The overriding question is: Did the edits change the meaning of the story?
Milo
YES AND YES AND YES !!!!!
I am still mad about it and I am a straight married woman.TS1 was completely cut except you heard noises while having an outside shot of the tent.TS2, which I think is pivotal, ( is almost all cut out, !!!!!) as it shows the love and affection starting to develop between Jack and Ennis,plus the I'M sorry and it's alright, indicate Ennis has tried and lost in his fight to go to Jack,but still gets a comforting,s'alright from him.So when te 2 leave the mountain and Ennis so grief stricken he retches, a first time viewermust think WTF they've had one quick F--k and then he goes to his tent again,why so upset.
I am so mad I can hardly write and this is the next day!!!!!
What I HATE and is twisted and sick and oh I am boiling mad, is that it makes it look like gay men at that point in the film are just defined by sex not love,
This makes the reunion scene take on a whole new meaning, yes they do show the kiss and motel scene, but it after TS1 and 2 it just looks like more sex. It seems like they can't keep their hands off each other, which I know they cant, but minus most of TS2 it becomes just a lust thing with no love.To give you an idea, of how it was censored my wonderful son, Matt only had to close his eyes for the car scene and Alma and Ennis in bed.
I had to fill him in on lots so that he understood it was love and that was why the end was so sad.!!!!!! He is at the gifted school so he is exceptionally intelligent, but because of the editing the whole thing was lost on him.I would suspect that would be the way most first time viewers would perceive it.I would go so far as to say it verged on anti gay. How could They show the the motel scene but not most of TS2 were they deliberately trying to make it look like just sex with no love.? In my opinion, yes,Quite deliberately, because we lose next to nothing of the man woman side of things.
The famous last meet is changed in context beyond belief.Jack says I am not like you I can't get by on a couple of HA flings a year.By not saying HAF"s it makes Jack's need for more, more commitment, more completeness more love, meaningless.He wants MORE THAN SEX !!!!
I really am blazing.We get all the man/'woman tenderness so we have even more pity for them and Jack and Ennis become much less sympathetic.
Jack in particular looks much les sympathetic as we see the Mexico trip and the Randal scene.
To answer someone else's question it was shown after 9.00 so I don't see the need for all the censorship. What makes me maddest of all is that having seen the "real" thing, it is just even worse.I was shouting at the T.V.
It also underlines how important every little millisecond and word of the film was.TS2 is pivotal, and although I may have understood the genius of every word, gesture and nuance in the film.It was not until seeing a cut version that it really struck home.
I really do think it was edited in a way to show gay relationships in the worst light possible.That is wrong, in fact it is sick. My first husband is an a loving wonderful relationship of nearly 20 years.But according to Bravo that cannot possibly be so.
In fact I am so mad I am thinking of writing to the company.They would have been better not to have shown it at all.It almost seemed to me that it was being shown as an anti gay thing.
I can understand TS1 being cut, but what the F--K was the problem of TS2 except of course it shows that what was developing was more than sex.Call me cynical, but that seems pretty anti gay to me.
As you can tell I am really mad about it all.
