Author Topic: "Did your foks run you off?"  (Read 10655 times)

TJ

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Re: "Did your foks run you off?"
« Reply #10 on: May 11, 2006, 05:05:47 pm »
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.
« Last Edit: May 11, 2006, 05:13:12 pm by TJ »

Offline twistedude

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Re: "Did your foks run you off?"
« Reply #11 on: May 11, 2006, 09:53:46 pm »
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..

"We're each of us alone, to be sure. What can you do but hold your hand out in the dark?" --"Nine Lives," by Ursula K. Le Guin, from The Wind's Twelve Quarters

TJ

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Re: "Did your foks run you off?"
« Reply #12 on: May 11, 2006, 10:17:00 pm »
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

Quote
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.

Offline Rayn

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Re: "Did your foks run you off?"
« Reply #13 on: May 12, 2006, 12:02:52 pm »
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

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Re: "Did your foks run you off?"
« Reply #14 on: May 12, 2006, 10:09:08 pm »
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.

« Last Edit: May 13, 2006, 05:51:39 pm by TJ »

Offline serious crayons

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Re: "Did your foks run you off?"
« Reply #15 on: May 13, 2006, 12:23:54 am »
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.


Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: "Did your foks run you off?"
« Reply #16 on: May 13, 2006, 11:21:02 am »
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.

Quote
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.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline RouxB

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Re: "Did your foks run you off?"
« Reply #17 on: May 13, 2006, 12:32:31 pm »
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.

 O0

Had to edit-it pays to proof before hitting that send button!
« Last Edit: May 13, 2006, 03:46:07 pm by RouxB »

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Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: "Did your foks run you off?"
« Reply #18 on: May 13, 2006, 03:30:18 pm »
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!
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

TJ

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Re: "Did your foks run you off?"
« Reply #19 on: May 13, 2006, 03:47:47 pm »
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.