Timeline for the last scenes

[Penthesilea]

Hi,

this topic as been tangent to in the thread called "Black hats, white hats". Since it is ot over there, I opened new topic here 

I still see it as Ennis going directly from the bus station/diner to the post office to the phone booth all on the same day.  When you watched it again, Katherine, did you get this sense, too?  I can see where he'd go to Lightning Flat on a different day - he'd have to look up the Twists and arrange a visit with them beforehand after all.  But those three other things seem to take place in succession to me in the movie, anyway.

Barb, I've always assumed they happened on different days. Either of us could be right, I guess (let's check to see if the shirt under the jacket changes to find out for sure!).

I think the last scenes happen not only on different days, but they are weeks or even months apart from another. With one exception: receiving the postcard and the phone-call. I'm very sure they both happen on the same day, directly in a row. Ennis went right to the phone box after reading the card. He couldn't believe it (and didn't want to believe it) but was horrified by the feeling it is true. He needed to have certainty that it happened and needed to know what had happened. He could not have waited for days to call Lureen, no way.
I can't think of Ennis reacting otherwise but directly call Lureen as soon as he read the card.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editing the above written:
I wanted to know it for sure and checked the screencaps at heathbaby.com

I was right. Ennis wears the same shirt when receiving the postcard and when calling Lureen. He wears a different one in the pie scene (which is shown directly before) and a different one at the Twist home scene  (which is shown directly afterwards).

So my personal view of the time-line for the last scenes is:
pie scene - a couple of weeks, maybe more (one or two months) - receiving the postcard - immediately followed by the phone call - couple of days or weeks (not a long time) - Ennis at Twists' home - some months (a longer time now, nearly one year later because it has to be before June 1984) - trailer scene with Alma Jr and "Jack, I swear".

[Aussie Chris]

So my personal view of the time-line for the last scenes is:
pie scene - a couple of weeks, maybe more (one or two months) - receiving the postcard - immediately followed by the phone call - couple of days or weeks (not a long time) - Ennis at Twists' home - some months (a longer time now, nearly one year later because it has to be before June 1984) - trailer scene with Alma Jr and "Jack, I swear".

Ooooh, this is interesting!  I confess I never thought about it, so based on this Penthesilea, I think this sounds about right.  Is there any contention about this though?  Anyone have different ideas that also make sense and can be explained?

[Ellemeno]

Here's what I think:
Pie scene: Ennis is very down and depressed.  (One poster here suggests it's the day Jack, unbeknownst to Ennis, is killed.)
Pick up the mail scene: enough time has passed that Ennis has a kind of skip in his step as he leaves the post office.  He's feeling pretty good - til he reads the postcard.
He goes straight to the phone booth across the street and calls Lureen right away.  Soon after (how soon, we don't know) he makes a date by phone or maybe postcard to go see Jack's parents.  Mrs. Twist is expecting him when she comes out the door.

[David]

The Pie scene to me is set later in the day.   Maybe supper time even.   It looks like it is geting dark out     

Ennis no doubt walked across the street to the phone booth after he got the postcard back.   We clearly see the phone booth in the background.

I think Ennis went up to the Twist Ranch as soon as possible.   I sure as hell would have.

[serious crayons]

Here's mine:

Pie: Some time after the lake argument, maybe a few weeks or a month, because Cassie has been trying for a while to get hold of Ennis. Not multiple months, because if so Cassie's conversation would be slightly different and because Ennis is so depressed, as if still dwelling on the argument. On the other hand, Jack may already be dead, based on Ennis already wearing his gray "mourning" jacket, which I realize is a pretty hypothetical basis for a definitive answer on the timeline. It could just be that Jack is already doomed, but not dead.

Postcard: Could be quite a while after the pie scene, because it must be getting a closer to their November rendezvous if he's ready to set an exact date. Maybe August or September?

