Ennis and Cassie Scenes

[Ministering angel]

Nice catch, Jo! I like that one.

[CANSTANDIT]

I was just following the thought... thanks.

[en e me]

As I watched tonite Ennis's facial expression in the bus stop exchange with Cassie it seemed additionally this time as if this was a realization like a sudden puzzle piece Ennis places. Love hurts. Comparing the pain he hadn't been aware Cassie felt connects to a parallel pain Jack expressed as Ennis tries to sort out the mess from their last scene together. Love hurts. He gets...hurt could be love. Not the whole revelation he was expecting but annoyingly unavoidable this time.  Without this realization I doubt Ennis could have transitioned 'deceased' into the phone call. If he was so into his own self hurt that he didn't think he loved Jack then he'd have no reason to find out what happened to him. All the hurts in his life lined up associated with love finally make his own hurt search to see if there could be some possible connection to love. It must have been eeiry weird for Ennis to be in this feared unfamiliar territory searching for the answer to the burning question that was consumming him by then..."I know I ain't?" Why else would he summon the courage to make the phone call?

[Ministering angel]

So you're saying that he would have needed some sort of change of heart in order to be able to make the phone call?  Given that he had reached out to Jack after the divorce, I'm not sure that he would have needed much prompting. I think the sickening jolt caused by the returned postcard (and his bit of denial of the truth and his need to confirm that it was just a horrible mistake) would have been sufficient to break him out of any stasis.

We see Ennis lose out four times: when his parents die (which I always associate with the description "He felt about as bad as he ever had.."), when he leaves Jack and gets gut cramps, when he loses his marriage and second family and reaches out to Jack with his only other phone call, and finally when he gets the postcard back. His reaction to each loss seems pretty big. I can't imagine he'd get the postcard back and just never follow it up.

I'm not sure if it can be so clearly applied to the film, however, since we really don't get the childhood loss quite so strongly, and the postcard he sends after the divorce seems slightly less urgent than the story's phone call. And, of course, his alley response is clearly recognisable to him as an emotional one, I think. We never get any other explanation for it.

[CANSTANDIT]

en e me, I do like the idea that love hurts, so maybe this is love. It shows us the purpose Cassie serves in the film..a clever way to bring Ennis's mental faculties to bear on his situation. He gets to see from a safe, straight platform the impact of his neglect of Cassie.... ergo, Jack.

Marian, yes a big problem I see with the alley scene is that he is crying..he has to recognize it as an emotional loss. I think text Ennis is much deeper into denial. We get the classic macho response-"my gut hurts"-instead of  the sense of embarrasment he has over being seen by the good samaritian cowboy, while in tears....

I think he does get jolted out of stasis as you put it, I think, several times in the movie-but ironically, he is the one that really has to be hurt in the end, to hear good. So it tells us he never allowed hurt to far in his front door, until he lost Jack and saw too late, the shirts. Then he heard good-he put up the altar, and could move no further.

I think he pushes off any hurt with rage, as he does with Alma's explosion in the kitchen-she's another presumable intimate who is effectively abandoning him, by putting him in that catagory with Jack that Ennis tries to stay out of-Jack Nasty and all thought. She will no longer support his denial, as Jack does. And in the film, Cassie not only does not support it-she finds someone else, and tells him why. 'girls don't fall in love with fun.' But they will and can move forward, if the hurt is too bad. A poster who is no longer here said something that's always haunted me-David, I think was his name: He said he thought Ennis was sitting in the diner thinking Jack had quit. Cassie probably reinforced it.

[AZ.bbm]

A poster who is no longer here said something that's always haunted me...He said he thought Ennis was sitting in the diner thinking Jack had quit.  Cassie probably reinforced it.

^^^^^She would certainly have fulfilled his expectations of abandonment, if he had those, just as he believed society would, had he chosen to 'go public' with Jack.

The thought occurred me while was reading your post, Ennis seemed to rely on a number of "keys" - little aphorisms, rules of the road, which he strictly adhered to, that served to guide him throughout his life, e.g., "If you can't fix it you gotta stand it", "Them that don't have nothin dont need nuthin". These became something like little 'self-fulfilling prophecies" I think..   It seemed that he would always find himself in situations where his keys would fit ,  e.g., situations beyond his control that he would have to 'stand,' or, in some right state where he'd have nothing and ergo, wouldn't need anything, and so on..

