Topic: "presence effect"?

[francis]

Maybe it's already been posted, if it has I apologise.

wanted to tell the thing, I saw in the last BBM scene: when Ennis' daughter goes away, Ennis comes back to his trailer and then..do you remember the moment when he suddenly returns back to the door and peeps out?
There're 2 answers about this thing:
1)maybe Ennis just wanted to make sure that no one'll see him takes Jack's shirt..
BUT:
2)maybe Ang Lee wants to show us how much Ennis suffered about Jack's death? And this moment is such a "presence effect" that makes Ennis sure (for a few seconds) that Jack is standing in front of his door?

This thought is very touching. But maybe this's just my imagination, what do u think?

[tpe]

Hello francis.  I must admit that I had not thought of it this way, although I love your second interpretation very much.

On a prosaic level, Ennis looks out the door to see if Alma Jr. was already beyond calling back to retieve the sweater that she left behind.  I must admit, though, that in the loneliness of the final shots inside the trailer, I did, in my mind's eye, try to see Jack as with Ennis.  The shirt is the proxy.  Jack is indeed no longer there, but his love is alive in Ennis.


This is how I interpret the "presence" effect in the last scene.  Jack is there in the form of his love for Ennis.  The shirt is the material reminder.  And Ennis will be the sanctuary.

So long as Ennis breathes, Jack lives.

[francis]

Hello, tpe nice to know you ^^ thanx for comment ^^

I must admit that I had not thought of it this way, although I love your second interpretation very much.

wow, i'm happy to hear it ^^ thanx.

This is how I interpret the "presence" effect in the last scene.  Jack is there in the form of his love for Ennis.  The shirt is the material reminder.  And Ennis will be the sanctuary.

So long as Ennis breathes, Jack lives.

Throw i was reading your comment, i found another point in that scene. that's great Oo
So, do you agree that Jack is still 'near' Ennis, stays with him/inside him,even if he's died? I also think so.

[tpe]

Hello, tpe nice to know you ^^ thanx for comment ^^

I must admit that I had not thought of it this way, although I love your second interpretation very much.

wow, i'm happy to hear it ^^ thanx.

This is how I interpret the "presence" effect in the last scene.  Jack is there in the form of his love for Ennis.  The shirt is the material reminder.  And Ennis will be the sanctuary.

So long as Ennis breathes, Jack lives.

Throw i was reading your comment, i found another point in that scene. that's great Oo
So, do you agree that Jack is still 'near' Ennis, stays with him/inside him,even if he's died? I also think so.

francis, not to change the original idea here, but I was raised Catholic, and when I saw your reference to "presence", the sacramental concept of "real presence", so dear to medieval theologians, came to my mind.

In this light, I view Jack's death as a kind of sacramentum amoris.  The "real" presence of Jack is now embodied in Ennis, who -- from the very beginning -- was the object of that love.  Because Ennis held on to that love even after Jack's death, Jack then "assumes" an inner life within Ennis.

I apologize for this.  I just wanted to say that for me, their love in the end becomes something mystical.

[welshwitch]

And "I swear" is the unbreakable covenant.

[tpe]

And "I swear" is the unbreakable covenant.

Indeed, I have come to believe that it is so. 

Thank you, welshwitch.

 

[LuvJackNasty]

Damn more tears before bed.  :\'(

[Koka]

Damn more tears before bed.  :\'(

yeah, tpe's posts tend to have that effect on people.... :\'(

[welshwitch]

I also think of the end of the Larkin poem - "What will survive of us is love."

[tpe]

I also think of the end of the Larkin poem - "What will survive of us is love."

Time has transfigured them into
Untruth. The stone fidelity
They hardly meant has come to be
Their final blazon, and to prove
Our almost-instinct almost true:
What will survive of us is love.

[welshwitch]

In a sense this forum and the people on it are an incarnation of the love that the movie takes as its subjec - or perhaps continuation might be a better word. In which case we are the "final blazon" of Ennis and Jack.

[welshwitch]

And therefore we should be careful not to be transfigured into untruth, but to keep the faith.

[tpe]

And therefore we should be careful not to be transfigured into untruth, but to keep the faith.

The spirit of Larkin's poetry resonates here.  It is impressive, and most apt.