I got a different read on those moments. I thought his fight with the bikers was a manifestation of his anger and frustrations. He clearly uses bad language in fornt of them himself.
With the custody scene, I got the impression he didn’t want to go (maybe he was trying to “quit” him). I felt the girls were just a convenient excuse.
I think it was less the bad language than the fact they were speaking crudely about women. What we would today call sexual harassment, basically.
Well, count me in the just saw it, was underwhelmed, but now a few hours later it’s hitting me camp. I still don’t think it’s quite all that, not better than Good Night and Good Luck for example, and it had serious doldrums about 2/3 of the way in as Ennis moped and then moped some more, with occasional outbursts of violence that he then moped about. My favorite scenes, actually, were the ones with Jack’s mother at the end–she somehow knew it all, and was the only one able to give Ennis what he needed, both emotionally and literally, while the father was literally fuming behind her. Oh, and the look Jack gave Ennis when they met–he was totally checking him out! (My opinion, Jack=gayer than springtime and Ennis=Jack-sexual, I guess bi if you really have to narrow it down.)
Liked the daughters, though, liked the wives, and I also fear that Jack was gay-bashed to death and the wife’s story was The One for Public Consumption. I didn’t quite understand the “Jack, I swear…” at the end, though, and I though he was going to take the shirts up the mountain and burn them together.
I just saw it a little over an hour ago. It was not brilliant. It was not sad. It was like sitting around watching The Passion of the Christ and trying to be sad, but failing.
For what it’s worth, I didn’t mourn when my grandma died, so maybe the problem lies with me.
I’m guessing you’re younger than 25, and probably younger than 20.
Yes. Is it important?
Not at all – but I think this is a movie that you wouldn’t find sad unless you’ve had your heart broken a couple of times. Watch it again in 20 years and see what you think.
Yes, because they ain’t cowboys, they’re sheepherders! :eek:
I’ve heard that many times and I’m still confused. Are shepherd (or sheepherder) and cowboy separate professions in the US? Is it really incorrect to refer to the two main characters of this movie as cowboys?
I thought his “Jack, I swear…” line was like saying “Look at the effect you have had on my life. What am I gonna do now?”
Arghh! Not this again. The characters in the film are both cowboys. They were both raised on cattle ranches. One of them (Jack) spends part of his life as a rodeo cowboy before getting married and settling down to sell tractors. The other wone (Ennis) spends his entire life working on cattle ranches and roundups. The two characters spend one summer of their lives herding sheep and the man who hires them actually makes a comment about “ranch people” not making good sheep herders.
"1. A hired man, especially in the western United States, who tends cattle and performs many of his duties on horseback. Also called cowman, cowpoke, cowpuncher; also called regionally buckaroo, vaquero, waddy2. " (italics mine.)
Those who tend sheep are called shepherds or sheepherders.
What do you call people who have done both?
Bi-sexual.
What?!
I walked right into that one.
This is exactly what the Heath Ledger character spend his entire life doing. He works with cows. He is shown working with cows. How is not a cowboy?
They DON’T tend sheep except for one summer of their lives. They are both COWBOYS who spend a single summer (out of 20 years depicted in the film) tending sheep. Are you suggesting that any lifelong cowboy who spends any period of time doing something else can no longer be called a cowboy but must forever be identified with the job he held for a few months 20 years ago?
My god man, it’s a joke: “no real cowboy would ever tend fucking sheep!” However, that wasn’t much of a joke around a hundred years ago, where indeed, if word ever got out that a cowboy had tended sheep, it’d almost be worse for his rep than messing around with another man! 
Well, consider me whooshed. :o
I thought you were serious. Never mind.
The sense conveyed in the movie is that they toop the sheep job out of desperation for work. Would it be less embarrassing in those kind of circumstances?
This was… a great, great, great, great movie. It was everything the execrable Rent wanted to be, it was the first movie to have openly gay leads that made you forget that you were watching a “gay” movie. And that’s why it can’t really be classified as a “gay movie” like others - the homosexuality isn’t the story, it just is.
I love tragedy - I love sad movies, movies that end on a downer, movies that end with the main character remembering better times. The English Patient… Titanic… Brokeback Mountain… at the end of these films, the main character is left with nothing but their memories of happier, less painful times.
“Jack, I swear…”
What an awesome line! What a summing up of the previous 2:14 of our time, the previous 20+ years in the characters life, in all the characters lives. The confusion, the pain, the love, all of it expressed in three words by a character incapable of finishing the thought… at least verbally.
The most tragic thing is when Ennis is visiting Jack’s parents and was told:
[spoiler]that Jack was talking about bringing back Ennis to fix up the ranch and run it. Most people fixed on the fact that the father mentioned that, near the end, Jack named another man.
The true tragedy is that Jack’s idea of them owning a ranch, that Ennis dismissed as vapid dreaming, was nothing more than a sincere offer that Ennis kept refusing. Jack had a place all lined up, a place where, contrary to Ennis’ objections, they might have gotten away with it.
Jack, of course, erred in not explaining all to Ennis. He, too, was incapable of taking the final step.[/spoiler]
To be honest, I was a bit nervous going into this one - but once I saw Larry McMurtry’s name on the writing credits, I relaxed quite a bit. He’s one of the few screenwriters who can write adult dialogue and situations without making it explicit. I knew that with McMurtry co-penning the screenplay, whatever the film was going to be about it would be honest without being exploitive (exploitative? It’s late…).
There’s so many small things in this movie. When Jack and Ennis get back together - when Ennis rushed back inside to tell Alma that he was going out, the timeframe kept getting longer. “We’re going to grab a couple of beers… we’ll be out late… I won’t be at home at all tonight - when Jack gets drunk he needs help.” The same thing happened with the fishing trip the next morning - “We’re going fishing… we’ll be gone for the evening… I’ll see you in a couple of days.” Her “Have you forgotten something” and him thinking that she meant his tackle box (she did… but she might have possibly been fishing (no pun intended) for a kiss goodbye (Jack kissed his wife goodbye!)).
The scene with Jack, Randall, Lureen, and Randall’s chatty wife, LaShawn had tons of small moments, subtle actions:
“Husband’s never want to dance with their wives.” A pretty obvious line cluing us in that Lureen knew that her marriage (at least the sexual part) was shaky, but also the first clue that Randall was gay when LaShawn agreed. Randall then looked over at Jack, Jack looked over at Randall… click!
When Jack asked to dance, he didn’t name any names and, imho, a wider-angle frame would’ve made it clearer that he was, in fact, looking at Randall when he asked. LaShawn answered “yes”, Jack’s focus of attention shifts to her, and he then gets up.
He was dancing with LaShawn. He was dancing for Randall.
“Why do women powder their noses when they are leaving?” Another indication of a sexless marriage, or a complete cluelessness that shows their complete disinterest in their wives. The fact that they are powdering their noses for their husbands probably never crossed their minds.
When he was propositioning, Randall didn’t mess around - and he seemed rather practiced. There was nothing that Randall said that couldn’t be passed off as some sort of “bizarre misunderstanding” if need be. After Jack had started to assert himelf (by standing up to FIL and being more forward in his “gayness” (by the 1978 scenes he was looking… well. a little “gay”. )), he was back to being the subservient one.
One last thing:
I prefer to think that Jack died in an honest (a honest?) accident as it makes the cliche count for this film zero/zed, “0”. Yeah, I know Ang Lee said this and that, but I can bring as much as I want to any work of art and I say it works better if he just died a normal death! 
It’s a great movie. No if, ands, or buts. I’ll have to see it again to catch all the little parts that I missed.
I swear…
Lots of straight men hate to dance, with their wives or anyone else.