Phone booth: The day of the postcard, or the next day. He wouldn't have waited long, but to me, he doesn't seem as intensely shocked or emotional as he would if he'd just finished reading the postcard. And I think it would take him a little while to get up the resolve to call Lureen. Maybe he went through a torturous night and decided that he'd call the next day. Is the phone booth the same one in both scenes?

Twist ranch: A few days or at most a week after the phone call. He wouldn't have waited around long with the fate of the ashes undetermined.

Alma Jr.: Maybe a month or two later. He's had time to move and settle into his trailer, and it looks autumnal outside. But his grief still seems pretty close to the surface. So I'd say it's that same fall, maybe getting close to the rendezvous that never happened.

[MaineWriter]

Here's my take:

Lake: May, 1983

Pie: one week after the lake scene. Ennis is still depressed. He was at the lake for a week, now home for a week--Cassie hasn't seen him for two weeks and has figured out she got dumped by hasn't gotten over it yet.

Postcard: October, 1983. He sent it in September to plan the November trip (waited until August was over since they didn't have an August get together). The way things work in the postal service, it took a few weeks for the card to get returned.

Phone call: same day as the postcard.

Twist visit: November, 1983. Took awhile for Ennis to get in touch with them, make the arrangements and find a day he could take off for work. By November, ranch operations are at a lull.

Junior visit: April 1984, about 6 weeks before the wedding

[David]

I agree Leslie.   That's how I see it too.   Besides, we know that Ennis had that time off in November anyways.   

[ednbarby]

I agree with you, too, Leslie.

So now we're left to wonder what the timeframe was for Jack after the lake.

Following the reasoning of Ennis' switch of jacket colors from brown to gray as symbolizing his subconscious mourning for Jack's literal death, I have a new theory for what happened to Jack.

It's been posited in the past that Jack gave up on ever being with Ennis openly that last day together.  I agree with that.  But does it follow that he went back to Childress and took up openly with Randall, breaking up both their marriages, instead?  Jack had 14 hours to think on his way back home.  And here's what my mind's eye pictures him deciding.  No way Randall can fill the void Ennis has left in his life.  And it's not fair to do to Randall what he's had done to him for the last 20 years, which is not equally return his love.  He knows he doesn't love Randall, or at least he doesn't enough.  So it's best to cut him loose.  When he gets back, he does just that.  A week or two goes by.  He's depressed.  He can't have Ennis the way he wants, and he's just broken up with a good catch that he realizes he just doesn't love enough.  He has a particularly shitty day at the office, a big blow-out with Lureen, and heads to the local bar.  He starts drinking shots of whiskey.  He sees a man in a white hat looking at him from across the bar.  He looks familiar...  Oh, yeah - it's that mechanic from that shop down by Roy's place.  What's he lookin' at?  I've seen him lookin' at me like that before.  Does he want me to come over?  He *is* kinda smiling...  How ya doin'?  Bill, ain't it?  Whatcha drinkin', Bill?  JD?  Good choice.  Lemme buy ya your next one, an' a chaser too.  You're the one that worked on my pickup about a month ago, ain't ya?  Been runnin' like a top ever since.  I been meanin' to thank ya...

[TJ]

I don't remember where it was posted, either here on BetterMost Forums or on some other online forum board; but, the timeline I saw based on the final screenplay for the movie seemed to have Ennis going to the Twist Place in the next year AFTER Ennis talked to Lureen on the Phone.  Because Jack's boyhood bedroom was hot on the Twist ranch at Lightning Flat (one of the reasons Ennis opened the window in the room), it could not have been in the Fall of the same year unless there had been a heat wave in NE Wyoming on the Central Plains.

(An aside here, in the AP story, the "relationship" which Ennis had with woman who worked part-time in the Wolf Ears bar in Signal was before May 1983 when the guys were together last.)

[delalluvia]

Interestingly, and messed up as usual, the screenplay says their last meeting took place in 1981, the last postcard and the trip to the Twists in 1982.

[TJ]

Interestingly, and messed up as usual, the screenplay says their last meeting took place in 1981, the last postcard and the trip to the Twists in 1982.

