Author Topic: Alma, Jr., - Gave Ennis the OK to Love Jack. (Read 13640 times)

manhattangirl · « **on:** Jan 19, 2007, 07:53 AM »

In the final scene in the movie, Alma, Jr. visit Ennis to tell him of her upcoming marriage. She was 19, the same age when Jack and Ennis first met.

Ennis begins to question her, and He asks "does he love you", and she only been with guy for a year, and she said "Yes, daddy he loves me.", Ennis then turns to look out the window, what was going on in his mind.

That's the first the word love comes out of Ennis's mouth, the implication of love, the meaning of love, I think he was finding the answer about love more for himself then anything else. His daughter after only a year, knew the man she was marrying loved her.

Did he finally understand then, that Jack loved him, and he loved Jack in return, even if the word love was never said, all those twenty years.

Alma, Jr., made him face something that he couldn't and wouldn't deal himself, he was in love.

If this topic was discussed before, please let me know I would like to read them.

tpe · « **Reply #1 on:** Jan 19, 2007, 08:12 AM »

Hello manhattangirl.

I'd like to share with you my second post in this forum. It touches on what you discuss here:

http://ennisjack.com/index.php?topic=1056.msg1439#msg1439

Whether Alma was conscious or not of what was happening to Ennis at that moment when she said "Yes, daddy, he loves me" is not particularly important. What is more important is that Ennis did see in her response a reflection of what he really feels for Jack deep in his heart. This is what uplifts and crushes him simultaneously.

manhattangirl · « **Reply #2 on:** Jan 19, 2007, 03:08 PM »

TPE,

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, You've said in one sentence, what I was trying to express. I know she had no idea about Jack. It was Ennis reaction that touched me.

tpe · « **Reply #3 on:** Jan 19, 2007, 03:31 PM »

manhattangirl, I was also deeply touched when I recognized what you were trying to say. It continues to move me...

tizi17 · « **Reply #4 on:** Jan 19, 2007, 05:37 PM »

very very moving... and she is sweeter to ennis than anything he might have had lately - making him remind of jack.

i think my "problem" here is, as in many other threads, that i arrived late. in october 06. means all along those months before, from the beginning, so many people have written about BBm and all related.. and such beautiful and interesting, stunning, surprising posts!
but to be honest: i never have the time to read back ALL of them... and i would if i could. sometimes i can pick out few of them - wishing i could "warm" them up, because they so much talk about the feelings i still have for BBM. sometimes somebody like you manhattan girl does - and it's so wonderful..

but then i wish to be with the "actual" people, chat with them, share my today with them..

a liittle bit difficult sometimes...

sorry

tpe · « **Reply #5 on:** Jan 19, 2007, 06:08 PM »

tizi17, there's always more than enough to talk about. Take the current scene, for instance: when Ennis looked out the window, unable to hid his emotions, Jr. gave him a look that is both sympathetic and cautious at the same time. Did she know what he was thinking there and then? Did she realize the significance of her words?

tizi17 · « **Reply #6 on:** Jan 20, 2007, 05:49 AM »

this really is a question...

fact is, that she knew about cassie. ("he's not the marrying kind"..)
do you have the feeling that growing older she felt that her father really loved someone?

manhattangirl · « **Reply #7 on:** Jan 20, 2007, 06:13 AM »

I think she really thought her father had no one but her. Who else was there, he gave no clue about anyone or anything. Little did she know if she just look in the closet, she would have seen, yes , there was something that had meaning for him. Would she had guess what that shrine means, no, but she would have guess it meant something. He would become more of mystery than he already was.

jacks_key · « **Reply #8 on:** Jan 20, 2007, 09:05 AM »

Quote from: manhattangirl on Jan 20, 2007, 06:13 AM

Little did she know if she just look in the closet, she would have seen, yes , there was something that had meaning for him.

You bring up a good point, manhattangirl - if Jr. had happened to look in that closet, would she have asked her dad the significance of the two shirts? If so, what would he have told her?

tpe · « **Reply #9 on:** Jan 22, 2007, 10:44 AM »

Quote from: tizi17 on Jan 20, 2007, 05:49 AM

this really is a question...

fact is, that she knew about cassie. ("he's not the marrying kind"..)
do you have the feeling that growing older she felt that her father really loved someone?

Personally, yes, I thought she did. I think she knew.

tizi17 · « **Reply #10 on:** Jan 22, 2007, 11:26 AM »

Quote from: tpe on Jan 22, 2007, 10:44 AM

Personally, yes, I thought she did. I think she knew.

i find this very difficult for me to view..
i always was more on the SS when i was searching for a meaning, or a hint or a clue to all my thoughts.. in the novel we do not find anything that comes to it.
in the film.. well she knew about jack, because surely she had seen him, and because she always had heard about the fishing trips.
maybe again, growing older she might have felt that her father knew what love is - that's why he asked her about kurt.

tpe · « **Reply #11 on:** Jan 22, 2007, 05:49 PM »

Quote from: tizi17 on Jan 22, 2007, 11:26 AM

maybe again, growing older she might have felt that her father knew what love is - that's why he asked her about kurt.

