The Metaphorical & Party City

The last part of the movie we saw where Jack and Ennis get ready to part to go back to their lives off of Brokeback (1:43:45 - 1:48:33) stays pretty close to their interaction in the text (on page 83), which makes sense because a majority of the text is dialogue. However right after Jack says "I wish I knew how to quit you" Annie Proulx unknowingly threw Ang Lee a curve ball: "Like vast clouds of steam from thermal springs in winter the years of things unsaid and unsayable - admissions, declarations, shames, guilts, fears - rose around them" (83). This sentence was at the top of my "good luck Ang Lee" list; how could he possibly re-create and express the simile rich with imagery that Proulx chose? What choice could he use that would have the same affect, that is if there even is any choice that could possibly hold the same weighty connotation that sentence carries as well as the effect the abstract imagery has on the reader? The only way I could think of to actually get this detail across through film without a narrator was if it was shown on the screen (even though it's metaphorical). But then I imagined Ang Lee venturing into Atlantic Center to get fog machines from party city, so he could surround Jack and Ennis with them in the scene, and what that would look like on the screen. Despite my outrageous imaginings of Ang Lee shopping, I'm pretty sure that actually showing the figurative imagery would take away and distract from any significance and emotion in the scene. But I do think that the heaviness in heartache and struggle that this line connotes is definitely captured in the scene by the actors, so much of the weight and impact of its affect is effectively adapted, even if the striking imagery evoked by it isn't.