getting hit hard by offhand revelations (story discussion)

[nakymaton]

Let me try out an interpretation of the toilet scene. I'm not certain of this interpretation, not by a long shot, and I'm curious if this makes sense to anyone.

I wonder if the key isn't in the last few sentences:

I seen they'd cut me different like you'd crop a ear or scorch a brand. No way to get it right with him after that.

I know Jack's talking about being circumsized. But, well, is there more to it than that? I mean, here's a gay man saying that, somewhere far back in his childhood, he recognized that he was different from his father, in some way related to their sex organs. And then he says that there's "no way to get it right with him after that."

So... my take is that Jack knew he was attracted to men, sometime far back in his childhood. And although he probably never came out to his parents, he felt at some gut level that his sexual orientation, this fundamental difference between him and his father, was the root of their conflicts.

And what's odd, and incredibly sad to me, is that Jack seems to regret not being able to "get it right with him." As if Jack thinks it's his fault.

And there seems to be some self-loathing in the imagery ("scorch a brand"? "crop an ear"?), too, which also strikes me as incredibly sad, especially in the character who seems more comfortable with himself.

(I've also wondered if Jack's restlessness and desire to leave home was the result of knowing that he was attracted to men, and feeling like he couldn't fit in at home because of it.)

(I still don't think that scene is the best way to convey that information, though. The implied child abuse just overwhelms everything else for me. Maybe it's particularly bad for me, though; I've got a three-year-old son who has recently been potty trained.)

[nakymaton]

And I should add that I think that the Twists in the story may know very different things about Jack than the Twists in the movie do. Jack's mother, at a minimum, seems to be a very warm, caring person in the movie, and in the story she didn't leave much of an impression on me.

(The relevations in the Twist household are in a different order in the story, too -- Jack's mother tells Ennis he can go up to Jack's room before Jack's father talks about Jack's plans to bring first Ennis, then the ranch neighbor to Lightning Flat. So in the story it isn't clear whether Jack's parents know the shirts are hidden in Jack's room, or that Ennis takes them with him.)

Which means that Katherine could be right that, in the movie, Old Man Twist isn't obviously homophobic, but that Jeff's reading of the story could also be right.

[serious crayons]

That interpretation makes perfect sense to me, Mel. It's the only explanation I can think of for introducing such an obtrusively ugly anecdote into an otherwise almost ethereally beautiful scene. The "I seen they cut me different" is so metaphorically appropriate. Like he was cut from a different cloth. Throw in the maleness and the genitalia and the hostility, and everything fits.

And even if Jack never came out to his parents, somehow they knew. So I guess in the story OMT was homophobic -- or at least Jack thought he was, and felt uncomfortable with him because of his own sexuality. I find the peeing anecdote more convincing than the fact that he was angry, which can be interpreted any number of ways.

(And not to sound stubborn, but I still don't see OMT as being openly homophobic in the movie, and I still think that's deliberate. The movie omitted the peeing scene, probably for other obvious reasons. But other things are also different in the movie: Mrs. Twist is far more compassionate, for example. The distinction between the two Twists is sharper, just as the distinction, IMO, between Movie Jack and Movie Ennis is sharper. I think the movie emphasized different characteristics in the characters for its own reasons.)

Anyway, Mel, way to go!

UPDATE: Mel, your last post appeared as I was writing this! Great minds, hunh? Anyway, it's a peacemaking conclusion that I happen to agree with.

[serious crayons]

the distinction, IMO, between Movie Jack and Movie Ennis is sharper.

(Quoting myself again!) Though I didn't mean to imply, Mel, that you would agree with this part of my post. Maybe you don't.

In fact, while we're at it, and because your reading of the story is so sensitive and astute, let me ask you: How do you feel about Story Jack and Ennis compared to their movie counterparts?

[Jeff Wrangler]

Let me try out an interpretation of the toilet scene. I'm not certain of this interpretation, not by a long shot, and I'm curious if this makes sense to anyone.

I wonder if the key isn't in the last few sentences:

I seen they'd cut me different like you'd crop a ear or scorch a brand. No way to get it right with him after that.