I think she was suprised by Ennis's mention of love. I think she always felt Ennis loved her as a daughter, but I would not be surprised it he never mentioned this explicitly to her...

tizi17 · « **Reply #12 on:** Jan 23, 2007, 04:51 AM »

do you think he might have been able to tell her? or more - tell her about his feelings? if he didn't even know to himself?
i don't think so. i really guess he had to walk through this terrible school of death and loss and pain to find out that there was love, for him too.
and not only the one he definitively had for his daughters.

aintfoolin · « **Reply #13 on:** Jan 23, 2007, 07:52 AM »

I believe Alma Jr. knew her father's true feelings . She loved him, spent time with him. She knew him pretty well I think. I also feel she felt close, yet distant from him because of the divorce. She saw his loneiness all her young life and grew to be ,of Ennis's two daughters, the protector of him. She was old enough in the divorce scene to have remembered Jack too. I don't know if he could ever open up to her about Jack (I doubt it) but she knew who Jack was and what he meant to her father evidenced in the scene with Cassie ( "he's not the marrying kind") When Ennis asked her if Kurt loved her , ( luv that scene) I think it was a reinforcement to himself that he had finally fully accepted Jack's love for himself that had been so lovingly impressed on him by Jack through the shirts that hung in his closet. IMHO

tpe · « **Reply #14 on:** Jan 23, 2007, 08:04 AM »

Quote from: tizi17 on Jan 23, 2007, 04:51 AM

do you think he might have been able to tell her? or more - tell her about his feelings? if he didn't even know to himself?
i don't think so. i really guess he had to walk through this terrible school of death and loss and pain to find out that there was love, for him too.
and not only the one he definitively had for his daughters.

I think it is not in Ennis's nature to express his feelings explicitly, especially to those he loved the most. Did Jack's death change this for ther better. Not sure. Perhaps by a little. But I won't expect him to talk openly about Jack to his daughter. This had probably become something so sacred to Ennis that he probably kept it all for himself, deep in his heart.

tpe · « **Reply #15 on:** Jan 23, 2007, 08:09 AM »

Quote from: aintfoolin on Jan 23, 2007, 07:52 AM

I believe Alma Jr. knew her father's true feelings . She loved him, spent time with him. She knew him pretty well I think. I also feel she felt close, yet distant from him because of the divorce. She saw his loneiness all her young life and grew to be ,of Ennis's two daughters, the protector of him. She was old enough in the divorce scene to have remembered Jack too. I don't know if he could ever open up to her about Jack (I doubt it) but she knew who Jack was and what he meant to her father evidenced in the scene with Cassie ( "he's not the marrying kind") When Ennis asked her if Kurt loved her , ( luv that scene) I think it was a reinforcement to himself that he had finally fully accepted Jack's love for himself that had been so lovingly impressed on him by Jack through the shirts that hung in his closet. IMHO

The screenplay puts the trailer scene approximately 2 years after Jack's death. All this time, it seems that Jr. stayed away. Why is that, I wonder? Did she somehow get to know about Jack and kept her distance out of rerspect for her father? Or was it just a teenager's own self-absorption that kept her away? In any case, it is hard fro her not to have remembered Jack, and I still think her mother had talked about this, even though a number of us here believe that Alma probably never revealed anything to her daughters...

jacks_key · « **Reply #16 on:** Jan 23, 2007, 11:16 AM »

Quote from: tpe on Jan 23, 2007, 08:04 AM

I think it is not in Ennis's nature to express his feelings explicitly, especially to those he loved the most. Did Jack's death change this for ther better. Not sure. Perhaps by a little. But I won't expect him to talk openly about Jack to his daughter. This had probably become something so sacred to Ennis that he probably kept it all for himself, deep in his heart.

I think you're right. It was sacred to him.

tpe · « **Reply #17 on:** Jan 23, 2007, 02:48 PM »

Quote from: jacks_key on Jan 23, 2007, 11:16 AM

I think you're right. It was sacred to him.

Alma Jr. probably understood this, which is why she never asked any questions...

manhattangirl · « **Reply #18 on:** Jan 24, 2007, 06:06 AM »

I agree with what' s been said. I know Alma, Jr. never knew of her father and Jack's relationship. I was thinking of what Ennis must have taken from Alma, Jr.'s relationship. She was marrying a man she only knew for a year, and she knew that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. Ennis spent twenty years in a tug- of- war relationship with Jack, never uttering the word love to him, even though that was what he felt, he couldn't speak it. So in the final scene, after she left her sweater in the trailer, and he went to put to in the closet, maybe when he looked at the shrine he inherited from Jack, he uttered "Jack, I swear...." , the closet is he ever came to "I love you", this might not the author's intention, or even Ang Lee's, but it's my take of it and I'm sticking to it.

tpe · « **Reply #19 on:** Jan 24, 2007, 08:12 AM »

Quote from: manhattangirl on Jan 24, 2007, 06:06 AM

I agree with what' s been said. I know Alma, Jr. never knew of her father and Jack's relationship. I was thinking of what Ennis must have taken from Alma, Jr.'s relationship. She was marrying a man she only knew for a year, and she knew that she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him. Ennis spent twenty years in a tug- of- war relationship with Jack, never uttering the word love to him, even though that was what he felt, he couldn't speak it. So in the final scene, after she left her sweater in the trailer, and he went to put to in the closet, maybe when he looked at the shrine he inherited from Jack, he uttered "Jack, I swear...." , the closet is he ever came to "I love you", this might not the author's intention, or even Ang Lee's, but it's my take of it and I'm sticking to it.

Personally, I do feel that Jr. knew about the special bond between Jack and her father. She may not have known too many specifics (except those that she gleaned from her mother, perhaps). but she probably knew enough to guess that her father loved Jack in some very special way. Again, there is no way to prove this -- just a feeling.