Short story - scene placement

[Shuggy]

David Indiana's discovery of the meaning of a line in the film (reported at IMDb BBM) has reminded me of something:

It's just occurred to me why the scene of Jack being abused as a boy by his father occurs where it does in the short story. Ennis remembers it as he's going up the stairs to Jack's bedroom. If he had remembered it before he went to Lightning Flat, he never would have gone.

We don't seem to have a place for discussing the short story...

[fernly]

Hey Shug,
Could you tell us what meaning of which line? (I went back and looked on IMDB and couldn't figure out which post...)

I get your point about Ennis remembering the abuse then, and not sooner, but I hope that Ennis would have gone anyway.  He was certainly accustomed to abusive fathers (growing up with the one he was damned with) and his love and grief for Jack I think would've driven him to Lightning Flat regardless.

It's always broken my heart that the last quoted words we get from Jack in the story are  him telling Ennis about being abused.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I'd be interested in knowing what that post said, too.

I'm not getting why Ennis wouldn't have gone to Lightning Flat if he had remembered about the abuse. The point of the trip was to offer to scatter Jack's ashes up on Brokeback, as Lureen told Ennis Jack wanted.

[YaadPyar]

I think Shuggy's referring to:


He Done The Job....   
 
 by - David-Indiana 4 days ago (Sun Apr 23 2006 22:05:28 ) 
 


I was watching Brokeback Mountain this weekend, and I heard something I never noticed before.

In the flashback scene, when Ennis is telling Jack about the scene his father took him to see when he was a boy, Ennis tells Jack that "For all I know, he done the job".

All these times I have seen this movie, I always thought Ennis meant that the old man had "done the job", meaning "homosexuality".

Then it dawned on me, perhaps Ennis meant that his FATHER "had done the job" meaning his father murdered that old man.

Now I am confused. Does anyone know what Ennis meant by "done the job"?

**********************************************************************
>>He meant his father may have taken part in the murder<<


Can you believe it? All these times I have watched this movie, I had the whole thing backwards! I always thought he meant that Earl "Done the job" of homosexualtiy. I sincerely hope I am NOT the only one who didn't get that.

Now I have to watch this movie again. It puts certain things into a different perspective.

[Shuggy]

Thanks yardpyaar, that's the line, and just as well you remembered because I'd forgotten. Interesting that David didn't at first get that "done the job" meant "done the murder" and thought it meant "done some homosexual things himself" but once a faulty reading gets into your head, it's hard to see an alternative.

I remember when I was small, reading in Arthur Mee's Wonderful Day and misunderstanding a lot of his syrupy stuff. There was a story about a tribal man taken to "civilisation" (and dying of 'civilised" TB, though the story didn't explain that) with a picture of him seeing a Wright-brothers-looking aeroplane, with the comment "the first time he had seen a human being fly." I read "human" as a noun and "being" as a verb, so "fly" had to mean the insect.

Which reminds me
Time flies like an arrow. [It does.]
Fruit flies like a banana. [They do.]
(my addition:) Squash flies like an elephant! [Go on!]

[bbm_stitchbuffyfan]

You know... I've done my share of misleading interpretations in my days of Brokeback viewing...

This is slightly off-topic but why do you think they didn't mention the abuse in the movie? Possibly, a lack of importance? The movie is wonderful without it but I'm curious to see how they would've worked that in.

[TJ]

David Indiana's discovery of the meaning of a line in the film (reported at IMDb BBM) has reminded me of something:

It's just occurred to me why the scene of Jack being abused as a boy by his father occurs where it does in the short story. Ennis remembers it as he's going up the stairs to Jack's bedroom. If he had remembered it before he went to Lightning Flat, he never would have gone.

We don't seem to have a place for discussing the short story...

Here is a quote from the pages of the stand-alone book about that scene:

So now he knew it had been the tire iron. He stood up, said, you bet he'd like to see Jack's room, recalled one of Jack's stories about this old man. Jack was dick-clipped and the old man was not; it bothered the son who had discovered the anatomical disconformity during a hard scene. He had been about three or four, he said, always late getting to the toilet, struggling with buttons, the seat, the height of the thing and often as not left the surroundings sprinkled down. The old man blew up about it and this one time worked into a crazy rage. "Christ, he licked the stuffin out a me, knocked me down on the bathroom floor, whipped me with his belt. I thought he was killin me. Then he says, 'You want a know what it's like with piss all over the place? I'll learn you,' and he pulls it out and lets go all over me, soaked me, then he throws a towel at me and makes me mop up the floor, take my clothes off and warsh them in the bathtub, warsh out the towel, I'm bawlin and blubberin. But while he was hosin me down I seen he had some extra material that I was missin. I seen they'd cut me different like you'd crop a ear or scorch a brand. No way to get it right with him after that."

