"Did your foks run you off?"

[twistedude]

I thought it was a remarkably interesting question, but probably easily explained. There were, i thought, folks so poor that when their children reached a certain age, they "ran them off." But a friend of mine said "Parents have been running their kids off since there have been parents and kids, because they're poor, because they don't like the kids, because they didn't want any to begin with,  because they're bored with them, because they're sick of the concept of kids" My friend is more cynical than I.

[TJ]

Jack never said, "Your folks run you off?" in the book. But, Jack, himself in 1963, "was crazy to be somewhere, anywhere else than Lightning Flat."

I can imagine that if Ennis's parents had not had that accident, he could have still been working on his father's ranch at 19 years of age.

Where Annie Proulx states facts in the narrative in certain locations, those "facts" show up in dialog days, months and even years later in the movie.

[Penthesilea]

Parents have been running their kids off since there have been parents and kids, because they're poor, because they don't like the kids, because they didn't want any to begin with,  because they're bored with them, because they're sick of the concept of kids" My friend is more cynical than I.

Your friend is right. Sadly. I worked with children from "troubled families". Abandoned children, abused children, children who were uncared-for, children who were beaten up by their parents, children who rarely ever got a warm meal at home, children who were allowed to play with their Christmas "presents" for only one day, then the father sent them back to get his money back. And on and on...
And I had only the "less bad" cases. Because all the children still lived in their families (or lived again in their families after the parents decided to give it another shot) and were not given to the youth welfare office. The really, really bad and worst cases are the ones you see when working at the youth welfare office or a children's home.

A schoolmate of mine came home from a trip with the school and found all his personal possessions outside the flat in some bags and suitcases. Literally. His single-mother had decided to move in with her boyfriend during my schoolfriend's vacation. He was 16 then.
The boyfriend of my cousin had to move out when he was 18, too. Same story: his single-mother rent a new flat together with her boyfriend and cancelled the old flat. No more room for him. The parents of his girlfriend (my aunt and uncle) took him in. They also took in a (female) friend of their other daughter for some months, who was Turkish and had bad trouble with their strict Muslim parents.

Such things happen far more often than you may think. So sad.

[ednbarby]

The first time I saw the movie, I thought Jack was saying it as if implying his folks (or one of them) had run him off because he was gay and was asking Ennis as if to feel him out on the same subject.  But I was reading too much into it, probably - most likely he was referring to being run off because they were too poor to continue supporting him, as you all have said.

Oh, well.  It was an interesting dream while it lasted. 

[David]

Barb,  I was thinking the same thing!      Either that Jack was asking Ennis if he was run off by his folks, perhaps fishing for info that Ennis was Gay.

Or perhaps Old Man Twist ran Jack off the ranch with his constant belittling of him.

[RouxB]

I never saw it that way. But I don't see that either of them were that aware or in touch with their sexuality at that point in time. Why at that first meeting would Jack assume that Ennis was gay and his parents kicked him out for that? Ennis has spoken 5 words up to this point and won't even make eye contact. I think there is alot of projection of motive based on what we know about the entire story rather than the story (movie) up to that particular time.

 

[TJ]

Let's put it this way: There is lots of dialog in the movie which is not supported by Annie Proulx's original story.

In the book, Ennis and Jack shake hand INSIDE Aguirre's trailer office. In the movie, they don't even do that until the leave the office.

I think the line of dialog is funny; but, when it comes to the telling of Ennis's folks' vehicle accident, the story introduces that when Annie Proulx describes his situation just before Jack drives up in his truck.

[David]

Very true.   Larry McMurtry says on the DVD interview that the screenplay was twice as long as the original book.   Still I am amazed that 98% of the original dialog is woven into the movie.  I can see why a few things were moved around so they could film better.

[TJ]

One of thesed days I am going to take a break from the internet and watch the DVD and copy down all of the dialog that is in the movie.

There is a lot of movie dialog which is close to what is in the movie; but, even then, a great deal of that is not the same place as in the book and not even in the same scene as the book.

Some of the dialog that is said up in the mountains on the 2nd night of the 1967 reunion was actually said in the Motel Siesta in Riverton the night before. There is nothing in the book about what was actually said on the 2nd night. In fact, there is nothing in the book to state they actually went camping for a few days; Jack only suggested that they do that and when Ennis hears the phone ring in the next room, he picks up the phone in their motel room.

