "Booker."

Tiawahcowboy (TJ, Joe Allen Doty) -

This was also posted under either TJ or Joe Allen Doty - just for curiosity, why do you keep changing your board name???  What's the point?  Did you already answer this elsewhere? 
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Re: what possessed Jack to take that shirt in the first place?
« Reply #31 on: May 29, 2006, 11:36:05 am »
Tiawahcowboy (TJ, Joe Allen Doty) -

This was also posted under either TJ or Joe Allen Doty - just for curiosity, why do you keep changing your board name???  What's the point?  Did you already answer this elsewhere? 

Answer what elswhere?

Whom are you talking about?  Who is "TJ? "Joe Allen Doty?" In regard to the latter, I heard that he has relatives in Tiawah. I do have a membership in one of his Yahoo Groups about cowboys.

Look at my signature line and see whose name is in it.

Offline silkncense

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Re: what possessed Jack to take that shirt in the first place?
« Reply #32 on: May 29, 2006, 11:46:19 am »
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tiawahcowboy
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      Re: what possessed Jack to take that shirt in the first place?
« Reply #26 on: May 28, 2006, 06:21:29 pm »   

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Quote from: opinionista on May 28, 2006, 06:08:13 pm
It's funny because in Spanish Del Mar is a girl's name. It's usually a middle name, as in Maria del Mar.


Yep, an' thar's a whole passel of Hispanic men who have "Maria" as first name. John Wayne's and Pat Robertson's legal first names? Marion. I used to know a woman whose first name was spelled "Marion."

In my life, I have known men named, Sharon, Shirley, and Sherrill.  Sharon Parks was a great big country boy and nobody fun of his name. Shirley Rogers McKenzie preferred to be called "Roger;" his mother name him after a male Cherokee relative whose full name was "Shirley Rogers." Sherrill Booker told people to just call him "Booker


OK - I'll play along.  I know that there are many of you with better memories than mine.  Anyone else recall the EXACT same last paragraph being posted by "TJ" or :Joe Allen Doty?"

Either that, or I am hallucinating (again).
"……when I think of him, I just can't keep from crying…because he was a friend of mine…"

Offline starboardlight

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Re: what possessed Jack to take that shirt in the first place?
« Reply #33 on: May 29, 2006, 12:51:13 pm »
to me, I don't think it was so much the shirt, but rather it was the blood that Jack took with him. This is all from the movie, so the interpretation for those who prefer the prose would be different. I can't help placing great emphasis on Movie Jack's colors. After coming down the mountain, Jack wear various blood colors, burgandy, crimson, purple, even black. It's a significant color shift from his usual blue. Just as Movie Ennis don blues on his clothes to remind himself of Jack, Jack incorporate blood colors into his clothing indicates that he's always thinking of Ennis.
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Offline Meryl

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Re: what possessed Jack to take that shirt in the first place?
« Reply #34 on: May 29, 2006, 02:32:14 pm »
Starboard, I like the direction you're going.  ;)

I saw a similar observation on one of Casey's threads a while back, and I really like the idea that Jack's wearing red is his way of recalling his love for Ennis.   I've begun to think that the use of red throughout the film is always well thought out by the designers and Ang Lee.  It's a bit off topic for this thread, but I'll share a post with you that I just made the other day on TOB in response to Casey's observing that all the scenes following the flashback to the dozy embrace have a heightened, hallucinatory feeling:

I'm sure others have pointed out that Ennis wears the same grey overshirt in all these scenes, grey being the muted form of Jack's signature blue and also suggestive of Ennis's depressed frame of mind. The shirt has an interesting red detail right over the heart like a symbolic wound. In the same way, each of the four last scenes has a neutral blue-grey palette punctuated by bits of red.

At the bus station red is seen on a truck parked outside, on the Coke machine, the Greyhound logo and around the rim of Ennis's plate and cup. When Ennis gets the postcard, there is red on the post office itself, the flag, the "Deceased" stamp, Ennis's shirt collar and Lureen's nails and lips, and in the vision of the murder there is red on one of the thugs' jackets and red blood on Jack's face. At the ranch, Jack's father has a red belt, Jack's mother's dress has a small red detail in its print and her hair has a reddish tint; then there is the cherry cake, patches of red on Jack's bedspread and clothing and the dark red of the bloodstained shirts. In the final scene red appears on the mailbox flag, a parked truck, Junior's car, her belt, Ennis's bedspread and the cup he gives her.

Although red symbolizes blood, it also recalls passion, and it brightens up the dull colors of each scene like Ennis and Jack's love brightened up their otherwise colorless lives. It's interesting that the only character in those four scenes who doesn't have a red detail is Cassie. Ennis had a strong emotional feeling for all the others, but poor Cassie had to remain neutral.

