Hi,
Thank you all for answering. It is always good to have an exchange of opinions on this beautiful movie, even more when I encounter different visions from mine.
I am here responding to FlwrChild and all.
I repeat: I am sorry I am so bitter about Ennis but I can’t help it. It is probably something really deep for me. Having seen the movie many times, in different phases of my own life, I keep struggling to understand him. He reminds me of people I have never understood and left behind without looking back. He’s the type of person I would escape from without thinking twice.
My question about physical attraction may be misunderstood as I do not think Ennis should see Jack pretty (or Jack should see Ennis that way). I was not meaning physical attraction as something solely linked to looks, that’s not my vision. That’s superficial and I apologize if I gave that message.
Firstly, I think they are both extremely attracted to each other emotionally and deeply. However, sometimes I feel just so sad about the movie, and I seek traces of Ennis unexpressed love anyway/anywhere I can. So, I was wondering about the fact that, at least, he may have thought that Jack was
pretty, cute, handsome, beautiful, precious (I do not know how to express it in English).
He did not recognize other qualities of him: Jack was brave, he was full of energy, he was funny, he had pure dreams, etc. I have not seen Ennis recognizing his features. He never gave value to that qualities.
He probably thought that Jack was silly and that his dreams were incautious. So I was wondering: what did he see in him? Ok, they were free to be themselves together. But what did he truly appreciate about Jack, besides the way he made him feel? This is, I think, an important question: how did he see Jack as a human being? It means going beyond only “sensations”. Because their love dimension on BBM was so animalistic, so guts-related, so instinctive.
I am sure Jack was aware of Ennis, and he thought about him a lot when they were apart: he thought about his qualities and his flaws. He had projects for them together.
When it comes to Ennis, I remember from the SS he thought about Jack when he touched himself (correct me if I am wrong or if I read so many ffc I mistake), I cannot even suppose what he thinks. It’s…blurred. That character is a mystery to me. He fascinates me a lot. I have the impression that when he is far away from Jack, he forced himself to close him and their love in a “drawer” inside his mind/heart and he only opens it when they are on BBM to let sensations free. But I think that he should have had some help to elaborate the relationship on a higher level, dialoguing with his emotions, giving names to sensations. He never did it. He could not. However, getting back to the point, maybe thinking that somewhere far from him, Jack continued existing, having big baby blue eyes and a beautiful smile, being pretty, really pretty, may have been a signal of awareness that Jack was more than a beautiful sensation to feel time to time. Ennis lives their togetherness at BBM like some sort of sensation trip. But Jac was a person, not a sweet sensation. Too many times Ennis tends to forget this “little” aspect IMO.
However, it’s Ennis-style to be unable to really attribute to others complex emotions. Alma was another example of how rudimentary he functioned: he is not evil, he is not dumb, but he has not the sensitivity to understand how much he hurts others.
As regards FNIT, I am equally excited and deeply disturbed by that scene. It is passionate, intimate, they are sensual, their breaths make it so real, and yet that night, that moon, that tent, that place, gives a strong poetic vibe to the moment. However, if I rationalize it, I see that there is something deeply wrong: it’s like the draft of a text, that needs a revision before being good. They both know it, that’s why in SNIT their attitude changes.
In FNIT, they are both drunk with alcohol and repressed desire. But when it comes to the act itself, in that moment, Ennis takes the powerful position. Of course, Jack agrees with a very seductive glance that speaks loudly (“Take me”). He is the one turning and offering himself. However, the more I watch the movie and analyze these characters, the more I think Jack was expressing “T
ake me” with his eyes and movements, but he was not saying “
F*** me roughly”. Jack has been metaphorically oppressed/overwhelmed by other men his whole life (John, Aguirre, Laureen’s father). A sweeter approach may have changed everything…Or not?
The rough approach…That was all Ennis. Ennis was not sentimentally educated, he was unexperienced, he was excited, Jack initiated it, ok I know, but IMO in the moment he assumed the role of the active one, he was not authorized to be rough/punishing/careless with his partner. Plus, from that position Jack cannot move much. Ennis is the one calling the shots. Jack is the one receiving, and it gives me a sense of vertigo the idea he was there, receiving sex from a man he does not know so well, but he has trusted him, he lets him do it. He is alone on a mountain, there are no other humans in that territory and in that moment the only other man is mounting him roughly and carelessly. And truly he is careless, we cannot see if he touched Jack in the act. I think Jack climaxed touching himself and/or for internal stimulation. Ennis thought about himself and his own pleasure. The way he clings onto Jack shirt with his hand it says “
You can’t go anywhere. Now you stay under me. Take it” and he clams and overwhelms Jack’s body…The way Jack moans and hits the ground with his hand says “
Damn, I need you. But f***... You are hurting me.” If you see it in this perspective, it is even more sad how much careless Ennis was to Jack in the course of their story. In the morning after scene, it’s clear that Jack is feeling pain when he walks, that solely proves that Ennis has taken Jack roughly.