Well, for some odd reason, it was quite a while after Ennis sent the postcard about the November (7) meeting before he got the card returned.

And, I think it was actually a hot Wyoming summer when Ennis finally ended up a Lightning Flat. That's why Annie Proulx said that Jack's boyhood bedroom was tiny and hot.

From Page 49 of the paperback book -----

The old man spoke angrily. "I can't get no help out here. Jack used a say, 'Ennis del Mar,' he used a say, 'I'm goin a bring him up here one a these days and we'll lick this damn ranch into shape.' He had some half-baked idea the two a you was goin a move up here, build a log cabin and help me run this ranch and bring it up. Then, this spring he's got another one's goin a come up here with him and build a place and help run the ranch, some ranch neighbor a his from down in Texas. He's goin a split up with his wife and come back here. So he says. But like most a Jack's ideas it never come to pass."

IMO, the "this spring" does not refer to the spring month that Ennis last saw Jack, it refers to the spring in the current year.

What Jack's father said makes me believe that Jack was not dead or even in an accident in the first place. And, even according to Ang Lee, Lureen was lying when Ennis talked to her on the phone; and AP wrote that she was polite but cold.

[delalluvia]

The screenplay and movie deviate I think.

In the movie, the last postcard says something like 'November is still looking like the first chance...' or something like that, implying that it is late summer of the same year of their last meeting. 

The John Twist comment 'This spring, he's got another fella..."  That could have been Jack's trip to visit his folks after that last fateful meeting with Ennis.  Jack was hurt and angry and resigned to giving up on any hope of something permanent with Ennis.  He could have easily spoke of Randall to his folks without ever having talked to Randall to see if he was game, the same way he spoke about Ennis to his folks.  It was just Jack's 'talking'.

So that means the last meeting, the postcard and the trip to the Twists all took place in the same year and not over a span of two years like the screenplay states.

[TJ]

Here in Oklahoma when a rural or small town person says "this spring" and it is two seasons later than springtime, he most often means "next spring," as in "next year." That is, unless it really is spring, when he is talking.

[serious crayons]

The John Twist comment 'This spring, he's got another fella..."  That could have been Jack's trip to visit his folks after that last fateful meeting with Ennis.  Jack was hurt and angry and resigned to giving up on any hope of something permanent with Ennis.  He could have easily spoke of Randall to his folks without ever having talked to Randall to see if he was game, the same way he spoke about Ennis to his folks.  It was just Jack's 'talking'.

Good point, Del. Sometimes we all talk as if, since Ennis didn't go for the idea, Jack went back and either did or didn't go off with Randall and they (potentially could have) lived happily ever after. But for all we know, Randall was as reluctant as Ennis. It wouldn't have been a particularly easy decision for anyone, I wouldn't think, back in them days.

[azphil]

Hi, all...........

Sounds like you have some fun and some "larn'n" here, so let a newbie jump in, won't you?

Don't know about the time lines on other events you've been discussing here, but as concerns Ennis' visit to Lightning Flat, I don't think he'd of let any grass (er, make that tumbleweed) grow under his feet after his phonecon with Lureen.  He'd have wanted to make sure that he quickly got to the parents before they'd taken any final action with Jack's cremated remains.

Hey, just a thought.   

[delalluvia]

but as concerns Ennis' visit to Lightning Flat, I don't think he'd of let any grass (er, make that tumbleweed) grow under his feet after his phonecon with Lureen.  He'd have wanted to make sure that he quickly got to the parents before they'd taken any final action with Jack's cremated remains.

Good point azphil.  Is that Arizona lover or Philip of Arizona or something else?

[TJ]

Using the original short story as part of my argument here, since Ennis Del Mar was still working at the Stoutamire Ranch when he called Lureen and the fact that because as he got older, Ennis seems to have become more stable in his work ethic. That's partly why Ennis said that meeting in May was a trade off for August which might have been in Jack's and Ennis's original plans to meet both in May and in August.

