what possessed Jack to take that shirt in the first place?

[Brown Eyes]

I think after the punch, Jack's hopes of keeping in touch with Ennis after the summer were considerably dimmed.  When he had the chance, he took the shirt, knowing he could at least have a little bit of Ennis left to comfort him.  Just seeing those shirts in his closet over the years (and being unable to throw them out) might have been the reason Jack finally got up the nerve to contact Ennis again.

When my dad died, I took one of his shirts and hung it inside my closet door, just like Ennis does in his trailer.  Now that my mom is gone, a few of her clothes hang next to it in my closet to this day.  There's something comforting about having the clothes they wore when you were with them, when you could still hug them.

Meryl, I just wanted to say I think this is a really touching post. 

I think Jack was a very sentimental guy.  He seems to really cherish the sweet aspects of their relationship like the flashback hug and kisses and cuddling.  I'm not at all surprised that he would want something tangible to remind him of Ennis.  I like the idea that he wanted Ennis's shirt not just for the shirt itself but also for the blood.  The idea of "blood brothers" makes good sense here too (even though it's only Ennis's blood).  This seems to be the really important shirt too.  Am I correct in remembering that this is the shirt from the first tent scene?  it's definitely the shirt for the second tent scene.  So, when it's linked up with Jack's own blue shirt it becomes a reminder of their first few encounters as lovers.

[Brown Eyes]

I'm posting again to correct one of my observations in the previous post.  It turns out that Ennis is wearing his shirt with the broad blue and brown intersecting stripes in the first tent scene and not the shirt that Jack hides in his closet.  But, he is definitely wearing the shirt in the second tent scene... and this seems to be the shirt that Jack is washing whilst naked.  So, this must mean that Ennis came down from the day with the sheep, after his hillside chat with Jack and changed his shirt before the second tent scene.
 

[richardg49]

Just to add to what you said, atz. In the scene immediately after the second tent scene, there's a brief shot of the two guys horseplaying outside the tent the next morning (This scene is the one which is observed by Aguirre with his binoculars). Both are shirtless, but their playfighting has its focus on a shirt which one of them (Ennis?) grabs from the other, and then runs away with it, ie he is playfully 'stealing' it.  Isn't this the same shirt that ends up in Jack's and then Ennis's closet? It seems to be the first 'prefiguring' of the motif of stealing shirts in the film. Could someone who has a dvd or video have a look at this to confirm the details, please?

[nakymaton]

Just to add to what you said, atz. In the scene immediately after the second tent scene, there's a brief shot of the two guys horseplaying outside the tent the next morning (This scene is the one which is observed by Aguirre with his binoculars). Both are shirtless, but their playfighting has its focus on a shirt which one of them (Ennis?) grabs from the other, and then runs away with it, ie he is playfully 'stealing' it.  Isn't this the same shirt that ends up in Jack's and then Ennis's closet? It seems to be the first 'prefiguring' of the motif of stealing shirts in the film. Could someone who has a dvd or video have a look at this to confirm the details, please?

 

I think you're right -- it is Ennis's paler shirt, the one that Jack ends up taking. At least, I think it is -- it's too blurry to make the pattern out for sure. (Why didn't Aguirre focus those binoculars better, huh? )

(Click on the attachment to make it bigger. Not much bigger, alas... I'm not good enough with zooming to make a perfect screencap. Of course, the biggest challenge to capping anything from that scene is my imperfect rewind... somehow it kept going back to the 2nd tent scene. )

[serious crayons]

I am jumping into this thread way late  . There are so many interesting observations here! I'll add a couple I don't remember seeing already:

Sometimes I start to think (*putting on hardhat*) that Jack wasn't really all that committed to Ennis after that first summer. I have said, in debates about Jack's behavior in the last scene on the mountain, that I don't think he seems as upset as Ennis about the summer ending. And when Jack drives off watching Ennis in his rearview mirror he looks merely wistful, whereas Ennis in the alley is heartbroken and torn apart. After they part, Jack goes on to consider other men (well, one man anyway: Jimbo), seemingly open to the idea of a future with someone else, whereas Ennis goes haplessly along with the plans to which he's already committed, but for four years misses Jack constantly.

So, as I said, sometimes I start to think this way. Then I remember the shirts. And they change everything. They're undeniable evidence that Jack knew, even as they were leaving the mountain, how much Ennis would always mean to him, no matter what the future held.

Also, from a storytelling perspective, those shirts are just about the most powerful metaphor I've ever seen in fiction or film: the one enclosing the other, their location in a closet, the shared blood, the 20-year existence, the belated discovery .... 

 

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.

Here's another odd thing someone somewhere mentioned recently: the gray overshirt that Ennis wears in all of the last few scenes is very similar to the jacket his dad wears in the Earl flashback. Might be a coincidence. I certainly don't think it's an attempt to associate Ennis' viewpoint with his dad's. But maybe the jacket just sort of generally signals death and tragedy.

[belbbmfan]

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.

this is from a post by Casey Cornelius over on imdb:'Diane Ossana has stated that she, Ang Lee and the designers consulted and used images from Richard Avedon's famous volume of portraits "In the American West" for the 'look' of the film.

Here is the portrait of Montana ranch-hand, Richard Wheatcroft, astonishing evidence that he was obviously the prototype for the look of Heath Ledger's Ennis, right down to the pattern in his shirt.

http://www.temple.edu/photo/photographers/avedon/avedon6.html

two portraits on the page, scroll down to see Wheatcroft.'

