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Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond => Brokeback Mountain Open Forum => Topic started by: RossInIllinois on February 18, 2008, 08:53:59 pm

Title: "Jacks Wishes" a Line in the movie that really makes me wonder??
Post by: RossInIllinois on February 18, 2008, 08:53:59 pm
The screen writers deliberately added/changed a line that would have read just fine as Annie Proulx wrote it. Still the screen writers changed it but for what reason? What were they implying? Here goes.  Get in touch with his folks, I suppose they'd appreciate it if his wishes was carried out. Now this is where Annie left it, but the screen writers added "About the ashes I mean".  I have always been puzzled about that extra line. What do you folks think or am I just reading to much into it?
Title: Re: "Jacks Wishes" a Line in the movie that really makes me wonder??
Post by: moremojo on February 18, 2008, 09:02:15 pm
It certainly invests the moment with more mystery and ambiguity. It suggests that Lureen is aware of wishes of Jack other than the one involving the placement of his ashes. It might only reflect a desire to emphasize to Ennis (and to us) that the ashes are what are being referred to, but I don't actually think it's necessary for that. We know it was a very deliberate choice on McMurtry and Ossana's part, since, as you point out, Proulx's original line was sufficiently explanatory.

Another possiblity is that the addition was put in to add more emotional nuance to the moment...note how Lureen's voice becomes more rueful with these closing words. It might just have sounded better with those added words. It certainly is interesting to speculate on why it is there in the film.
Title: Re: "Jacks Wishes" a Line in the movie that really makes me wonder??
Post by: Brown Eyes on February 18, 2008, 09:05:27 pm
The screen writers deliberately added/changed a line that would have read just fine as Annie Proulx wrote it. Still the screen writers changed it but for what reason? What were they implying? Here goes.  Get in touch with his folks, I suppose they'd appreciate it if his wishes was carried out. Now this is where Annie left it, but the screen writers added "About the ashes I mean".  I have always been puzzled about that extra line. What do you folks think or am I just reading to much into it?

I think it's a really good question Ross.  I've always wondered what Lureen could have thought "wishes" could be referencing... if not the ashes (which seem to be the only ostensible subject of the conversation she's having with Ennis at the time).

It always sort of makes me think of Old Man Twist's line about "all of Jack's ideas" that never came to pass.

I think we're meant to sort of wonder a tiny bit about Jack's secrets.  And, I think it's meant to illustrate how many aspects of Jack's life Ennis had little knowledge about... simply because he kept himself so removed from Jack's daily life or his life beyond the camping trips. 

When you think about it, Ennis kept that relationship so confined while Jack was alive, it's truly ironic how much he begins to learn (or get a sense of) after Jack dies.

Title: Re: "Jacks Wishes" a Line in the movie that really makes me wonder??
Post by: Sandy on February 19, 2008, 02:14:38 pm
I have always been puzzled about that extra line. What do you folks think or am I just reading to much into it?

No, I completely agree and I too have thought about this before. 

I don't actually think it's necessary for that....
...Another possiblity is that the addition was put in to add more emotional nuance to the moment...note how Lureen's voice becomes more rueful with these closing words.

I too don't think the line is necessary and I actually read something else entirely into this.  I think she sounds snide.  It's the pause between "wishes was carried out" and "'bout the ashes I mean".  To me, she knew about them and wanted Ennis to know that she knew.  It's the why and the way she says it.  We know that Jack's wish was always to be with Ennis, it's as if she is picking one wish and rubbing it in that he never got the other.  He was there with her until he died. 

It always sort of makes me think of Old Man Twist's line about "all of Jack's ideas" that never came to pass.

Your post isn't clear on what you think the motivation is, but I think that these two lines are incredibly similar.  I am of the belief that OMT was well aware of the relationship between Jack and Ennis, and he too was snide. 

I think we're meant to sort of wonder a tiny bit about Jack's secrets. 

Agreed- he kept his friend's addresses in his head!
Title: Re: "Jacks Wishes" a Line in the movie that really makes me wonder??
Post by: Brown Eyes on February 19, 2008, 02:33:15 pm
I think OMT definitely wanted to make clear to Ennis that he knew about his relationship with Jack.. and he wanted to rub in the facts that (1) Ennis didn't know all there was to know about Jack (i.e. "the other fellow" and the deliberately ambiguous "most of Jack's ideas") and (2) that OMT did know a lot about Jack... more than Ennis expected.  In some ways, I think OMT is trying to make Ennis feel guilty about never coming to help on the ranch.