The only time that Lureen talks in the original short story is when Ennis talks to her own the phone.

[moremojo]

Even though Ennis was not run off by his parents (and may not have been, had they lived), he was essentially run off by his siblings, and seems to have little if any relationship with them for the remainder of the story.

[TJ]

The following is based on my own impressions of the original story as contrasted with the movie. Don't consider me to be a know-it-all. I just know a lot about a lot of things. Before I got my head bashed, I was a whiz at trivia. When it came to quiz shows like "Jeopardy," most of the time, I not only knew the question for the answer on the board; I also knew more about the topic, too.

The initials "AP" here refer to Annie Proulx who wrote the original short story.

Probably repeating myself ad infinitum, but, in the way that I understand Annie Proulx's original story, Ennis Del Mar's older married sister lived in Casper and his brother, K. E., lived in Signal, Wyoming in May 1963.

So, their sister moved to another part of the state and K. E. was living IN or NEAR the same town or wide place in the road where Aguirre's trailer was.

So, why did the screenplay writers/movie script people have Jack ask that somewhat silly question in the movie?

I really believe that the reason that Ennis knew about where to apply for the job in the first place was that it was a local job and if you really know how the job was set up, Aguirre was the foreman (in the AP version) in charge of job assignments. Both of the guys were already hired before they showed up at Aguirre's place.

The marital status of K. E. is not mentioned by AP. He might not have been "the (heterosexual) marryin' kind," and he might have been homosexual in his sexual orientation.

In the end of the AP story, Ennis Del Mar was "living" IN a drafty trailer on the Stoutamire ranch at Signal (or at least "Signal, Wyoming" was in the mailing address). He wasn't living in a trailer house parked in a rural trailer park as in the movie scenes.

[twistedude]

TJ: I wish you wouildn't set the short story up against the movie so much. They are two different works of art. And the screenplay is yet a different woirk of art from the movie.

It never occurred to me that either Ennis or Jack were "run off," nor Ennis's brother. But that both were familiar with the concept of kids being "run off" by their parents, which, as the third poster suggested, was a not-uncommon thing.

When Ennis used the phrase "I was." when Jack asks him "You from ranch people?" it is interesting that the FIRST thing that occurs to Jack is that Ennis may have been run off, rather than the--seemingly more logical assumption--that his parents had died. Maybe death is not so common a thought among 19-year-olds, and maybe Jack has sometimes felt like he was being run off by the anger of his father--about whom  he has bad things to say(can't please my old man no way; always kept his secrets to himself,... never once came to see me ride)..the screenplay has even cut the sentence in which Jack says his dad "put him on the woolies' when he was a kid), But he still refers to his home as "my daddy's place," where he's going to give  a hand threough the winter. 

I just find it..interesting.

AP and AL had a big runsaround about the motel--first camp scenes, before she said he could shift a lot of stuff to this new scene. She apparently liiked the results. I wonder if she ever got over the removal of all the lines which refer to sex in her story which didn't make it to the movie..

[TJ]

What is really odd is that I have seen so many conflicting versions of how Annie Proulx was or was not involved with the actual movie itself. And some of the conflict comes from Annie Proulx's own essays, print media interviews and live interviews.

I had read on her website that she argued for the keeping of the dialog of the story to remain intact; but, she was not at all involved with the movie when it was being shot.

http://www.annieproulx.com/brokebackfaq.html

How did you feel on first seeing the film?

Knocked for a loop. I had no idea of what to expect as I had had no input into the making of the film beyond some conversation with Diana Ossana and Larry McMurtry when they were writing the screenplay, and a letter to Focus president James Schamus and Ang Lee begging them to keep the language of the story intact. I did not visit the set. I feared the landscape on which the story rests would be lost, that sentimentality would creep in, that explicit sexual content would be watered down. None of that happened. The film is huge and powerful. I may be the first writer in America to have a piece of writing make its way to the screen whole and entire. And, when I saw the film for the first time, I was astonished that the characters of Jack and Ennis came surging into my mind again, for (hence the lie in Missouri Review ) I thought I had successfully banished them over the years. Wrong.

[Rayn]

TJ: I wish you wouildn't set the short story up against the movie so much. They are two different works of art. And the screenplay is yet a different woirk of art from the movie.

Yes, that's correct, Julie01, and I second that wish.  The story in the book is excellent and so is the movie. There is no comparative form for excellence.  Now, a person may prefer one to the other, but that's preference, not an assessment of excellence.