IMO, Ennis does not seem to be the type to suddenly drop something and rush off. And, the only time that he suddenly did that was at the reunion in 1967. He was only supposed to take one day off in June 1967, the 24th, from his highway crew job to meet Jack. Ennis was working on a ranch on weekends at the time, too.

Oh, Ennis did get easy-to-quit jobs that he could leave if Jack agreed to meet him somewhere; but, those meetings still had to be planned ahead of time.

[silkncense]

TJ -

I am totally confused by your post:

IMO, the "this spring" does not refer to the spring month that Ennis last saw Jack, it refers to the spring in the current year.

Ennis sent Jack a postcard for November of the year they were at the lake (in the spring).  It was returned 'deceased'  How could it be the following spring that his father is speaking about?  Am I confused, or are you?

Also, I think Jack mentioned the "ranch neighbor' not as something real or something that would  "ever come to pass."  It was said from pain & self defense.  He wasn't going to keep saying "Ennis" - it may have been his father even chided him about all the years he & Ennis failed to come up. 

[TJ]

IN THE BOOK, Jack mentioned the wife of a Texas rancher and the rancher only one time.

If we think that the rancher neighbor that Mr. Twist is talking about, when Ennis goes up to Lightning Flat, is the very same rancher, then our "argument/idea comes from silence," which means we are guessing that.

IMOEO (in my over-educated opinion) as a person who has taken two college course in literary criticism, "Cassie and LaShawn and Randall" never existed.

[serious crayons]

Also, I think Jack mentioned the "ranch neighbor' not as something real or something that would  "ever come to pass."  It was said from pain & self defense.  He wasn't going to keep saying "Ennis" - it may have been his father even chided him about all the years he & Ennis failed to come up. 

Silk, you don't thinking the ranch neighbor was a reference to Randall? Realistic or not, I've always assumed that meant that Jack had given up on Ennis and turned to Randall as a potential co-rancher.

[ednbarby]

Silk, you don't thinking the ranch neighbor was a reference to Randall? Realistic or not, I've always assumed that meant that Jack had given up on Ennis and turned to Randall as a potential co-rancher.

I can see what Silk's saying on this.  Jack had given up on ever running the ranch with Ennis, and had given up on ever having what he wanted with him.  But I can see him bringing up Randall in that way to his Dad more out of self-defense than out of really intending to do it.  I see John as chastising him, like, "What - no more talk about Ennis Del Mar, now?" and him muttering something like, "To hell with Ennis Del Mar.  And anyway, I got another friend wants to come up here, now.  Rancher down Childress.  Sick a his wife like I am..."

[silkncense]

you don't thinking the ranch neighbor was a reference to Randall?

Sorry - wasn't clear.  I do believe that the 'ranch neighbor' is Randall.  I just don't think Jack, in his heart, really wanted to bring Randall to Lightning Flat. 

We know he did not show interest in Randall @ the dance, either @ the table or while on the bench.  I feel he initally saw him only as another "Mexico" type encounter.  Although he may have developed a stronger feeling for him over the approx five years, he still said to Ennis, "Sometimes I miss you so much I can hardly stand it".

I just don't believe, despite the huge disappointment of August (and all the other disappointments through the years), that Jack went from that statement to giving up totally on Ennis & deciding to move Randall in w/ him.    Esp. after Ennis collapsed and Jack, presented with the perfect opportunity (Get the f... off me) instead forced Ennis back into his arms and reassuringly said, "It's alright, s'alright" yet again.

Also, for me, when Jack said, "Damn you Ennis" - it was more of a, 'I was just about to tell you I'd had enough...and you took my resolve.'  Same with the last look.

[serious crayons]

Sorry - wasn't clear.  I do believe that the 'ranch neighbor' is Randall.  I just don't think Jack, in his heart, really wanted to bring Randall to Lightning Flat. 

