Author Topic: An umpteenth viewing and... three revelations  (Read 6130 times)

Offline ednbarby

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 3,586
Re: An umpteenth viewing and... three revelations
« Reply #10 on: November 27, 2006, 08:51:18 pm »
Me, too.  Because notice (and I think it was you who first pointed this out, LJ), Jack didn't give that ranch neighbor of his a name when mentioning him to Old Man Twist.

I see Jack going up to Lightning Flat to see the folks for a few days after leaving that last campsite, and I see Old Man Twist saying something snide to him about Ennis (e.g., "Whatever happened to that Ennis Del Mar you always used to mention?  Just another one of those ideas of yours that never come to pass?") and him retorting with something like, "The hell with him.  I got another friend now - ranch neighbor of mine - gonna come up here with me."  And I can see him saying that regardless of whether he and Randall were still/ever were an item just to shut his father up.

To me, the tragedy is all the more heart-wrenching in that Ennis was starting to have a change of heart and that had Jack made him an ultimatum on that November 7 reunion that never came to pass, he might not have let him go.  But maybe I'm just thinkin' out loud.
No more beans!

Offline RouxB

  • BetterMost Welcome Wagon & Contributor
  • BetterMost Moderator
  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 2,471
  • ...a love that will never grow old
Re: An umpteenth viewing and... three revelations
« Reply #11 on: November 27, 2006, 09:28:50 pm »
Barb-

I like where you are goin with that thought. I, too, think Ennis was at his breaking point. Given the choice of Jack's way of the highway, I believe he would have taken Jack's way.

For some reason the viewing last night broke my sadness. I cried for hours after watching it (had to have an Elle intervention) but I came away for the first time not sad for Ennis and Jack. I didn't dream about it, didn't wake up with their heartache as my own. I feel no need for fan fiction anymore to make it all better. What a profound shift for me. When all the weeping was over, I just had a deep deep appreciation for the beauty and wonder and power of this story. I had no need to alter or question it-I only had to love it. 

 O0


Heathen

Offline ednbarby

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 3,586
Re: An umpteenth viewing and... three revelations
« Reply #12 on: November 27, 2006, 09:35:54 pm »
That's wonderful news, Rouxb.  You know when I had my moment of Zen where that's concerned?  After my first viewing of it in SF in June.  As you recall, "The Maker Makes" drove me out of the theater in a puddle of tears.  I had to splash my face with cold(ish) water from the restroom sink afterwards repeatedly for several minutes to make my own waterworks stop long enough to intelligibly meet Nick in the lobby (who I still think must have thought I was a total weirdo for being so discombobulated when we met).

What I've not said is that after Little Orphan Andy's, I went back to my hotel room and sobbed myself to sleep.  Musta been at least an hour's worth - something I've never done in my life.  Sad, but true.  And I woke up dry.  And at peace with the plight of our boys.  That next night, I wept a little, but I could have easily sat through "The Maker Makes" just enjoying the beauty of the song and the art of which it spoke - I just excused myself as a preventive measure.  :)


No more beans!

Offline RouxB

  • BetterMost Welcome Wagon & Contributor
  • BetterMost Moderator
  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 2,471
  • ...a love that will never grow old
Re: An umpteenth viewing and... three revelations
« Reply #13 on: November 28, 2006, 12:49:50 am »
I have joy that I was able to share that time with you  :-*

I can't guarantee that this morning's clarity will stay with me  ::), I fall back into E/J dispair for odd and unknown reasons but at least I know it can be had. I am re-energized for the story but in a far less dependent way than I have in the past-finally really letting myself feel and acknowledge where my sadness and attachment come from so I can let it go.

I feel like I have come full circle and am back to the beginning-back to where I was last December when I first saw the movie. I am re-discovering the impact it originally had on me and am recommitting to the changes that needed to start a year ago but went by the wayside.

I am back on the path

 O0

« Last Edit: November 28, 2006, 01:35:48 am by RouxB »

Heathen

Offline Momof2

  • Sr. Ranch Hand
  • ***
  • Posts: 117
  • BLISS
Re: An umpteenth viewing and... three revelations
« Reply #14 on: November 28, 2006, 02:48:00 pm »
Barb-

I like where you are goin with that thought. I, too, think Ennis was at his breaking point. Given the choice of Jack's way of the highway, I believe he would have taken Jack's way.

