This is my first post and I'm nervous - so be kind if you think I'm an idiot or I haven't watched the same movie as you!
I read the short story first so I already knew what was coming when I saw the movie, and because of that, I thought that falling in love with each other just sort of happened unexpectedly for both of them, although in the movie Jack falls first. In that frame of mind, I don't think that Ennis gave him any sign that he could make a move on him sexually. All the signs he gave him were just friendship signs, telling your friend that you are a virgin, trying to get soup because they like it etc., were just signs of a close friendship developing. Jack made a move on Ennis that first time because he knew that HE had fallen for Ennis, Ennis was drunk, and Jack was just drunk enough not to be able to resist the temptation and hope that Ennis would go along with it. No planning just events unfolding naturally.
But sometimes (strictly in the movie only) it seems to me that Jack has had experience of sex with another man before - because of the way he is that first night in the tent. Then in that mood I can sometimes see it differently.
Then the question wouldn't be How did Jack know to make a move on Ennis, but, How did Jack know WHEN to make a move on Ennis? - because he was always going to.
If Jack was experienced with men it could be possible that he gained that experience the first year he was on Brokeback Mountain. He is only 19 this year and he has already been on the mountain once before making him 18 at the time, so it may have been his first time away from home. Jack said to Ennis that they lost 42 sheep up there the previous year due to a storm, a fact Aguiree confirms when he says to Jack in his office that first day 'I don't want that again' It could be possible that they lost that many sheep due to a storm, but it also could be from the same reason that Jack and Ennis lost one on the first night together - because no one was looking after them. Aguirre looks Jack in the eye when he says 'you sleep with the sheep' and Jack looks down or something (I can't remember at this moment, but he does react). Now maybe this is a new thing and the year before both the herder and the camper slept in the camp, or maybe he is just reitterating to Jack that that is what he must do, but the implication is that the year before for whatever reason both Jack and the other person slept in the camp together. Now if this was a married man, maybe away from home and missing his wife he could have taken advantage of having 'a one shot thing' whilst up on the mountain just to fulfill his needs. If Jack did indeed go along with this it would explain his experience, because I doubt it would have been easy anywhere else for him to get it, at home or on the rodeo circuit.
If that were the case then when Jack came down the previous year he would have been sexually experienced and maybe when he tried doing a bit of rodeoing like he said he did, he could have met some girls but found out that he actually prefered men. Which living in that place at that time would have presented him with problems.
He might then have seen another year on Brokeback as an opportunity to be with a man again. That would explain his great interest in Ennis that first day outside Aguirres office. It would also explain why he said to Ennis 'that aint the point, we should both be in this camp'. But when he met Ennis and realised how quiet and reserved Ennis was, he knew he couldn't just jump straight in. So he had to take his time and develop a friendship with Ennis first, which is when he started to fall in love with him. Something he DIDN'T have planned.
I think this would also explain the way in which Jack made a move on Ennis, with his back to him, no kissing or anything like that to frighten Ennis off, (I also think this may have been the way it was done to Jack the previous year) just relying on a 19 year olds hormones accepting sex wherever it comes from with no great show of love or tenderness accompanying it. In the end that is what happened. Now Ennis may have been falling in love with Jack himself at that point, I don't know. But even if he was he probably would have no way of expressing it at that point.
I think that would explain how nervous Jack was the next day, because he really wanted to get close to Ennis and was worried he'd frightened him off. So the SNIT starts the same way with Jack taking his shirt off and leaving the flap of the tent open, this would show Ennis that sex was available again and Jack was trying to tempt him in with that. But when Ennis came in and didn't just jump on Jack, but seemed nervous and respectful of Jack, Jack risked going for what he really wanted which was tenderness and love with Ennis, and he probably couldn't believe his luck when it worked.
When they came down from the mountain this could be why Jack says to Ennis 'gonna do this again next year?' and doesn't try harder to stop them seperating, he may think that giving Ennis that long to consider his feelings he may, like Jack the previous year, decide that he did prefer being with men. It was obviously a blow to hear that Ennis was getting married, but if it took him a year to figure out his feelings he must have thought Ennis needs time too. That would also explain why he went back the next year, in the hope that Ennis had come to the same conclusion as he had the previous year and had decided to go to the mountain to see if Jack was there. (and according to the book Ennis had taken about a year to realise that Jack was what he wanted) But unfortunately in that year Ennis had got married and gotten into something that he couldn't get out of.
Well there you go - I didn't mean to be that long winded, but once I started - it just kept growing!
I don't always think that is what happened, just sometimes! But then again that is the beauty of this movie, Ang Lee left so much of it a blank canvas that we can all draw our own pictures on!
Hope I haven't bored you!
Rosie.
