It's tough reconciling the film and the short story.
I'm exceedingly grateful we have both. The biggest difference is the motel scene, acknowledged by Annie Proulx, also she said the arc of a film is different than a short story so they chose to do some things different. Speaking of Reunion/Motel--
There have been some posts speculating what actually happened in the motel (who bottomed, etc) Am I just naive or ignorant of these details (being a straight woman) to think that by the time they slow down to talk, hours have passed. The story says the room smelled of semen, whiskey, sweat, on and on -- if that were a hetero encounter there would have been many positions tried, one satisfying the other, a few different ways. Is that not possible? Also, I got the feeling, both in the film and the story, that Ennis let go of all his inhibitions when he was alone with Jack, starting back on the mountain, so I don't expect he analyzed too much whether he gave anything up in either position, I think he'd have wanted to do that for Jack, if Jack wanted it. Just as long as Jack stayed on that short leash, Ennis dominated that way. Anybody?