Ennis had that memory flashback when he heard Jack's father speak the 2nd time after Mrs. Twist invited Ennis to go upstairs to see Jack's room.

I like the book version better where Mrs. Twist interrupted her husband during his speech and that was like she was not going to agree with anything her husband said about Jack. To some of us who read the book, we get the feeling that what Mr. Twist said in response to Jack's ashes NOT being given to Ennis (to take to Brokeback Mountain) was said that way because there weren't any to begin with. And, Mrs. Twist, being a Pentecostal, refused to lie and changed the subject so that she would not have to say anything about the scheme. I say "lie" because even Ang Lee said in an interview that Lureen was lying to Ennis when he called her.

[Shuggy]

It's just occurred to me why the scene of Jack being abused as a boy by his father occurs where it does in the short story. Ennis remembers it as he's going up the stairs to Jack's bedroom. If he had remembered it before he went to Lightning Flat, he never would have gone.

We don't seem to have a place for discussing the short story...

Here is a quote from the pages of the stand-alone book about that scene:

So now he knew it had been the tire iron. He stood up, said, you bet he'd like to see Jack's room, recalled one of Jack's stories about this old man. Jack was dick-clipped and the old man was not; it bothered the son who had discovered the anatomical disconformity during a hard scene. He had been about three or four, he said, always late getting to the toilet, struggling with buttons, the seat, the height of the thing and often as not left the surroundings sprinkled down. The old man blew up about it and this one time worked into a crazy rage. "Christ, he licked the stuffin out a me, knocked me down on the bathroom floor, whipped me with his belt. I thought he was killin me. Then he says, 'You want a know what it's like with piss all over the place? I'll learn you,' and he pulls it out and lets go all over me, soaked me, then he throws a towel at me and makes me mop up the floor, take my clothes off and warsh them in the bathtub, warsh out the towel, I'm bawlin and blubberin. But while he was hosin me down I seen he had some extra material that I was missin. I seen they'd cut me different like you'd crop a ear or scorch a brand. No way to get it right with him after that."

While it would have been excellent symmetry to have shown that Jack had been abused as Ennis had, it would have interrupted the flow to have put that scene there, and it would have been desperately difficult to get from Ennis's recollection into Jack's thoughts. It would also have been very hard to have conveyed the meaning of the scene without showing a) a man's penis b) a boy's penis c) pissing, all of which would have bumped the film into R territory.

One way to get around that would be to have shown Jack telling the story to Ennis earlier, possibly with a flashback of Jack's then, which wouldn't have had to be so explicit since Jack could explain it (just as we heard Ennis explaining his flashback), and then have Ennis pass the bathroom (upstairs?) and HEAR some of that scene in flashback, though it would still be a problem how Ennis concluded from that that it was the tyre iron.

[TJ]

While it would have been excellent symmetry to have shown that Jack had been abused as Ennis had, it would have interrupted the flow to have put that scene there, and it would have been desperately difficult to get from Ennis's recollection into Jack's thoughts. It would also have been very hard to have conveyed the meaning of the scene without showing a) a man's penis b) a boy's penis c) pissing, all of which would have bumped the film into R territory.

One way to get around that would be to have shown Jack telling the story to Ennis earlier, possibly with a flashback of Jack's then, which wouldn't have had to be so explicit since Jack could explain it (just as we heard Ennis explaining his flashback), and then have Ennis pass the bathroom (upstairs?) and HEAR some of that scene in flashback, though it would still be a problem how Ennis concluded from that that it was the tyre iron.

I agree that the screen writers could have chosen an earlier time in the movie with Jack was with Ennis  and Jack told him about his father pissing on him. In an earlier scene, it could have been more detailed; but, when Ennis had that memory in the book, they could have a quick short flashback by Ennis remembering that just before he went up the stairs to Jack's room.

In the book (that's what I call the original published in book form short story), Annie Proulx described the 2-story house as having only 4 rooms, two down and two up. And since Jack was almost always "late" getting to the bathroom, more than likely the bathroom was downstairs as an add-on to the house. I have seen houses made like that. (My family did live in a house like that in the country but, it did not have an indoor bathroom, only an outdoor toilet.)