But of all his keys, "You'll go where you're lookin," has to be (IMO) the most profound, as it suggests that poor Ennis would always be going around in circles preferring to remain in a tight loop around the coffee pot. Neither Jack or Cassie could break him out of his holding pattern.


Regards,
Az.

[Ministering angel]

Yes, I think those little aphorisms serve to reinforce Ennis's ties to his childhood. He is still following the teachings of his parents, both negative and positive. I think the love shown in the DE is a positive reflection of his mother's teaching but it's not enough to overcome the negatives which his father provided.  He trots out the aphorisms without seeming to question them, just as he never questions the treatment of Earl or the inevitability of such a fate.

[CANSTANDIT]

A poster who is no longer here said something that's always haunted me...He said he thought Ennis was sitting in the diner thinking Jack had quit.  Cassie probably reinforced it.

^^^^^She would certainly have fulfilled his expectations of abandonment, if he had those, just as he believed society would, had he chosen to 'go public' with Jack.

The thought occurred me while was reading your post, Ennis seemed to rely on a number of "keys" - little aphorisms, rules of the road, which he strictly adhered to, that served to guide him throughout his life, e.g., "If you can't fix it you gotta stand it", "Them that don't have nothin dont need nuthin". These became something like little 'self-fulfilling prophecies" I think..   It seemed that he would always find himself in situations where his keys would fit ,  e.g., situations beyond his control that he would have to 'stand,' or, in some right state where he'd have nothing and ergo, wouldn't need anything, and so on..

But of all his keys, "You'll go where you're lookin," has to be (IMO) the most profound, as it suggests that poor Ennis would always be going around in circles preferring to remain in a tight loop around the coffee pot. Neither Jack or Cassie could break him out of his holding pattern.


Regards,
Az.

Very insightful, AZ. I especailly enjoyed the idea of the tight circles, ie, he was 'caught in my own loop' as he tells Jack.

[en e me]

MiniA
I like what you said about story Ennis approaching the phone call with motivation. I was just commenting on movie Ennis reading his facial expressions. Every once in a while something will pop out of the movie which doesn't ground in the story. I think we do have those differences between story and film in emphasizing different motivational expressions in some cases. All azbbm's 'aphoisms in the story allow more clues to the motives. I guess AL went the simpler way maybe.

[newfan]

All
I agree with the statement that Ennis was sitting in the diner thinking Jack may have left him. I fully beleive that Cassie is merely woman version of Jack, which is why the movie developed her character. The parallels are so strong between them. Anyone notice that when they meet, the song in the background lyrics are "it's so easy to fall in love",true for Cassie (and Jack) but much more challenging for E. The parallel that Jack may move on with someone else is, IMO in Ennis' mind when he looks up and sees Carl. I think in hs mind, Jack/Cassie will eventually leave him because of he is an island and no one can get to him. E realizes this when he looks at Carl adn says "well I got the message anyways".

The whole time E was talking to Cassie he has a blank look on his face as if he were talking through her, because in his own mind, also talking to Jack. I don't know if Cassie really was anything more than a diversion for E until he can meet up with Jack again. I would like to think that they had a more in depth relationship, but knowing how one dimensional E is, ie. just Jack, it doesn't seem like there is any more room for anyone else in life emotionally. I mean look at Alma..she was his childhood sweetheart, mother of his children, and his only wife. Can Cassie be much more than a fun distraction/poor substitute for Jack? IMO I think that is why she is only given a few sentences in the book.

[CANSTANDIT]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Great post, Newfan....I never thought about Ennis talking to Jack in his own mind. If I take your interpretation,  when he says to Cassie, 'I'm sorry...I was never much fun anyways, was I?', uggghhh, that gives me the willies...I do wonder if he hasn't figured Jack has quit at that point. Little did he know.

[AZ.bbm]

--Creepy is right. 'Transference' (i.e., the re-direction of feeing or desires) could well have been a factor AL tried to bring through, directing HL to speak on 'through' Cassie, to Jack, while holding that traumatic shell-shocked expression on his face...  It seems plausible ... And kinda creepy, for sure!