So, yes, I think OMT is being snide, for sure.

But, I think Lureen is very benevolent on the phone.  Lureen, I feel, is extremely kind to Ennis and it's thanks to her encouragement that Ennis proceeds to go to Lightning Flat and thus find the shirts, etc.  The nicest thing Lureen does on the phone is to let Ennis know that Jack said Brokeback was his favorite place.  She didn't need to say that (especially given the idea that she's just now having a realization about who exactly Ennis is), but she does.  And, I think it shows a kind side to her.

I don't really know what she means about other possible wishes that Jack may have had (beyond the ashes).  But, I don't think she's at all meaning to be snide.  I think, like OMT's comment, it simply goes to show that Ennis doesn't know Jack so well in certain aspects of Jack's daily/family life.



Title: Re: "Jacks Wishes" a Line in the movie that really makes me wonder??
Post by: Sandy on February 19, 2008, 02:42:50 pm
Lureen, I feel, is extremely kind to Ennis and it's thanks to her encouragement that Ennis proceeds to go to Lightning Flat and thus find the shirts, etc.  The nicest thing Lureen does on the phone is to let Ennis know that Jack said Brokeback was his favorite place.  She didn't need to say that (especially given the idea that she's just now having a realization about who exactly Ennis is), but she does.  And, I think it shows a kind side to her.

Oh, absolutely! And she definitely loved Jack enough to help Ennis out in his grief.  But I can't help but feel, and this is motivated by the 'ashes' sentence only, that she did the right thing as opposed to what she actually wanted to do. 
Title: Re: "Jacks Wishes" a Line in the movie that really makes me wonder??
Post by: serious crayons on February 19, 2008, 02:55:16 pm
Oh, absolutely! And she definitely loved Jack enough to help Ennis out in his grief.  But I can't help but feel, and this is motivated by the 'ashes' sentence only, that she did the right thing as opposed to what she actually wanted to do. 

I agree with this. She did the right thing, but there's no reason in the world to expect her to want to enable the person her husband has been in love with, as she has just learned, throughout her entire marriage. She'd have to be superhumanly nice to want to help his lover out. Instead, she's inadvertently nice, or offhandedly nice, or just normal sympathetically nice.

I don't think she's being snide. I think in saying "bout the ashes I mean" she's making, perhaps unwittingly, a distinction between his wishes regarding the ashes and his wishes regarding how he'd have liked to live his life.

Title: Re: "Jacks Wishes" a Line in the movie that really makes me wonder??
Post by: Artiste on February 19, 2008, 03:24:34 pm
May I but in?

I think that the mention of ashes were added, because Lureen is hiding Jack and about Jack!

Maybe?

Hugs!!
Title: Re: "Jacks Wishes" a Line in the movie that really makes me wonder??
Post by: Sandy on February 19, 2008, 03:56:12 pm
I think in saying "bout the ashes I mean" she's making, perhaps unwittingly, a distinction between his wishes regarding the ashes and his wishes regarding how he'd have liked to live his life.

I was really struggling with this thread and (whether Lureen was snide or the statement was said unwittingly) you have said what I was trying to!  She did make a definite distinction, whatever the motive (or lack of).
Title: Re: "Jacks Wishes" a Line in the movie that really makes me wonder??
Post by: RossInIllinois on February 19, 2008, 04:48:04 pm
I was really struggling with this thread and (whether Lureen was snide or the statement was said unwittingly) you have said what I was trying to!  She did make a definite distinction, whatever the motive (or lack of).

Thats exactly what I meant. Its the snide way she puts it almost as if Jack left something to him in a will or something and she is making sure to Ennis all she is giving up is the Twist portion of his ashes.  You certainly get the idea she knows she is talking to "the other Woman" here. I also feel the writers missed an opportunity here to have 16 Y/O Bobby Twist answer the phone and hand it off to his Mother, The actor could have been chosen to look like a carbon copy of Jack with Jack mannerisms,  that would have been a bit chilling. Just picture Ennis in the phone booth dialing we then cut to the Twist phone ringing a hand grabs the phone then we cut to the 16 year old bobby looking just like Jack in a black hat saying Hello? then passing the phone to the nearby Laureen!
Title: Re: "Jacks Wishes" a Line in the movie that really makes me wonder??
Post by: Artiste on October 15, 2008, 06:47:40 pm
Merci  Moremojo!

I love your sentence:
             It certainly invests the moment with more mystery and ambiguity.           

May I wish that you detail more.

Au revoir,
hugs!