Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
A Ninth Viewing Observation
Jeff Wrangler:
--- Quote from: dly64 on August 08, 2006, 11:38:59 pm ---True ... very true! Certainly that is one angle that I have never considered!
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I think that sometimes there can be a tendency to "overestimate" the Randall factor. I admit I've been guilty of this. We know Jack, and we know LaShawn ( ;D ), and we also know that Randall is the only guy we see come on to Jack. and we know what Jack says to his father about the ranch neighbor from Texas, and I know that in the past I've taken Randall as a much more serious threat to Ennis and Jack's relationshp than maybe he really was.
We know that Randall has a wife who talks a blue streak, and a management job on Roy Taylor's ranch, and that he wants sex from Jack (at least he has good taste in men ;D ). And that's about it. Given the little we do know, I think it's possible he has incentive to stay in the closet, not upend his life by ranching up with Jack, and may be interested, as I've put it elsewhere, in just a couple of lakeside fucks once or twice a year.
dly64:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on August 09, 2006, 09:14:48 am ---We know that Randall has a wife who talks a blue streak, and a management job on Roy Taylor's ranch, and that he wants sex from Jack (at least he has good taste in men ;D ). And that's about it. Given the little we do know, I think it's possible he has incentive to stay in the closet, not upend his life by ranching up with Jack, and may be interested, as I've put it elsewhere, in just a couple of lakeside fucks once or twice a year.
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I remember reading somewhere else on this board that it seems incongruous that Randall would even be willing to move with Jack to Lightning Flat. Why? He is educated, well situated financially and is certainly “mechanically challenged.” I am not sure what would incentivize Randall to give all of that up for Jack. On the flip side … I can’t see Jack giving up everything to move in with Randall. As long as his sexual needs are being met, why would he bother?
ednbarby:
--- Quote from: dly64 on August 09, 2006, 09:40:19 am ---I remember reading somewhere else on this board that it seems incongruous that Randall would even be willing to move with Jack to Lightning Flat. Why? He is educated, well situated financially and is certainly “mechanically challenged.” I am not sure what would incentivize Randall to give all of that up for Jack. On the flip side … I can’t see Jack giving up everything to move in with Randall. As long as his sexual needs are being met, why would he bother?
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Good points. I agree. I see Jack mentioning him (and as someone else once pointed out, not even giving him his name, that's how not serious he is about him) to his father out of bitterness and spite at something he said about Ennis (and implied about Jack - e.g., couldn't get him to come up here could ya?). Maybe even after a few adult beverages...
welliwont:
--- Quote from: ednbarby on August 08, 2006, 09:53:31 pm ---Along these lines, here's how I see it: After their last time together at the lake, Jack goes up to Lightning Flat, just aching inside, not unlike that time he went up there after the summer on Brokeback. But now he's aching and broken. He hears the usual shit from Old Man Twist. And during one of their many arguments, OMT says something like, "Whatever happened to the Great and Powerful Ennis del Mar - the one who was gonna help you 'lick this ranch into shape?' Just another one o' yer half-baked ideas, I guess." And Jack retorts with something more to himself than to his father, like "Yeah, well, the hell with him. I know another guy - a ranch neighbor of mine in Childress - who *wants* to come up here and do that with me. This Spring, I may just take him up on it."
But I agree - it was just him thinking out loud - wanting to shut his father - and his own heart - up once and for all.
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We will never know.
But there is a difference between all the other times Jack visits LF and the last time. well more than one difference, but the one I would like to point out is one that Ruthlessly so astutely outlined for us.
--- Quote ---They part and the look on Jack’s face as Ennis drives away says a thousand things. Most notably, to me, the look says “Goddamn you Ennis. If it was up to me we could have had it. But it wasn’t just up to me. And you couldn’t “stand” it. So I’ll give you what you say you want (even though he really doesn’t), that which I know you really need – I’ll let you be.” Jack knows he is saying good-bye to Ennis for the last time here. And not for himself, but for his love. This is the greatest sacrifice shown in the film.
Jack has just seen his lover crumple up into a ball of unmanageable emotions, fears, conflicts, and inner struggles. And Jack knows that Ennis can neither fix it nor stand it. The destructive effects of rural homophobia (the theme of the film) have taken their ultimate toll on Ennis. Jack has only two realistic options: Let Ennis go or hold him captive. It is because of Jack’s love for Ennis that he lets him go. Otherwise, Jack never loved Ennis at all because his other option is to say: “Damn! I just saw my lover crumple into a ball of despair. Oh, well, I can still get a few high-altitude fucks out of him every year.” Because neither of them can fix it and because Ennis cannot stand it, Jack must quit Ennis.
Jack goes back to Texas. At some point he takes up with Randall. So much so that after twenty years of telling his folks “me and Ennis,” he now tells them “me and this other guy.” And Jack does this before Ennis’ postcard about Pine Creek in November.
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I do believe as Ruthlessly has hypothesized, that Jack was thinking about quitting Ennis, and would probably have tried to do so. Just because the shirts were still up in the closet in LF does not mean that that he wasn't going to try and quit Ennis. Those two shirts represent Ennis, represent his undying love for Ennis; they are his most prized possession IMO. I think he would always have kept those shirts, no matter what. The fact that he mentions coming to LF with his rancher neighbhour is AP's way of conveying that Jack was thinking on this. Whether he could have made himself do it is another question. This is 180 change in my point of view since I first saw the movie, when I was all starry-eyed and romantic thinking that Jack would never leave his one true love, but I think all the discussions and Ruthlessly's insight have helped me to make sense of what really was happeining.
I gotta go to work now, or I would make a couple more supporting arguements....
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: dly64 on August 09, 2006, 09:40:19 am ---I remember reading somewhere else on this board that it seems incongruous that Randall would even be willing to move with Jack to Lightning Flat. Why? He is educated, well situated financially and is certainly “mechanically challenged.” I am not sure what would incentivize Randall to give all of that up for Jack. On the flip side … I can’t see Jack giving up everything to move in with Randall. As long as his sexual needs are being met, why would he bother?
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Good points, Diane, Barb and Jeff. Randall had lived in a bigger city and attended college; it's likely he would have met other gay men along the way. And he wasn't shy about coming on to Jack soon after meeting him, so he seems to go for what he wants pretty directly. If he'd wanted to live with a man, he probably could have done so before now. Instead, he married that lively little gal.
As for Jack, true, if he was seeing Randall regularly (though no reason to assume they limited it to a couple of low-altitude fucks a year), that doesn't mean he necessarily wanted to live with him. Would he automatically want to live with anyone he has sex with, even if he doesn't love the person?
In any case, I think we're supposed to be left somewhat in the dark about this, the way Ennis is, always left wondering. OMT's mention of the other fella to Ennis is fate (i.e., Annie Proulx) twisting the knife, making things that much more torturous for Ennis, and us. It's harder in the story than in the movie, because in the movie, at least 1) we've met Randall, know Jack has known him for a while, saw Jack's deer-in-the-headlights look when Randall mentioned the fishing cabin (for all Ennis knows, the other fella is someone Jack met and fell in love with AFTER seeing Ennis the last time -- at least we have reason to think otherwise), and 2) saw what a big deal it was for Jack to say "Sometimes I miss you so much I can hardly stand it." In the story, it's a more casual paraphrase, not a direct quote, and somehow "I could whip babies" doesn't have quite the same gravity as "I can hardly stand it."
Jane, your post just came in. I've never agreed with the "Jack quit Ennis" theory, and these reasons why neither Randall nor Jack necessarily would have wanted to live together only give my disagreement a tiny bit more support.
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