Topic: Jack's choked, "ggo."

[septuaginarian]

"gun's goin off"

Although this line is discussed elsewhere, nobody has asked why Annie Proulx italicized “off”.

Is it an ironic metaphor saying, “rodeo’s on”?

Doesn’t a gun shot start the rodeo?

(Jack had no way of knowing the long, hard ride that lay ahead of him.)

[frenchcda]

"gun's goin off"

Although this line is discussed elsewhere, nobody has asked why Annie Proulx italicized “off”.

Is it an ironic metaphor saying, “rodeo’s on”?

Doesn’t a gun shot start the rodeo?

(Jack had no way of knowing the long, hard ride that lay ahead of him.)

What are asking?   why is italicized?  well if you truly don't know what it means, see the movie again, no pund intended

[TJ]

"gun's goin off"

Although this line is discussed elsewhere, nobody has asked why Annie Proulx italicized “off”.

Is it an ironic metaphor saying, “rodeo’s on”?

Doesn’t a gun shot start the rodeo?

(Jack had no way of knowing the long, hard ride that lay ahead of him.)

A guy's penis is is "gun." When I was in the US Army, we got yelled at by the training cadre if we called a rifle a "gun."

So, there was a little ditty with hand action.

This is my rifle (put hand on weapon);

This is my gun (grab your crotch).

This one's for killing (put hand on rifle);

And, this one's for fun (grab crotch of pants and smile)!

"off " is in italics because Jack Twist choked out the words. It ain't easy to talk when a guy is having an ejaculation during an orgasm.

Oh, in Country Music, the "Midnight Rodeo" takes place between the sheets for cowboys. And, there was a line in a C&W song, "Don't call him a cowboy until you've seen him ride." The lyrics were not about rodeos but being ridden by a cowboy in the sack.

[frenchcda]

Well put TJ: I guess I am more prude, did not want to be the one telling him what is meant to ride the bull while guns go off.
Thanks

[TJ]

"gun's goin off" is not in the movie; but, I considered it to be a very important part of the scene in the Annie Proulx original story.

And, unlike the movie, Annie Proulx wrote that there was some deepened intimacy in Jack's bedroll with the two of them before the sexual intercourse took place.

While Ms. Proulx does not state how Jack was dressed in the bedroll in the tent, since I have been involved in camping out in the past (in the US Army when it was cold outside - in the 1960s and in a church's scouting-type organization where I went to a leadership training camp in the early 1970s), I would say that Jack was wearing absolutely nuthin' in that bedroll. Yep, he was completely nekkid!

Jack Twist had been on that same mountain the year before and he had some experience sleeping in a bedroll. When Ennis spent the rest of the night down on the q.t., his own bedroll was up where the sheep were and it was hidden up there.

In Ms. Proulx's story, only Ennis had his belt buckled and his pants up. She does not mention how Jack was dressed in the bedroll.

[septuaginarian]

"gun's goin off"

"off " is in italics because Jack Twist choked out the words. It ain't easy to talk when a guy is having an ejaculation during an orgasm.

Oh, in Country Music, the "Midnight Rodeo" takes place between the sheets for cowboys. And, there was a line in a C&W song, "Don't call him a cowboy until you've seen him ride." The lyrics were not about rodeos but being ridden by a cowboy in the sack.

Thanks TJ for the explanation of the italics. You are certainly right. And I never thought of it before, but given your explanation, I think their orgasm was mutual.

But I was posting about the power of metaphor.

When you say “Don’t call him a cowboy until you’ve seen him ride” you use a metaphor to say that you mean both the rodeo and the sack. The double entendre is what makes the words resonate.

I thank you very much for this C&W song since it expresses exactly the innuendo I think Annie Proulx intended when she wrote, “gun’s goin off.”

Proulx continues the metaphor when she writes, “. . . then out (the bullet, Ennis’s penis), down (from the mount), and asleep” (both).

Whatever else “gun’s goin off” is, it is a metaphor.

This gunshot reverberates in the story through “one-shot thing,” shooting the elk, coyote, and Jack’s surmise that intercourse with Ennis was so good because he rode horseback: (twisting on a horse—Jack Twist—meaning the subsequent development of the sphincter and the pelvic floor muscles around the prostate). Cowboy Kegals.

