Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
A Ninth Viewing Observation
Front-Ranger:
Here's the very first post by Ednbarby. We figured out later that Jack was spilling cigarette ashes on himself, which led to an ashes discussion, which led to...
And the thread lived on well into some people's hunderdth viewing!!
--- Quote from: ednbarby on April 16, 2006, 08:08:55 am ---Well, I'll be damned if I didn't notice something that never registered before on my ninth viewing last night.
When Jack and Lureen are at the table with Randall and LaShawn, shortly after Randall gives Jack that long "come hither" look and just as Lureen's starting to say, "Husbands... don't never seem to wanna dance with their wives. Why do you think that is, Jack?", he's spilling something on himself - his drink, I think, a la the beans/can opener incident early on when Ennis is shirtless and about to bathe. It's the same hand movement - shaking the hand off - and disgust with himself as before. I guess this is because he's unnerved at realizing that Randall is coming on to him. And of course, there's the "So... you wanna dance?" and looking dead-on at Randall first, then glancing at LaShawn right afterwards. That I'd seen before, but not the spillage. Amazing. Not a single moment of this masterpiece is unintentional. Not a one.
--- End quote ---
Shakesthecoffecan:
More than the ninth viewing certainly, I have no idea how many times I have watched Brokeback Mountain but I can tell you last night I watched it for the first time in a few years, I would say it has been about three.
What amazes me is how much this movie is a part of my being. Like an arm. There is not one day that goes by that I do not think about it. I listen to lyrics from the POV of Jack and Ennis's story. I still find myself balancing what the on screen characters do vs. the characters in the story.
Here is an observation I would like to make about the enigmatic "Jack, I swear" closing line.
In the motel in the 1967 reunion scene, Jack tells Ennis "I swear I didn't know we were going to get into this again" and goes on to speak the truth that he had redlined it all the way there, knowing it would happen. As the story progresses to the end, the last night in the tent when Jack tells Ennis he has something going with the ranch foremans wife, it sort of sets the stage. Ennis has been stringing him along all this time, choosing to know what he wants to know about Jack's life away from him and now he is given a peek.
He has already expressed his paranoia about people out on the street looking at him like they know. Now that he starts to know and is confronted with the revelation in the Trail Head Parking lot that Jack has been to Mexico, he threatens him with violence, with death specifically, and Jack does not back down. This threat, becomes a curse of sorts.
In some of my reading on the movie there is a reference to the deleted scene featuring the mechanics, the one that shows up in the trailer but not in the movie. Allegedly, this scene involves Randall dropping off at a garage to get help with his flat tire, and those people look at him like they know. When Ennis is told of his death, what he sees in his imagination is both his worst fears from age 9 to fulfillment of what he promised to do to Jack if he ever found out, which he did.
As he tells the Twists he can't begin to tell them how sorry he feels, he is blaming himself for Jacks death. When we reach that final scene, I believe what he is saying when he says "I swear" is that he didn't know what was going to happen when he spoke at the Trail Head Parking Lot, in a way, he is saying he is sorry for cursing him.
FWIW.
chowhound:
--- Quote from: Shakesthecoffecan on December 17, 2012, 12:59:45 pm ---More than the ninth viewing certainly, I have no idea how many times I have watched Brokeback Mountain but I can tell you last night I watched it for the first time in a few years, I would say it has been about three.
What amazes me is how much this movie is a part of my being. Like an arm. There is not one day that goes by that I do not think about it. I listen to lyrics from the POV of Jack and Ennis's story. I still find myself balancing what the on screen characters do vs. the characters in the story.
Here is an observation I would like to make about the enigmatic "Jack, I swear" closing line.
In the motel in the 1967 reunion scene, Jack tells Ennis "I swear I didn't know we were going to get into this again" and goes on to speak the truth that he had redlined it all the way there, knowing it would happen. As the story progresses to the end, the last night in the tent when Jack tells Ennis he has something going with the ranch foremans wife, it sort of sets the stage. Ennis has been stringing him along all this time, choosing to know what he wants to know about Jack's life away from him and now he is given a peek.
He has already expressed his paranoia about people out on the street looking at him like they know. Now that he starts to know and is confronted with the revelation in the Trail Head Parking lot that Jack has been to Mexico, he threatens him with violence, with death specifically, and Jack does not back down. This threat, becomes a curse of sorts.
In some of my reading on the movie there is a reference to the deleted scene featuring the mechanics, the one that shows up in the trailer but not in the movie. Allegedly, this scene involves Randall dropping off at a garage to get help with his flat tire, and those people look at him like they know. When Ennis is told of his death, what he sees in his imagination is both his worst fears from age 9 to fulfillment of what he promised to do to Jack if he ever found out, which he did.
As he tells the Twists he can't begin to tell them how sorry he feels, he is blaming himself for Jacks death. When we reach that final scene, I believe what he is saying when he says "I swear" is that he didn't know what was going to happen when he spoke at the Trail Head Parking Lot, in a way, he is saying he is sorry for cursing him.
FWIW.
--- End quote ---
Just for the sake of accuracy, Shakesthecoffeecan, the deleted scene you allude to shows Jack's truck pulling up in a dirt lot next to a gas station. Randall gets out and goes over to his own truck which is parked in the lot, waving back to Jack as he goes. All of this is watched by two mechanics, one of whom is holding a tire jack in his hand. As the two mechanics watch Randall and Jack, they exchange significant glances.
This scene must have been cut very late in the editing process as a clip from it turns up in the trailer. If it had been retained it would have come immediately before the scene where Ennis receives the "deceased" postcard and phones Lureen.
Shakesthecoffecan:
Yes, that would fit perfectly. On the one hand I wish they would have left it in, but I guess the consideration was trying to stay as true to the short story as possible and leave it ambiguous.
Sason:
Yes, I've read that somewhere, in some interview. Diana? Ang? Don't remember who.
But what they said was exactly what you assume above, Truman.
That had the scene been left in the final cut, there would have been no ambiguity at all as to how Jack died.
And since the book leaves us not knowing for sure, I guess they wanted the film to do the same.
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