We know he did not show interest in Randall @ the dance, either @ the table or while on the bench.  I feel he initally saw him only as another "Mexico" type encounter.  Although he may have developed a stronger feeling for him over the approx five years, he still said to Ennis, "Sometimes I miss you so much I can hardly stand it".

I just don't believe, despite the huge disappointment of August (and all the other disappointments through the years), that Jack went from that statement to giving up totally on Ennis & deciding to move Randall in w/ him.    Esp. after Ennis collapsed and Jack, presented with the perfect opportunity (Get the f... off me) instead forced Ennis back into his arms and reassuringly said, "It's alright, s'alright" yet again.

Also, for me, when Jack said, "Damn you Ennis" - it was more of a, 'I was just about to tell you I'd had enough...and you took my resolve.'  Same with the last look.

Oh, I get it. In that case, I agree with everything you say.

[TJ]

The timeline for one of the last editions of the adapted screenplay almost fit what I consider the timeline of Annie Proulx's original story.

I find it quite irritating that avowed heterosexual Larry McMurtry, who brags about women understanding emotion better than men do, had to add a "Cassie" and a "LaShawn" (or Lashawn) to the movie when people who might be them only took up the LIMITED amount of text below in the original story.

Ennis said he'd been putting the blocks to a woman who worked part-time at the Wolf Ears bar in Signal where he was working now for Stoutamire's cow and calf outfit, but it wasn't going anywhere and she had some problems he didn't want. Jack said he'd had a thing going with the wife of a rancher down the road in Childress and for the last few months he'd slank around expecting to get shot by Lureen or the husband, one. Ennis laughed a little and said he probably deserved it.

And, IMO, a guy named "Randall" or whatever does not even need to be in the story. I would rather believe that Jack's "rancher neighbor," whom Mr. Twist talks about at Lightning Flat was a single man who had no ties with any woman.

And using the book's timeline and the way that Annie Proulx writes the story, Jack is physically in the very same shape as when Ennis saw him in May 1963. I just prefer to say that Jack is alive and as well as can be expected due to his being all banged up riding those bulls in rodeos. I just say that Jack in his "Let be, Let be" flash back (which, according to the book, took place after Ennis and Jack were together) decided that while he could not quit loving Ennis Del Mar, he would just move on with his life and find a man who was willing to have a life with him.

And, using the fact that Lureen was lying through her teeth about the accident, bookwise, along with the fact that Ennis NEVER saw any container with ashes in them when he did go to Lightning Flat (not even in the movie), Mr. John C. Twist, Sr. was lying about Jack, too. Jack's mother, since she was a Christian, refused to go along with the lie about Jack's passing. In fact, in the book after Jack's father first responds to Ennis's volunteering to take Jack's ashes to Brokeback, Mrs. Twist ignores him and changes the subject about how she kept Jack's room and Ennis was welcome to go up and see it.

Then is when the story continues here with Mr. Twist speaking again:

The old man spoke angrily. "I can't get no help out here. Jack used a say, 'Ennis del Mar,' he used a say, 'I'm goin a bring him up here one a these days and we'll lick this damn ranch into shape.' He had some half-baked idea the two a you was goin a move up here, build a log cabin and help me run this ranch and bring it up. Then, this spring he's got another one's goin a come up here with him and build a place and help run the ranch, some ranch neighbor a his from down in Texas. He's goin a split up with his wife and come back here. So he says. But like most a Jack's ideas it never come to pass."
   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.

 

Notice how he started his next speech with "I can't get no help out here." That sentence was left out of the movie's dialog. I think that it is important to Ol' John's self-centered stud duck attitude.

John C. Twist, Sr. is the STUD DUCK in the original story. Ain't no man named "L. D. Newsome" in the original story.

[silkncense]

TJ -

You're saying that Jack is alive & living somewhere with the ranch neighbor? 

That he simply walked away from Ennis w/ 'no little word?' 

That John Twist, Lureen, etc are covering up this fact?  And this is based on what Annie wrote?