It is my understanding that neurotics and people suffering from mild derangement (such as after the loss of a loved one) may readily succumb to transference; venting recriminations etc. that they're holding for one person or group, onto the wrong recipient or group. I imagine it's very confusing if you don't know what's happening.


Regards,
Az.

[Ministering angel]

All
I agree with the statement that Ennis was sitting in the diner thinking Jack may have left him. I fully beleive that Cassie is merely woman version of Jack, which is why the movie developed her character. The parallels are so strong between them. Anyone notice that when they meet, the song in the background lyrics are "it's so easy to fall in love",true for Cassie (and Jack) but much more challenging for E. The parallel that Jack may move on with someone else is, IMO in Ennis' mind when he looks up and sees Carl. I think in hs mind, Jack/Cassie will eventually leave him because of he is an island and no one can get to him. E realizes this when he looks at Carl adn says "well I got the message anyways".

Another musical link is that Cassie and Ennis are "dancing" to "Devil's Right Hand", and the tune playing when Jack and Randall meet is called "Angel Went Up In Flames", also a ref. to the ministering angel (a phrase we never hear in the film).

Edited to correct great big mistake!

[AZ.bbm]

...I think the love shown in the DE is a positive reflection of his mother's teaching but it's not enough to overcome the negatives which his father provided. 

--I think so, too.
It seems clear that Ennis extended his mother's tenderness to all of his loved ones, and his father's rage to those he perceived to be his enemies.



Some thoughts on the Dozy Embrace(DE)...

__As I see it, there was a lot of unfinished business (finding the acceptance and validation) between Ennis and his father, and it left him with something of a "felt shortage" i.e., a sharp emotional void, in his young life. 

Due to the passing of Del Mar pere (his old man), the work between him and his father might never have been accomplished, and it's almost certain that, without Jack Twist, the void would have remained forever unfilled.

Jack 'stepped in' and, in a few weeks, filled that void for Ennis, and vice versa, and this might have been at least partly why the two fell for one another.  In other words, their ability to simultaneously satisfy each others' 'felt shortages' is what got them good.


__One overlooked (by me) aspect of the Dozy Embrace was how wonderfully 'recursive' the DE was (-like, multiple facing mirrors, or, video cameras aimed at their monitors):

In one respect during the DE, Jack knew that he was being held by Ennis del Mar, but in another, he may have been visualizing the embrace of his own father -- harvesting those expressions of nurturing, tenderness and validation that he yearned for from OMT but possibly never received -- or perhaps both at the same time...

In regard to Ennis, we know that he could not face Jack in the embrace, the narrator gives us that -- he did not want to know or feel that it was Jack... AP wants us to infer that either Ennis is too homophobic to engage in M2M affection, or else,  he was consoling someone else,  rocking, singing to, humming to someone other than Jack in his mind, some person for whom he cared deeply enough to comfort in this manner.

Ennis was comforting Jack in a physical space, true enough, but in another reflection, his own emotional space, it may have been that he was emulating his mother as she tried to console her tortured husband, Ennis' poor, lost father.

Although Ennis (and Jack) desperately needed their fathers' validation, Ennis knew, had his father survived, that he would never have received it from him, because Ennis would hardly be able to go face to face with his dad and reveal the truth about himself for fear of reprisal.




__Ennis may have often witnessed his mother consoling her husband in such a manner, and it might have deeply imprinted him, and consequently this mode of embrace could have become the template by which Ennis nurtured others and in turn permitted himself to be nurtured.

If so, he would likely have prompted Alma, and probably Jack and Cassie, too, in turn, to embrace him in a similar fashion.

The embrace may have also served as a 'rough template' for Ennis' preferred approach to coitus -- perhaps his 'ultimate' expression of love until the discovery of The Shirts and his ensuing 'transfiguration.'


FWIW

Regards.
-Az.

[CANSTANDIT]

Ennis was comforting Jack in a physical space, true enough, but in another reflection, his own emotional space, it may have been that he was emulating his mother as she tried to console her tortured husband, Ennis' poor, lost father.

Hi, AZ, interesting post...can you elaborate on above, please?