Distance

         Between 0:11:17 – 0:11:34 we see Jack at nighttime looking down at a campsite with a fire (we assume Ennis is there), and less than two minutes later, and in a notably similar way, we see Ennis looking up the mountain at Jack herding sheep (0:13:10 – 0:13:28). In both of these moments Ang Lee chooses to do close ups of their face giving the frame a closed form, and then immediately cuts to a long shot of what they are looking at with a dramatic angle of elevation giving the frame an open form (making us aware of what’s around them, especially because of the previous closed form; further emphasizing the vast space separating them), and then back to a close up of them catching their reactions to the distance. Lee’s choices connote the physical distance that is often between Jack and Ennis, and although with different techniques he successfully achieves and recreates this effect the way that Annie Proulx did. In her story Proulx uses imagery to allude to the expansive distance separating Ennis and Jack: “During the day Ennis looked across a great gulf and sometimes saw Jack, a small dot moving across a high meadow, as an insect moves across a tablecloth; Jack, in his dark camp, saw Ennis as night fire, a red spark on the huge black mass of mountain” (Pg. 74).

         The physical distance connoted in both these also suggests and emphasizes the figurative distance between Jack and Ennis (in regards to their relationship). Both this literal and figurative distance heighten the intimacy seen later on (at 0:27:06 – 0:28:49) through contrast, in how far apart they are initially to how close they become (both physically and emotionally). Not only does it have impact on later scenes but it also serves as foreshadowing for the hardships to come and the even greater distances and spans of time that will separate them later on in the story.