In the movie, Ennis mounts Alma from behind (which she hated), Ang Lee immediately switches the scene (with startling, violent sound) to Jack mounted on a bucking horse: Alma abandons Ennis before she can bear him a son, which he used to want.

Annie Proulx commented in an interview in The Missouri Review*:

Interviewer: . . . your fiction sometimes seems to ride on a magic carpet of metaphor. How do you do it?

Proulx:  Metaphors—a complex subject. What is involved in constructing them seems not so much a matter of seeking similitude or trying for explanation or description as multilevel word and image play. Metaphors set up echoes and reflections, not only of tone and color but of meaning in the story. The use of running metaphors in a piece—all related in some way to indigestion or water or loneliness or roller skates, or with a surrealistic or violent cast—will guide the reader in a particular direction as surely as stock can be herded. For me, metaphors come in sheets of three or four at once in floods, and so metaphor use often concerns selection rather than construction. There are private layers of meaning in metaphor that may be obscure to the reader but which have—beyond the general accepted meanings of the words—resonance for the writer through personal associations of language, ideas, impressions. So the writer may be using metaphor to guide the reader and deepen the story, for subtle effects but also for sheer personal pleasure in word play.

I’m sorry in my original post if I was so laconic that I seemed not to understand the plain meaning of "gun's goin off." But if I hadn’t made this mistake, I would never have enjoyed TJ’s priceless comments.

I still think "gun's goin off"" signal's the beginning of the rodeo--to use a metaphor--between Ennis and Jack, but more certainly thanks to TJ.
___________________________________________

* Annie Proulx, <www.annieproulx.com> BBM, Interview with Annie Proulx (The Missouri Review, vol XXII, No. 2, 1999).

[arizonamman]

"gun's goin off" is not in the movie; but, I considered it to be a very important part of the scene in the Annie Proulx original story.

And, unlike the movie, Annie Proulx wrote that there was some deepened intimacy in Jack's bedroll with the two of them before the sexual intercourse took place.

While Ms. Proulx does not state how Jack was dressed in the bedroll in the tent, since I have been involved in camping out in the past (in the US Army when it was cold outside - in the 1960s and in a church's scouting-type organization where I went to a leadership training camp in the early 1970s), I would say that Jack was wearing absolutely nuthin' in that bedroll. Yep, he was completely nekkid!

Jack Twist had been on that same mountain the year before and he had some experience sleeping in a bedroll. When Ennis spent the rest of the night down on the q.t., his own bedroll was up where the sheep were and it was hidden up there.

In Ms. Proulx's story, only Ennis had his belt buckled and his pants up. She does not mention how Jack was dressed in the bedroll.

It is good to see that so many folks are seeing the differences between the original short story and the film. I was beginning to think I was the only one that noticed the raw sensuality differences. Although the last time I slept in a sleeping bag I had on clothes, the short story says that Jack placed Ennis' hand "on his erect c*ck." She does not say "on his crotch" or "on his Wrangler's." The film clearly shows Jack fully clothed and he puts Ennis' hand in the bed roll in the vacinity of his crotch.

Regretably, much of the short story's raw sensuality was left out of the screenplay. It left me feeling that I had been robbed.  Ang Lee said in one of his interviews that he feared offending more gay people than straight and I suspect it is because the sensuality was purposely cut.

TJ, are there other examples?[/color]

[arizonamman]

It ain't easy to talk when a guy is having an ejaculation during an orgasm.

Especially when he is the recipient of anal sex that is like having a double orgasm!

[frenchcda]

As to being clothes or not, it matter not, for the point was shown and very well at that, it gives a sensuality uprecedented in my view. This is not some porn flick, despite the fact that Annie Proulx wrote that he Jack took Ennis hand down to his c*ck, it is very unnecessary to consider showing Jack naked while Ennis had his clothes on as in the story, Ennis had his jeans on and Jack was naked in the bedroll, so don't feel robbed, look at the bigger picture.