I think it's left to personal interpretation why is Ennis holding a gun when he speaks with Jack after FNIT. I see it as a phallic symbol of power. He needs to "defend" his masculinity. And Jack, once again, is better than him. He lays there. He waits. He is probably scared about how this man acted. But he has been grown by a violent man, so he does not scare easily for Ennis rough attitude.
And here I really do not know why many brokies think he was more experienced in sex than Ennis… We can only suppose that something may have happened in his previous year at BBM, with someone else, because Jack says he had already sinned. But what if that is not true? What if it was only a flirty way to get Ennis attention? What if Jack was virgin like Ennis? That is not what he deserved as a first time.
I am sorry I tend to be overprotective with Jack
. I have seen the movie for the first time when I was 16 and I was unexperienced in life and relationship and my first instinct was: that does not seem right for Jack. Now I am 31 and I know that is not right for Jack. Cause it is not right for anyone to be treated like that. Ennis could have made the moment less hurtful by only saying a few words the morning after “I need to stay alone for a while.” That look he gave to Jack when he is on the horse, from an upper position, it makes me so uncomfortable. Jack had been so strong to stand there. If my partner would look at me like that after my first time or anytime sex, honestly, I would want to cut my wrists and/or dive into a mincer.
In that look, Jack probably sees his disgusted father and more. That look of Ennis is so full of prejudice, and morality. There is no other gaze that hurts me like that in movies.
However, Ennis never tried to treat Jack badly. You are right... He did not even have to try. It was a natural talent of him (sorry I speak fluent sarcasm, way more than English).
Jack is unfaithful for many reasons: he lives a very lonely life, except from Ennis. In his family he is a marginal figure. I think he seeks for connection and sex is a strong form of connection. It’s not love but it is rewarding. It is something. But in the final confrontation, he is more mature and his discomfort towards Ennis internalized toxic masculinity explodes like an atomic bomb. He is so sad in the last confrontation scene because he learns that Ennis has suffered as much as him and yet he does not want even to try. Why? Because his brain is full of iper-macho cowboy bull****. Jack’s last gaze when Ennis drives away is so disappointed. He is no more desperate or sad. He has finally seen that Ennis is not or he has never been how he thought and fantasized.
Ennis is worse than a repressed homosexual, traumatized, full of prejudice, unable to really love him. He has a bright side; he has a loving side. He loved Jack all along, all those years. He is suffering as much as Jack. And if there is something that Jack can’t stand is if Ennis is hurt (in the punch scene it is clear:
Jack panics if Ennis is hurt). IMO Jack tolerates the pain a lot, he tolerated the short leash and he coped with that as he could. But learning the fact that Ennis hurt himself as much as him, tortured himself as much as him, all of those years, that was a turning point. His eyes in that las gaze are disappointed and dead… Paradoxically, discovering that Ennis did not love him would have been less disappointing. Less painful.
Because Ennis IMO is toxic. With Jack and with himself. And I think that saying that he is like that because of society and the outside world spare him the responsibility he has. Often, Ennis hides behind his husband/father/work duties, and it is funny because he is a failed husband, a neglecting father, and he has nothing to lose in terms of job position. *Let’s think about Oscar Wilde, he faced the accusations and he lost everything, his position, his art. He should have all the justifications to be a coward.* Back to Ennis, he had internal conflicts and fears, and that’s human and understandable, but he imposed to Jack his way to deal with those problems, like a tyrant. He never negotiated anything with Jack. Never.
And Jack was way too precious (and pretty, back to the first point!), outside and inside, to not look forward at least for a compromise, minimizing suffering from both parts.
I am seeing a big metaphor of their whole story in their physical fight scene before leaving BBM. Jack tries to grab Ennis feet with a rope, to control his way. Ennis fights off any bond with Jack. Jack fights back because he wants him to accept that they really need to be together. And this thing hurts. Jack is strong, he is incautious, he is passionate, and there are many risks. In fact, Ennis ends up hurt by Jack. That was unintentional. Love is like that, commitment and risks: being cheated, being abandoned, facing adversities together. But Jack is and always will be caring. He will be there for him. He stops to hold him so sweetly. IMO it means it will always put Ennis first. And Ennis…Ennis “knows better”. Always knows better and intentionally punches Jack. Because he needs to feel he is the one calling the shots.
How can I restrain myself from thinking he is a super-douchebag? If there is a method, teach me.
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it's so nice to read your answers! I feel so understood...I hugh you all 
I didn't know that in SS, they both are ugly. I have to go back to read the story again. I think the following sentence summed up pretty well.