And another poster (Robert Plant) pointed out that the photo of the bartender Carol Crittendon reminded him of Cassie (strapless t-shirt, necklace, hair are very similar)

http://www.temple.edu/photo/photographers/avedon/avedon.html

I love that, during their time apart, the other's signature color appears is present in their life in shirts (the shirt Ennis wears writing to Jack 'You bet' is brown and blue) and cars. Such wonderful, touching symbolism.

[Shakesthecoffecan]

A relative with a lot of children told me recently when her husband dies the first thing she is going to do is change the locks. People want momentos, and in Ennis's case this would be his only chance to get something that had belonged to Jack, and since it was both their shirts, we'll of course, he was heir to that combination. It belonged to him more than it did the Twist's.

[nakymaton]

Sometimes I start to think (*putting on hardhat*) that Jack wasn't really all that committed to Ennis after that first summer. I have said, in debates about Jack's behavior in the last scene on the mountain, that I don't think he seems as upset as Ennis about the summer ending. And when Jack drives off watching Ennis in his rearview mirror he looks merely wistful, whereas Ennis in the alley is heartbroken and torn apart. After they part, Jack goes on to consider other men (well, one man anyway: Jimbo), seemingly open to the idea of a future with someone else, whereas Ennis goes haplessly along with the plans to which he's already committed, but for four years misses Jack constantly.

So, as I said, sometimes I start to think this way. Then I remember the shirts. And they change everything. They're undeniable evidence that Jack knew, even as they were leaving the mountain, how much Ennis would always mean to him, no matter what the future held.

I actually go back and forth between these two viewpoints. In thinking more about this, there are two different actions that Jack did: he took Ennis's shirt in the first place, and then he layered the two shirts together (the pair like two skins, one inside the other, two in one). And though Jack's taking the shirt in the first place is significant, it's the way they are put together and hidden there that's so devastating. So I end up going back to the question of when Jack put the shirts together.

Part of me (a big part) thinks he didn't do put the shirts together until after the reunion. During Jack's time rodeoing, he seems to be trying to get over Ennis -- going to Texas (so far away), trying to pick up Jimbo, marrying Lureen. Would Jack have waited four years to send a postcard if he already knew that he wasn't ever going to really get over Ennis?

After the reunion, Jack knows how powerful the relationship is. That kiss on the landing... but then having his suggestion of ranching together turned down... but then Ennis's comment that "there ain't no reins on this one." All those conflicts and contradictions -- there's a part of me that thinks that it's those things, and not the joyous fling on the mountain, that Jack's dealing with when he puts the shirts together.

But then again... there's Jack's memory of the dozy embrace. And there's that year (well, nine months or so) when Jack's at Lightning Flat, before he goes back to Signal and asks if Ennis has been there. I guess maybe Jack could have put the shirts together, and then gone to Signal and seen no sign of Ennis, and then gone off to Texas to try to forget about him, until the memories got to be too much, or Jack got too lonely, or Jack got tired of being rejected by rodeo clowns and his father-in-law.

**

Thanks for those links to the photos, belbbmfan. They really do look like the movie costumes.

**

Hey, shakestheground -- I think you're the 2nd person who has mentioned that it makes complete sense for Ennis to take the shirts, so he can remember Jack. And I agree completely! I was wondering more about Jack's motivation -- Jack takes the shirts at the end of that summer on the mountain, when he's got his whole life ahead of him, when Ennis is still alive, though engaged to be married. And I wondered what Jacks motivation was.

[starboardlight]

I actually go back and forth between these two viewpoints. In thinking more about this, there are two different actions that Jack did: he took Ennis's shirt in the first place, and then he layered the two shirts together (the pair like two skins, one inside the other, two in one). And though Jack's taking the shirt in the first place is significant, it's the way they are put together and hidden there that's so devastating. So I end up going back to the question of when Jack put the shirts together.

Part of me (a big part) thinks he didn't do put the shirts together until after the reunion. During Jack's time rodeoing, he seems to be trying to get over Ennis -- going to Texas (so far away), trying to pick up Jimbo, marrying Lureen. Would Jack have waited four years to send a postcard if he already knew that he wasn't ever going to really get over Ennis?

I'm not so sure about that. Jack kept his own shirt unwashed, with the blood on the sleeve. So he intended to keep his own shirt along with Ennis's. He may/may not have tucked them together at first, but the two shirts were a set in his mind, right from the moment he took them.

[welliwont]

So, this must mean that Ennis came down from the day with the sheep, after his hillside chat with Jack and changed his shirt before the second tent scene.
 

Just when you think you have absorbed every nuance of this masterpiece, voila! another detail to mull over.   

I'm not so sure about that. Jack kept his own shirt unwashed, with the blood on the sleeve. So he intended to keep his own shirt along with Ennis's. He may/may not have tucked them together at first, but the two shirts were a set in his mind, right from the moment he took them.

I always wonder what Jack told his mother about the shirts, he had to stop her from washing them somehow, and  a mother's first instinct would be to wash them and to try to get the bloodstains out.  Of course by the time she might have seen them the bloodstains could have been set already.

"Don't throw out them two dirty shirts ah'm leavin' up there in ma closet, Ma.  'N don't wash 'em neither, jus leave 'em be."

"The one's wid the blood on 'em?  Why Jackie, you know I gotta try and get that blood out quick as I can."

"Juss leave 'em be..."