Well it took me a few days to reconcile what I saw in the film and what I knew from the short story. I walked out of the film feeling a whole range of emotions. No surprise there but along with all that I had this funny feeling that I didn't feel quite right about something. It took a few days for the major emotions to kind of calm down before I could start to see these smaller more elusive emotions more clearly.
One of the friends I went to see the film with and I were discussing it afterwards and we both agreed that we came away wanting more time with Ennis and Jack.... just Ennis and Jack. We both agreed that the film had spent less time showing the growth of their friendship than the short story. While we felt somewhat disappointed in this we also agreed that a more thorough look at the beginnings of their love was traded, in the interest of time, for the elaboration on their time apart which mostly had been only referentially or obliquely described in the story. I had read a review in which the reviewer had come away with the impression that Ennis and Jack had essentially fallen in love only after they had sex. It's easy to see how, without having read the story, someone could have come away with that impression. I don't like the idea that someone would have that impression about Jack and Ennis.
And there were other differences between the story and the film. The elaboration of Jack and Ennis' time apart showed us even more clearly just how unhappy they were when they were apart. Jack is frustrated and desperately lonely. His life seems a sham. He grows resentful and you can see the hope that sustains him flicker. Ennis too is desperately lonely and he withdraws even further. He never completely comes to grips with his love and the anguish this causes him is sometimes expressed in anger and violence.
I began to see that these differences between story and film could be understood when I thought more about the influence of Larry McMurtry as screenwriter. In his own stories McMurtry rarely gives his characters a break. Everything is presented in an unvarnished state. Read Streets of Laredo and you'll see what I mean. McMurtry never holds your hand. You are left to feel how you feel. You come to like or love or respect his characters because of what they do not because you are being lulled in that direction by McMurtry. I like that about his writing.
I have come to see the film as another document of Jack and Ennis' lives. It's a stunning, beautiful, eloquent document and I am so thankful for it.
As with the story, I will need to see the film again and again. What did people do when they couldn't own a film on DVD?
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