Another reason for the bathroom to be on the ground level was that it would have been cheaper to use less plumbing and since Jack's bedroom was tiny, more than likely the upstairs bedrooms were more likely attic bedrooms. Here in Oklahoma, USA, we have referred to houses with attic bedrooms above the ground floor as 2-story houses, even the one we lived in.

In the USA, the movie was given an R rating. Adding the pissing scene, with Jack talking about it would not changed the rating which it was given. They could have done that without actually showing Mr. Twist's uncircumcised penis, too. Jack could have just done a voice-over of the telling of it. The movied did not actually show Ennis and Jack having sexual intercourse; because, you really don't see a penis in the movie (other from a distance in then skinny-dippin' scene).

Many things from the original story were ignored by the screenplay writers which I think were important to the story. Two of them were the fact that Ennis drove his own truck to Aguirre's office in Signal (the place where K. E., his brother, lived) and the fact that the trailer where Ennis tacked the postcard and hung the shirts on the trailer wall was at the Signal, Wyoming Stoutamire ranch. The real story begins with Ennis getting ready to move off the ranch because it is being sold and the the narrator flashes back to Ennis reporting to work at Aguirre's office in Signal, to bring the reader up to date as to why Ennis had the dream and why he had the shirts.

[Shuggy]

It seems to me that the screenwriters drop a hint towards Jack's abuse scene when he says, much earlier "Never could do anthing right by him, anyhow" more or less.

[Jeff Wrangler]

It seems to me that the screenwriters drop a hint towards Jack's abuse scene when he says, much earlier "Never could do anthing right by him, anyhow" more or less.

If nothing else, at least between that line and Jack's telling Ennis that his father had never come to watch him ride bulls in the rodeo, we know that Jack and his father did not have a good relationship. Perhaps the film makers felt that was sufficient.

It interests me, though, to think that the action of Ennis's father in practically forcing his two little boys to view the desecrated body of the murdered rancher would probably also be taken as "abuse" today. So you can say that both our cowboys had abusive fathers.

[maggiesmommy GayLee]

something resonated with me about the scene with Ennis and his brother and the faceless father taking them up to see the rancher...

i have a grandson who is a twin..they are like night and day..one is the "jock" mr cool...(they are 13) "manly man" stuff...the other is "different"..more feminine, gentle, extremely intellegent and just a lovley boy...we are very close...but the differences in them is very obvious....
now, given the fact that Ennis' father was a pure redneck homophobe...do you think maybe Ennis, as a child, was "different" like that...becasue it is my firm belief that you are BORN gay just like you are born with green eyes...and maybe his dad saw that in him, and took the kids up there to scare Ennis "straight" so to speak?? notice how his huge hands are on their small necks..he is squeezing their necks, and it looks to me like a threat, that's what will happen to you if.....you can feel all the unsaid things in that scene and i felt afraid for Ennis

[TJ]

Forgive me if I am repeating myself here.

In the book, when Ennis is talking about his brother and sister and he is with Jack up on Brokeback Mountain, he says his sister was married and lived in Casper. But, he only said that his brother was in Signal.

I am a middle son. My older brother, Lewis, was more like an Ennis in a way in that he did get married after he was 23 years old.

Lewis married the only gal that he had ever dated and he was already 23 when he met her when he was going to automotive school in another state (the rest of the family was in Oklahoma). It would be too off-topic to go into detail in regard to what my late mother thought about how he got hooked up with her in the first place.

Up until that time, it seemed that Lewis took every opportunity possible when it came to sexual contact with guys. We have a cousin, Edwin, who is the elder son of Dad's brother who was 6 months older than Lewis. When we would go out to the uncle's, Edwin and Lewis very often would take off to a place on the property where the folks could not see them so that they could get their hands on each other. After Lewis was 18 years old, he lived at the uncle's a number of times and he slept in the very same bed as Edwin. My older brother passed away in Sept. '88 a few days after his 48th birthday. He was born with heart problems.

Unlike my brother, I dated girls and women when I was in the closet; and did so until after I was 35 years old.

When I was teaching in a suburb of Joplin, MO, there was an identical set of twins which were in the high school and attended the same independent Pentecostal church that I did. While they were identical in looks, one was more interested in sports and the other in music. But, both of the were equally talented when it came to singing. Both of them went to college and after they were graduated, one became a high school PE teacher/coach and the other became a piano teacher, giving private lessons.

The artistic literary license taken by the screenplay writers and by Ang Lee sometimes gets completely away from various parts of Annie Proulx's original story.