I find it very uncalled for you to say you feel you have benn robbed because you fail to see c*ck grabbing, PLeassssssssssssssssssssse, no punt intended

[arizonamman]

As to being clothes or not, it matter not, for the point was shown and very well at that, it gives a sensuality uprecedented in my view. This is not some porn flick, despite the fact that Annie Proulx wrote that he Jack took Ennis hand down to his c*ck, it is very unnecessary to consider showing Jack naked while Ennis had his clothes on as in the story, Ennis had his jeans on and Jack was naked in the bedroll, so don't feel robbed, look at the bigger picture.

I find it very uncalled for you to say you feel you have benn robbed because you fail to see c*ck grabbing, PLeassssssssssssssssssssse, no punt intended

We are all entitled to our own opinions. I don't at any point remember belittling *your* feelings or point of view by saying it is "uncalled for." IMO, not including these scenes was to avoid the exact same inference that you gained from my post which also IMO has absolutely nothing to do with porn. Indeed, it is more indicative of where the minds of some people go when discussing literary works such as Ms. Proulx's excellent story. The point is I read the story before seeing the film and they are 2 different works of art and because *I feel* that the screenplay is not true to the story (that is often the case with film) is why I feel robbed. [/font][/size]

[frenchcda]

The point is I read the story before seeing the film and they are 2 different works of art and because *I feel* that the screenplay is not true to the story (that is often the case with film) is why I feel robbed.

Did not mean to ruffle our feathers, I had also read the original story " Close Range , Wyoming stories, before I saw the movie release. I agree with you it differs from the script and so is the script from February 2003 and the printed edition of 2005, minus or plus a few adjustment.
 However over all You truly must know that in trying to make a movie and adapting a screenplay eventually will differ in ways so as to create the most honest and fair observation honoring the writer
In my view when reading a book, we have the tendency to imagine our characters and give them a life of their own, here the writer  Mme Annie Proulx, gave carte Blanche to the director Ang Lee, she and ( admitted ) to have never seen the movie before the final cut, the imagination and creativity was Ang's lee works of art, and the ending with the shirts one in one out, was suggested by Heath Ledger, I with all respect due, think that this movie was a collaboration of multiple ideas brewed into one, You have an AWESOME writer from America Annie Proulx, then and Australian actor heath ledger, and American Young Beau Jake Gellynhaal, and photography and art direction that is Mexican in origin, a music composer from Argentina, and a viewing public that is the human being of one planet, how wonderfull is that, I hope I can appease your feeling about being robbed, I did not mean to insult you. I get a bit touchy a la Jack Twist when I read that people are in some ways discontent with the portrayal of the movie, I have seen so many complaints about this movie not been gay enough or not showing enough nudity that it would make one's skin crawl back inward. I find that all matters to the original book and the script and the movie are the truest validity and most honereable way to portrait any human being and that most important factor of 2 men and their undying love, I can only Cherish this as the classic of our times, knowing well enough the hatred that stems from those who afflict their ignorance upon us the silent majority, Please let not me be one of these people, sincerely your's truly

[chameau]

Great posting frenchcda!

I stand by you my friend! 

[backtobrokeback]

It ain't easy to talk when a guy is having an ejaculation during an orgasm.

Sure it is, if you're yellin'.  The italics are for emphasis - he said that word louder and more forcefully, that's all.

-btb

[ranchgal]

Most rodeos actually start with a parade around the arena with participants on horseback etc. not with a gun shot, it isn't a HS track meet.

[septuaginarian]

Most rodeos actually start with a parade . . . not with a gun shot.

Hi ranchgal,

Thanks. I needed help with that detail--I wasn't sure.

But with "gun's goin off" the metaphor of the rodeo holds--did Ennis "ride" Jack or not?

I don't want to carry the metaphor too far, but they both got hurt in the ring.

[Tom]

Don't I'll split my side

Shouldn't laugh but   

[Patriot1]

Most rodeos actually start with a parade around the arena with participants on horseback etc. not with a gun shot, it isn't a HS track meet.

No...but college track meets are pretty nice to watch too.   :o

[backtobrokeback]

There's a word for boys like you... ;-)

[Patriot1]

There's a word for boys like you... ;-)

Well, when I was in college and use to watch the athletes the word was queer; now, however the word is lech.