Topic: the scene where they meet after ennis's divorce...

[brokie007]

i've been watching this scene over and over again trying to make out why when ennis is talking to jack, he stops and looks sideways and there's a white truck passing by on the other side.  When he sees him looking that way, jack looks too...and then he looks back at ennis....and they have a sort of meaningful look in their eyes...Then he just nods and leaves....Does that white truck mean anything?.....please someone help me make some sense out of it....i'm going crazy thinking about it and trying to work it out!!!! 

[edgar]

i've been watching this scene over and over again trying to make out why when ennis is talking to jack, he stops and looks sideways and there's a white truck passing by on the other side.  When he sees him looking that way, jack looks too...and then he looks back at ennis....and they have a sort of meaningful look in their eyes...Then he just nods and leaves....Does that white truck mean anything?.....please someone help me make some sense out of it....i'm going crazy thinking about it and trying to work it out!!!! 

Thanks ( ) to his homophobic father and his past, Ennis's number one fear is being outed, being thought "queer" by others. ("Do you ever get the feeling that everybody knows?") Any time he was with Jack and anyone else was around (he's already feeling self-consious because his daughters have withessed a hug--which Ennis keeps "just a hug."
The extra twist here comes from the fact that Jack says he has asked "five or ten" (?) people around town where Ennis has moved to. The idea that Jack (who seems to ping a little on folks' gaydar--see the rodeo clown, the murderers, Aguirre) has been asking (rather fervently) around town for Ennis makes Ennis very nervous. That's why he doesn't want the person in the truck to see, wonders whethere the guy in the truck is on a spying mission, etc.
Perhaps this stirred-up fear in Ennis is the cause for his brutally cold response--not tellling Jack to wait a few hours, not telling him to come back Monday, just SENDING HIM AWAY. I've said it before; I'll say it again: Ennis needs to be slapped up the side of the head for this. Very bad form.
But it's because of who Ennis is, as his past has shaped him, that he is worried about the truck and worried in general about folks finding out about his relationship with Jack.

[donnaread]

This is just another way that Ang Lee uses to acentuate Ennis' paranoia about people seeing him with Jack.  Remember the later scene by the river when he asks Jack "You ever get the feeling...when you're in town, and someone looks at you, suspicious...like he knows.  And then you get out on the pavement, and everyone looks at you like they all know too?"  Ennis is terrified that people will find out about him and Jack, because of what he saw as a child.  He is afraid of it being known that he is gay.

[tpe]

Thanks Donna and edgar.  You can see the paranooia in Ennis's eyes in that part of the scene when he spies the truck.  Jack, of course, caught on very quickly and understood.  It must have been a blow to him, realizing that his presence made Ennis uncomfortable in that moment.

[brokie007]

Oh thanks guys! So it's that simple....i guessed so....but wasn't so sure.  Ennis is totally paranoid...even when jack gets out of the truck and hugs him, it's clear that he wanted to kiss him too, but ennis just grabs jack's hand and pushes it down.