Rayn

[TJ]

If I had NEVER read the book, I would say that the movie is a great movie with screenplay/script written by heterosexuals who don't know as much about homosexuals as they think they do. The added heterosexual stuff and the extra women came from Larry McMurtry and he admitted it in a Time Magazine interview.

But, Annie Proulx's approach to the story is from that of a woman who admits to be heterosexual and her writing is an attempt to understand what a homosexual man or men in Wyoming would feel and go through while in denial of his or their sexual orientation.

[serious crayons]

Back to Barb and David's fascinating idea that Jack asked Ennis if his folks ran him off because he was gay. I never thought that at all; I guess I just assumed he wondered why Ennis was far from home looking for work at 19, or noticed Ennis looked broke, or maybe was just making conversation. Those all make sense.

But I really like the idea that Jack was fishing for info! Maybe it was wishful thinking at that point on Jack's part, but I can imagine him searching for clues, and that would be a good subtle way to go about it.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Tell you what, I've never suspected any particularly deep motive behind Jack's question, any particular probing to try find out if Ennis is gay. It's just always seemed to me to be a not unnatural response to Ennis's own peculiar statement:

(I'm adding the italics here)

Jack: You from ranch people?

Ennis: I was.

Jack: Your folks run you off?

Even knowing that Ennis's parents are dead, it's always struck me as peculiar for him to say that he was from ranch people. Even though his parents are dead, his background hasn't changed. He still is from a ranching background.

TJ: I wish you wouildn't set the short story up against the movie so much. They are two different works of art. And the screenplay is yet a different woirk of art from the movie.

This, I know, is where I part company from of lot of folks. I understand that the story and the film are two separate works of art, and I intend no disrespect to anyone else's opinion, but the film wasn't created in a vacuum. In the end it still derives from the short story. I find it endlessly fascinating to compare the two, and I find it can be useful to refer to the story in places where I might find it difficult to understand what the filmmakers were trying to say in a particular scene.

I look at "everything Brokeback" as one phenomenon, not several phenomena, because this is the approach that works for me. My appreciation for the accomplishment of the filmmakers is increased when I look at what was added to "open up" the story. And I need the published screenplay because I find it unwise in discussion to trust my memory alone. (Noting where the film differs from the published screenplay is something else that I find fascinating.)

I've also seen people--nobody here, thankfully--go off in directions that are just plain wrong because they insisted on looking at the film in a vacuum, so to speak: "Jack wasn't trying to initiate sex that first time in the tent. He just wanted to snuggle up because it was cold" (I'm paraphrasing). Well, no. Jack was attempting something sexual because that's the way the story was written, and so that's the way the movie was written.

[RouxB]

So true, Jeff, and I agree that the story and movie are pieces of a whole. I think maybe what the other's mean-and sorry if I'm putting words in anyones mouth- is that when the discussion is about an element that is specific to the movie, discussion of the story doesn't quite apply.

I am a big fan and lover of the story, and love threads specific to that, and also the compare/contrast thoughts. I think the movie is very faithful to the story-with some obvious ehancements and diversions and slight-to-pronounced character interpretations. What is most important, the essence of the story-the sparseness, non-sentimentality and overall tone is completely unchanged. Maybe there should be a topic devoted to the written word.

 

Had to edit-it pays to proof before hitting that send button!

[Jeff Wrangler]

So true, Jeff, and I agree that the story and movie are pieces of a whole. I think what maybe the other's mean-and sorry if I'm putting words in anyone's mouth- is that when the discussion is about an element that is specific to the movie, discussion of the story don't quit apply.

Now, that makes perfect sense, RouxB!

And if I misunderstood the intent of any previous posts--or came off more dogmatic than I intended to in my last post--my apologies!

[TJ]

Ennis Del Mar is/was FROM ranch people because his father was a rancher! And, due to the fact that until the ranch finally folded due to financial reasons, Ennis was still living with ranch people, his brother, K.E., and sister who later got married and moved to Casper. (In the movie section where the question was brought up, making it jibe with the Annie Proulx story, K. E. was living in Signal when Jack asked that. Annie Proulx NEVER gave the marital status of K.E. in her short story. I think that K. E. probably had the same sexual orientation as Ennis and decided not to get married at all. Of course, in literature, that is what is called "an argument from silence" since we don't have proof of that. McMurtry and/or Ossana decided that K. E. should be married in their own screenplay adaptation of the story.)

