Ann, before you reply (I just got home myself), I wanted to speak to this remark of yours:
And I still wasn’t sure, after the first viewing, that Ennis’s vomiting in the corner was from heartbreak or shame (or both).
The story tells that Ennis did not know for whole a year why it was that he felt like retching after Jack drove away. A year! But, in the film, I think they make a different choice about this. In the film scene, Ennis is not just suddenly retching, but crying. He upbraids the man passing by for seeing him, not retching but crying. That Ennis is crying suggests to me that he already knows that he has watched something precious to him drive away.
Watching that first goodbye scene after I had already seen the whole film made a big impact on me. Jack's tentative, wistful questions and prods, "Think you'll go back to Brokeback next year?" etc. He makes a few stabs, trying to see if Ennis is interested in getting in touch again, once they part. Ennis walks off without giving Jack a shred of encouragement or hope.
Yet, Jack already cares -- and knows he cares about Ennis deeply. We only find out at the end of the film, when we (and Ennis) see that Jack has stolen and kept Ennis's shirt, all the way back from that last day of that first summer.
When I watch that scene now, knowing how much that seemingly final, irrevocable parting means to Jack, it makes me all weepy.
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On the retching
Date: 2006-02-07 10:25 pm (UTC)And I still wasn’t sure, after the first viewing, that Ennis’s vomiting in the corner was from heartbreak or shame (or both).
The story tells that Ennis did not know for whole a year why it was that he felt like retching after Jack drove away. A year! But, in the film, I think they make a different choice about this. In the film scene, Ennis is not just suddenly retching, but crying. He upbraids the man passing by for seeing him, not retching but crying. That Ennis is crying suggests to me that he already knows that he has watched something precious to him drive away.
Watching that first goodbye scene after I had already seen the whole film made a big impact on me. Jack's tentative, wistful questions and prods, "Think you'll go back to Brokeback next year?" etc. He makes a few stabs, trying to see if Ennis is interested in getting in touch again, once they part. Ennis walks off without giving Jack a shred of encouragement or hope.
Yet, Jack already cares -- and knows he cares about Ennis deeply. We only find out at the end of the film, when we (and Ennis) see that Jack has stolen and kept Ennis's shirt, all the way back from that last day of that first summer.
When I watch that scene now, knowing how much that seemingly final, irrevocable parting means to Jack, it makes me all weepy.