Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
TOTW 01/08: Do you think Jack was murdered or was it an accident?
underdown:
Gosh, all the posts are great, and all could be correct.
Reading all of that, I thought ... this segment really reinforces the movie's ability to make us think, and ponder, and each in our own way get something valuable from it, no matter how each person sees the story as a whole, and regardless of how Jack died.
Whether we see it as a brutal murder (as I do), or an accident, or a mystery that Ennis was left to agonise over for a long time , it is still cruel.
I think one of the amazing things about the story of BBM is the way our interpretation can change each time we see it, read it, or even just think about it, and how differently everyone sees this part of it really shows that.
This segment is truly a 'catalyst for change'. Even for a straight male who thought he knew how gay people felt.
Clyde-B:
It's been pointed out many times in many places that BBM is about the destructive effects of rural homophobia.
If Jack were murdered, the 'villain' of the piece, as it were, would be the homophobia felt by other people toward gays.
If Jack were killed by accident then the focus shifts to Ennis's own homophobia and how it kept him from happiness.
By leaving it enigmatic, both types are targeted. The focus is on homophobia as whole.
I think this was Annie P's intention, and I prefer looking at it this way.
myprivatejack:
IMO,Jack was murdered,bearing in mind the environment in which both of them and their relationship had developed.Of course,story is deliberately ambiguous,or better said,open enough as that everyone of us has their own opinion,and surely everyone is real and good...-remember the case of the "Jack,I swear..."-,In this sense,it could be seen as a result of Ennis paranoia;but we can't forget that Jack in the last times had lowered his guard a lot...It's tragically curious and ironic to see as Ennis had spent half his life protecting themselves against this possibility,up to the point of a constant self-denial,to arrive at the end at the same result he had been trying to avoid...or,at least,with a lot of possibilities of being so.
What's more,I tend to believe that Lureen knew the truth,she was involved in the tragic result;her way of explaining what had happenned seems to cold for a woman who has just lost her husband,the man is supposed she loved.Her father hated Jack and probably she did too,because he was at the point of leaving her-we don't know if for being with Randall-and during all their living together,she surely guessed his tendencies.There's nothing worst that a person who feels deceived and humiliated to turn suddenly all this love into hate.She only cried a little,then,when she guessed-or better said,she knew-who was really Ennis and that BBM existed and was her husband and him "love nest".I think it's clear.
And it was easy,because as I said before,Jack was more reckless than ever in the exhibition of his same sex companies;surely because,as Lureen said,he was drinking a lot and thinking even in death-his wish to have his ashes in BBM...-.Because he didn't have in same way a reason for living,the idea of a "sweet life together" has been broken into pieces;for this,he was bolder because he didn't mind what could happen.And in this sense,I dare to say that Ennis was the "intellectual",or "moral" author of his death,because he had killed long time ago the Jack he had met,the lively,glad and dreamer Jack,to turn him into a shadow-and not only for year's passing,it's sure...-.
Toast:
Annie used the word "accident", and then showed how Ennis thought and then knew that Jack had been beaten by a tire iron. Ennis knew it was murder after John Twist told Ennis that Jack had moved on to another man. It was easier to face that Jack had been murdered than to face that he, Ennis, had killed their sweet life together.
Reading this well informed and thought-out discussion, I feel like we are talking about whether Jesus Christ lived, died, was the son of god, or just plain fiction. It boils down to a discussion about a belief structure, and that is probably what all good literature is about.
Now to the movie - or at least the shooting script for the movie.
The scene below was written to be included in the movie, and would have been inserted between the goodbye-Cassie scene and the deceased-postcard scene:
EXT. GAS STATION -- ROAD OUTSIDE CHILDRESS -- DAY -- 1982
Jack's truck pulls up to the dirt lot next to the gas station. A mechanic, tire jack in hand, fiddling with a car, takes a beer from his buddy, who sits on a tire nearby. They both watch as Randall gets out of the truck and walks to his own truck parked in the lot, waving back at Jack.
The mechanic trades glances with his friend.
Their pov:
Randall's truck pulls out of the lot, goes in one direction.
Jack's pulls out after him, going in the opposite direction. wide:
We hold on Jack's truck, as it drives off into the distance.
[2004 screenplay]
The scene seems to have been shot since a killer mechanic (and his 'buddies') is listed in the credits.
Gary Lauder .... Killer Mechanic
Christian Fraser .... Grease Monkey
Cam Sutherland .... Assailant
[scene from Brokeback Mountain trailer]
The film cannot show Ennis's thought processes like the novella can, but it is a progression in the other direction to identify the killers, when Annie Proulx links the tire iron to the death only in Ennis's paranoid imagination.
Sandy:
Annie says, “the reader finishes it through his or her life experience, prejudices, world view and thoughts”. This is the answer to the question!
Ennis believes that Jack was murdered because that is what he believes would have been the outcome of their relationship.
And Jack would think that it was an accident because he was willing to get out there and live.
Me? I think he was because some people are just downright evil. Randall was too close to home and Lureen? She knew.
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