For some reason the viewing last night broke my sadness. I cried for hours after watching it (had to have an Elle intervention) but I came away for the first time not sad for Ennis and Jack. I didn't dream about it, didn't wake up with their heartache as my own. I feel no need for fan fiction anymore to make it all better. What a profound shift for me. When all the weeping was over, I just had a deep deep appreciation for the beauty and wonder and power of this story. I had no need to alter or question it-I only had to love it. 

 O0




I agree.   I think the lake scene was Ennis' breaking point.  When he said, Jack I just cant stand this no more.  I think he meant that he could not stand the being apart and having to fight to get time together.  I think he had come to the terms with the fact that he was in love with Jack and wanted to be together.  Then the postcard.  I guess that is why life is so unfair.  I am happy that they had the 20 years together.  That is a long time to be deeply in love with someone.  To be so in love that you are one. 
I wish I knew how to quit you.

Offline Momof2

  • Sr. Ranch Hand
  • ***
  • Posts: 117
  • BLISS
Re: An umpteenth viewing and... three revelations
« Reply #15 on: November 28, 2006, 02:56:54 pm »
The Shirts.  OK.  How THE HELL can anyone not be moved by the friggin' shirts???  It must be homophobia and nothing else.  Otherwise, I don't get how you can come to a point in a movie where you see that someone has carried a torch FOR TWENTY FUCKING YEARS to the extent that they have spirited away their love's shirt and kept it hidden in a childhood closet, covered over with their own shirt from that same period, and not be reduced to a PUDDLE OF FUCKING TEARS.  What is FUCKING WRONG with you?  I'm sorry, but again, I have the diagnosis:  Homophobia.  You CANNOT get past the fact that these are two men instead of a man and a woman, can you?  Allow me to turn all those hackneyed premises on their ears for a moment and ask you this:  If this were a story about a man and a woman and say... a notebook... would you not be equally as moved?  Morons.
Amen.  I have mentioned before that the 1st love of my life died while we were Freshman in college.  Total devestation and to this day the 2nd greatest love of my life.  We started dating in 9th grade.  I saved everything he ever gave me.  I had a note he wrote me while at church one night and slipped it to me.  Just one of those silly little notes.  I was with my sister the other day and we were going through some old things and I found the little bag I kept all of his stuff in.  I know it is stupid.  I opened it up and the first thing that fell out was that little note.  I read it and started crying.  My sister was looking at me and then my husband came in there.  He asked me what was wrong.  My sister said she had no idea.  I showed him the note and he smiled.  He knew my 1st love.  He just looked so mellow.  He said, Isnt it amazing how something that old can bring back such strong memories of love.  My sister with mouth hanging open just sat there.  It was just a stupid little note, but the love of my life knew how something that was 21 years old still meant so much to me.  He has a letter from his girlfriend that committed suicide.  Does not bother me in the least.  He loved her and it is special to him.  It reminds him as does my note that life is not fair and that even though we both lost the 1st love of our lives that we now have each other.

Homophobes will never accept or understand what the movie or the shirts mean.  That is entirely their lost and I feel sad for them.




[/quote]
I wish I knew how to quit you.

Offline ednbarby

  • BetterMost Supporter!
  • BetterMost 1000+ Posts Club
  • *****
  • Posts: 3,586
Re: An umpteenth viewing and... three revelations
« Reply #16 on: November 28, 2006, 03:49:48 pm »
So true, Momof2.

My husband wept the first and only time he saw the movie, and at that point when Ennis finds the shirts and realizes what they are/meant to Jack.  He understands what loving someone that much is, and the fact that he's straight doesn't make the impact of that scene less deep at all.  When I saw that he *got* that, I felt like Nicolas Cage's character in Moonstruck when he looks over to see tears streaming down Cher's character's face during his favorite opera.  I honestly don't know what I would have done had he just not gotten it at all.  Being the all or nothing person as I am, it definitely would have put a serious damper on our relationship at the very least.
No more beans!