I have to say I totally do not see that in either the book or film.  And as an aside, the scriptwriters had to extend the action in the movie since it was based on a mere 11 page shortstory in the New Yorker and that alone would not translate to a 2+ hour movie.   

Also, do you have an issue with the fact that "heterosexual"(s) Annie Prulx, Larry McMurtry, and Diana Ossana wrote the story/screenplay?  You have made a point of their being heterosexual repeatedly.  And if you do, where have they failed? 

Or is it that men can't write women characters and women can't write male characters?  Or writers shouldn't write what they have no personal experience with?  I am not understanding your repeated references to this.

[TJ]

Oh, I think that real men who are normal and have been properly raised by great parents can talk about emotion and understand emotion as well as women can. I just found it odd that Larry McMurtry who writes about women with emotions who talk about emotions in his own novels gave that reason for adding women to the screenplay adaptation. Any man who is a writer and cannot show, talk, or write about emotion himself would have few or no female characters in his works.

I have had two different courses, each in separate institutions of higher learning, related to the study and criticism of literature. The one at Northeastern State College (Tahlequah, Oklahoma) which I took as a grad Education student was an English course called "Literary Criticism. The one which I took at Oral Roberts Universtity (Tulsa, OK) when I was a graduate theology student was called "Interpreting the Bible" and was commonly called "Biblical Hermeneutics." While the literature in each course was about different areas of study and different types of literature, the basic hermeneutic principles/rules were the same for both classes. "Hermeneutics" refers to the critical study of any kind of literature. 

Considering the fact that Lureen's book character was very much like her father's, I would say that that Lureen might have volunteered to lie for Jack if he would get lost as far as her own life was concerned. After all, it was a loveless marriage and Jack had only married her in hopes to get financial help from her father so he could continue to be a bull rider.

While the movie Lureen has a little tear, the book Lureen "was polite but the little voice was cold as snow" when she talked to Ennis on the phone. I think that the reason she only suggested that Ennis go up to Lightning Flat was due to Ennis asking if Jack's folks were still there. (That phone call is the only time Lureen is quoted in the book.)

She could have been 100% correct in that Jack had wanted his ashes scattered up on Brokeback Mountain and he could have had that written down in will. Jack was not a person who told everybody every little thing about himself. He never told Ennis that he wanted him to go up with him to work on the Twist ranch; he only spoke to his father about Ennis and him doing that.

I read what Ang Lee said, in an interview, about Lureen lying to Ennis on the phone before I even saw the movie.

Jack's father never uses the word "ashes" in his talking in the book. Mr. Twist uses "he" when he talks about the family plot and Jack.

Oh, I have no issue whatsover with Annie Proulx and her writing the story. She has always been completely open about her heterosexual orientation and her attempt to understand what a closeted homosexual who would be a cowboy in Wyoming would go through because of the homophobia in Wyoming. (I need a proof-reader to help me be sure I wrote that correctly. I hope the reader understands what I mean.) And, Annie Proulx sometimes used subtle hints of things which were not exactly like characters in the book thought they were. (The "no instruction manual needed" was used as irony in the first night in the tent scene in the book; because Ennis already knew how to have sex with another guy. The reason for Ennis's evidence of the clear slick also shows that Ennis had been sexually aroused during the deepened intimacy scene in the book's narrative.)

IMO, what happened outside of wherever Ennis was during the story could have been shown as scenes with a narrative "voice-over" telling what was going on.

When Ennis talked about what he saw when he was about 9 years old, no one in the flashback scene even talked.

[delalluvia]

Interesting POV TJ, don't agree with the Lureen lying for Jack thing, but interesting nonetheless.

It is difficult for a member of one sex to write about another.  Some do it better than others, I imagine Proulx had her hands full not only writing about the opposite sex, but about characters who did not relate well to women.

[silkncense]

I think a great writer can write from any point of view.  Literature would be in a sorry state otherwise.

And, although I have not studied "Hermeneutics" - I still think your interpretation is not logical within the sense of the story. 

To each their own, however.