Jack Twist, a rodeo bull-rider with not much to prove that he was good at it, is/was from ranch people because his father was also a rancher.

I, Joe Allen Doty, am from farm people because my father was a farmer before he met my mother and his father had been a farmer, too (my father and grandfather lived on the same farm in the late 1930s). But, after being graduated from college, I was never involved in farm work again.

[RouxB]

No apolgies due anyone!

 

[TJ]

In regard to my comments about the movie and the screenplay writers, Larry McMurtry, especially, please read what is posted elsewhere in this link:

http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php?topic=1382.0

[serious crayons]

Tell you what, I've never suspected any particularly deep motive behind Jack's question, any particular probing to try find out if Ennis is gay. It's just always seemed to me to be a not unnatural response to Ennis's own peculiar statement:

(I'm adding the italics here)

Jack: You from ranch people?

Ennis: I was.

Jack: Your folks run you off?

Even knowing that Ennis's parents are dead, it's always struck me as peculiar for him to say that he was from ranch people. Even though his parents are dead, his background hasn't changed. He still is from a ranching background.

Well, we know Ennis wasn't a stickler for perfect grammar. I figured by "was," he meant until the ranch people in question died.

However, I interpreted Jack's line the same way you did -- asking if they ran Ennis off because Ennis puts the connection in past tense. But I always think there's room in this movie for a margin of possibility regarding almost any line, perhaps especially Jack's. He's a sly one.

[Rayn]

If I had NEVER read the book, I would say that the movie is a great movie with screenplay/script written by heterosexuals who don't know as much about homosexuals as they think they do. The added heterosexual stuff and the extra women came from Larry McMurtry and he admitted it in a Time Magazine interview.

But, Annie Proulx's approach to the story is from that of a woman who admits to be heterosexual and her writing is an attempt to understand what a homosexual man or men in Wyoming would feel and go through while in denial of his or their sexual orientation.

Excellent post TJ and thanks very much for the info on McMurtry in Time.   Annie is a wonder, isn't she?  A true artist and adventurous thinker.

Rayn

[TJ]

Excellent post TJ and thanks very much for the info on McMurtry in Time.   Annie is a wonder, isn't she?  A true artist and adventurous thinker.

Rayn

Speaking here as a somewhat unique Pentecostal mystic, according to what I have read and heard how some unknown force wanted her to write the story of Ennis Del Mar and his relationship with Jack Twist, I think that the Divine Creator Spirit in whom I believe chose her to write her original short story.

While I have not read more than a few pages of any of Annie Proulx's other published books, I feel that the way that she wote the narrative of Brokeback Mountain was spiritually created for that story alone. It seems to be unique for the short story. (Mind you, generically speaking, I really don't know that much about her other writing style or if she has written other things using the same literary techniques.)

I haven't read a novel in quite a while to to a vision and concentration problem. A local librarian suggest that I get books on tape or CD through a special local program; but, even then, I might have to take notes to remember what I had heard before.  Annie Proulx's short story when printed out in plain text on my printer does not even take 8 pages.

[SFEnnisSF]

In the movie, not referencing the story at all:

I find it interesting that Jack get's a little excited when he asks "You're folks run you off?", like his 'ears prick up a bit'.  And then when Ennis starts to tell the story of what happened to his parents, Jack has a 'disappointed' look on his face...

Just my own observations..... 

[RouxB]

Now-in the movie-I see the perking up as interest. Jack going like "whoa-you folks run you off???!) and when Ennis gives the answer Jack is empathetic, not disappointed-"shit, that's hard"

I can't wait for June 12th!!!

 

[twistedude]

It had never occurred to me before that ENNIS'S original statement, ("I was") was itself peculiar, but of course it was. Perhaps he thought, incorrectly, that his parents being dead made the "was' appropriate, or perhaps he was trying to include mor inofrmation in the sentence than the words would bear.  I think when he says, "Friend, that's more words than I've spoke in a year," he was p[robably telling the truth.  His use of language improves considerably after more exposure to Jack.  i.e.: "Fuck Aguirre? Whart if we have to work for him again, huh? We gotta stick this out, Jack."  The more at ease he becomes with Jack, the better he speaks.  The mroe at ease with someone you are,m the more you speak; the more you speak, the better you speak.

Huh?