The dreamlike quality of these scenes is heightened subtly, I think, by the red dropped onto the otherwise neutral grey palette. It does remind me of how we recall incidents in our lives--a kind of general impression punctuated by more vivid moments. If, as you said, Ang Lee was trying to give us the feeling of being inside Ennis's memory, this may have been one of the ways he chose to do it.


The rest of the discussion can be found here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388795/board/flat/41997532?d=44380715#44380715
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Offline nakymaton

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Re: what possessed Jack to take that shirt in the first place?
« Reply #35 on: May 29, 2006, 03:51:31 pm »
Meryl, you have such an amazing visual memory and ability to notice details.  8) I keep trying to see things like the yin/yang in the barn door outside Jack's room, but every time I watch that part of the movie I find that I can't look at anything but Ennis's face. (I mean, I've never even seen Jack's rock collection. And you know how much that means! ;D )

starboardlight -- yeah, the blood is really important, isn't it? (I did read one of Casey Cornelius's threads on TOB after Meryl pointed me to it, and I think I remember a bunch of people going into really impressive detail about the symbolism of the blood.) The blood reminds me of the entire scene, of how the blood got on both shirts. Of flirting gone sour. Of Jack trying to take care of Ennis, and Ennis lashing out, pushing Jack away.  :'( There's just so much love and pain and regret wrapped up in the shirts.

There's an odd detail in the published screenplay... Ennis's shirt, the one with the blood on it, is described as being denim. So it wasn't the screenwriters who envisioned the color scheme. It's interesting... I don't know when the published screenplay was locked in, and I know there are a lot of details that are different. But the colors associated with the two characters seem so symbolic -- I can't imagine Ennis wearing a denim shirt, unless he wanted specifically to be reminded of Jack on the mountain.

There's a little cranky corner of me that says, "yeah, the colors are really symbolic, but you know, Jake looks really really good in dark blue/red/purple/black, and Heath looks really really good in muted colors." But then I listen to people who do the symbolism thing really well and I tell the cranky corner of me to shut up, because the stuff you all are saying is just so cool. ;D
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Offline silkncense

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Re: what possessed Jack to take that shirt in the first place?
« Reply #36 on: May 29, 2006, 04:49:17 pm »
I apologize in advance for the intrusion into the topic at hand.  However, I was asking a simply question of tiawahcowboy & expected just a straight forward response -

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« Reply #17 on: Today at 01:18:24 pm »   

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Quote from: TJ on May 15, 2006, 12:51:39 am
julie01, after I posted a response to your message, I looked at your BetterMost Profile.

I did not know that you were so much older than me.

The 16 year old "guy" actually has a woman's name "ednakrabapley" in his email address. I have never met a guy named "Edna" (that's my older sister's name); but, I have had friends whose first names were Sherrill, Shirley and Sharon.

Sherrill's last name was "Booker' and he prefered to be called by his last name. Shirley's Middle name was "Rogers;" he had been named after a male Cherokee relative "Shirley Rogers," he preferred to be called "Roger."

Now the Sharon guy was a big fellow and nobody made fun of his name.


Well, whadda ya know? Just did a search and saw the above.  All them there guys did live in the same county, Rogers, as I do. Ain't seen any of them in at least 40 years. Both Sharon and Roger went to the same high school up at Chelsea. Chelsea is North of Claremore, the county seat, and Tiawah is down Claremore.



As Alma said, "Don't try an fool me no more."
"……when I think of him, I just can't keep from crying…because he was a friend of mine…"

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Re: what possessed Jack to take that shirt in the first place?
« Reply #37 on: May 29, 2006, 05:01:19 pm »
I apologize in advance for the intrusion into the topic at hand.  However, I was asking a simply question of tiawahcowboy & expected just a straight forward response -


As Alma said, "Don't try an fool me no more."

Why did you have to make an issue of something so trivial and off-topic in the first place? You can delete your off-topic postings, didn't you know?

Offline starboardlight

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Re: what possessed Jack to take that shirt in the first place?
« Reply #38 on: May 29, 2006, 05:04:39 pm »
There's a little cranky corner of me that says, "yeah, the colors are really symbolic, but you know, Jake looks really really good in dark blue/red/purple/black, and Heath looks really really good in muted colors." But then I listen to people who do the symbolism thing really well and I tell the cranky corner of me to shut up, because the stuff you all are saying is just so cool. ;D

the counter argument is that Jake looks really good in anything and in nothing.  ;D
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Offline nakymaton

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Re: what possessed Jack to take that shirt in the first place?
« Reply #39 on: May 29, 2006, 05:10:25 pm »
the counter argument is that Jake looks really good in anything and in nothing.  ;D

  ;D :laugh:  ;D

Yup, that argument will win every time. :D
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