Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum

TOTW 11/08: Let's talk about postcards

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Penthesilea:
Hi BetterMostians,  :)


let's talk about postcards this week. Our resident Fiona (Optom3) has brought up questions evolving around the postcards and by doing so, inspired a few more questions on my side. Thank you Fiona! Suggestions for TOTW are always welcome.

Some thoughts/questions about the postcards:

a) All the post cards we see, which result in fishing trips, are from Jack to Ennis. The last one is from Ennis to Jack and is of course the deceased one. Is that significant? I.e. the only time when we see Ennis contacted Jack he is thwarted.


b) Why is there a hiatus of four years before the reunion? Not two or three or five? Do you think there is any significance in this?


c) A more speculative question: do you think they kept each others postcards?


d) There are two differences regarding the postcards between the short story and the movie: first, in the short story it's a letter from Jack to Ennis, which leads to their reunion. In the movie this first sign of life is a postcard.
Second, in the short story Ennis calls Jack to tell him about his divorce. In the movie he sent a postcard.
The form of contact is changed to be a postcard twice in the movie. Why?


e) For those who have read more of Annie Proulx's work, maybe even her novel 'Postcards': did you find anything about postcards in Proulx's other work which might also be of interest for BBM? Any parallels maybe?


Let us hear your thoughts about the postcards :D!

Fran:
Interesting questions, Chrissi.  More stuff to think about....

As an aside, if you compare the first postcard to the one marked "deceased" -- the word "Jack" in particular -- it seems to me that Jack and Ennis had the same penmanship teacher.  :)

oilgun:
I'm still trying to figure out how Jack expected Ennis to "drop him a line" if he didn't include his return address on the initial postcard.  ;D

Penthesilea:

--- Quote from: oilgun on March 31, 2008, 04:32:22 pm ---I'm still trying to figure out how Jack expected Ennis to "drop him a line" if he didn't include his return address on the initial postcard.  ;D

--- End quote ---

You and me both  ;D.

I guess this just got mixed up when they changed Jack's initial letter to a postcard for the movie. As you see in the pic, Ennis holds a piece of paper in his hand with Jack's adress in Childress, Texas. When you have a close look at the piece of paper, you can see it's an envelope.

BlissC:

--- Quote from: Penthesilea on March 31, 2008, 04:47:26 pm ---I guess this just got mixed up when they changed Jack's initial letter to a postcard for the movie. As you see in the pic, Ennis holds a piece of paper in his hand with Jack's adress in Childress, Texas. When you have a close look at the piece of paper, you can see it's an envelope.

--- End quote ---

Well spotted Penthesilea! It does seem there's a bit of a mix up! Why would Jack put the postcard in an envelope?  :P

From Ennis's point of view in the movie, I guess I always assumed that the postcards show that even in writing Ennis is a man of very few words. You can get away with writing "you bet" on a postcard, but it's difficult to write a letter that only says two words. I've also wondered if there was anything in the postcards showing both their lack of education and/or the culture of the time/their way of life (i.e. as 'cowboys'). I guess it could be argued that normally men don't send each other letters, so it'd be more appropriate, and more acceptable somehow to send postcards. Maybe AP/Ang consciously wanted to stay away from the idea of them sending each other what could be described as "love letters", so maybe postcards seemed a safer option, and maybe Jack and Ennis saw it that way too?

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