I know Jack's talking about being circumsized. But, well, is there more to it than that? I mean, here's a gay man saying that, somewhere far back in his childhood, he recognized that he was different from his father, in some way related to their sex organs. And then he says that there's "no way to get it right with him after that."

So... my take is that Jack knew he was attracted to men, sometime far back in his childhood. And although he probably never came out to his parents, he felt at some gut level that his sexual orientation, this fundamental difference between him and his father, was the root of their conflicts.

Oooo, I think you might be on to something there! I've never really understood that sentence, "No way to get it right with him after that," because, obviously, parents have to give permission for a child to be circumcised. But if Jack is really talking about his sexual orientation here, it makes sense to me!

[Jeff Wrangler]

(The relevations in the Twist household are in a different order in the story, too -- Jack's mother tells Ennis he can go up to Jack's room before Jack's father talks about Jack's plans to bring first Ennis, then the ranch neighbor to Lightning Flat. So in the story it isn't clear whether Jack's parents know the shirts are hidden in Jack's room, or that Ennis takes them with him.)

I think the film script is a real improvement here. I can't resist repeating myself, but I've written elsewhere that if you watch really close, you can see that Ennis's lower lip is quivvering after that revelation about the ranch neighbor from Texas. Whatever else is going on, in the film Jack's mother, intervening just at this moment, is telling/giving permission to Ennis to go up to Jack's room to cry in peace and privacy, so he can keep his dignity and self-respect by not breaking down in front of Jack's father. (And when we see him enter Jack's room, Ennis's left cheek is wet). I think this is brilliant and very touching. Jack's mother is really being a mother to Ennis here, too. Frankly, this was one of my inspirations when I wrote my fanfic, "The Grieving Plain."

[dly64]

I found an interview with Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana regarding the "peeing" scene in the story:

MW: There were some moments from the short story that didn’t make it into the screenplay or film, in particular Jack’s (Jake Gyllenhaal) recollection of a painful childhood experience with his father. Was there any particular reason for the omissions?

DO: Any omissions from the short story to the screenplay were dramatic choices. Most of what is in the short story is contained within the finished screenplay, although when we actually scripted the short story, it only amounted to about a third of the final script. We had to imagine and create the scenes that we added or fleshed out, meaning, essentially, that we had to create two-thirds of

Doesn't help a lot ... but gives a little insight.

[mvansand76]

But it isn't Jack's death that's the surprise, or at least, it isn't the biggest surprise. It's the discovery of the love we had missed noticing all along.

And those shirts were there, all along, in the second sentence of the story.

Oh, God, that is why I love the short story so much! I noticed this too, the second time I read the story, Annie is such a genius, because she doesn't mention the word love once and yet, every page holds a hidden secret treasure that tells us so much about Jack and Ennis and their love for eachother. Thanks so much for this!

[serious crayons]

DO: Any omissions from the short story to the screenplay were dramatic choices. Most of what is in the short story is contained within the finished screenplay, although when we actually scripted the short story, it only amounted to about a third of the final script. We had to imagine and create the scenes that we added or fleshed out, meaning, essentially, that we had to create two-thirds of

Doesn't help a lot ... but gives a little insight.

She kind of dodges the question about the peeing, don't you think? She talks about fleshing out the story, which obviously they did a lot of (brilliantly, I might add). But Diana never explicitly refers to leaving out the peeing scene, maybe because she didn't want to sound critical of Annie.

Frankly, I think the main reason the peeing part is left out is that it would be so gross and horrifying, for the reasons Mel mentioned, that it would ruin the whole scene. Not to mention that it would require full frontal nudity, or something close to it, of a guy who looks like John Twist (shudder) and a four-year-old kid. Pretty unfilmable, I would imagine.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I expect you're right about the unfilmable, Katherine. Pretty difficult to fit into the film's narrative flow, too. It's Ennis's reminiscence of Jack's reminiscence, making it, what, two removes from "present action"? It might have been confusing to the audience, too. Remember how some people were confused by the dozy embrace flashback?