Author Topic: Sometimes I wish A.Proulx would have written the story different. How about you?  (Read 5152 times)

Offline Penthesilea

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Sometimes I really, really wish Annie Proulx would not have written the story as it is.
Bang, there I said it! And I mean it.
I love the story and the movie. And I love my obsession with this movie. I love to be on BetterMost, to discuss the movie, to analyze, to find new thoughts about it and on and on.

After five months I still can't get them out of my head. I still wake up in the morning and Ennis and Jack are on my mind. I go to bed and fall asleep thinking about them or mulling over something I read here in the forum. Not every day, but most days.
They are always close to the surface of my mind.

That's the part I'm fine with. But:
I have enough of the heartbreak. I want a happy end for Ennis and Jack. Seriously.
Maybe we all would not be here, maybe we all would have long forgotten about this movie if it had a happy end. But sometimes I would trade the wonderful experience of this movie, of being here with you, for a happy end.
Right now I have such a moment. To be more exact: I feel like this since I saw the movie again last Sunday. I've seen it many times now. But last Sunday it hit me like it was the second time (my second viewing was much more intense than the first). There it was again: the emotional gut punch most of us know. And it didn't go away since then.

I haven't been around here for the last few days, because I've frenetically read fanfiction. Alwayas in search of a story that would bring my heart on order again. I haven't found such a story. Bad luck, most of the stories I read were sad ones. I found some with happy endings that I hadn't read before, but they were mostly too soppy for my taste.

I keep telling myself it's just a movie, just a story, just pure fiction. Ennis and Jack are not real and therefore there's no reason that Proulx's imagination, her version of the story, should be any more valid than the ones I try to imagine myself or the ones any fanfic writer wrote.

But WHY, the hell, does it have such a profund effect on me (us) then? Why does it feel so real? Why do we feel like Ennis and Jack were real? Why do we not just stop?
Again, I feel like I did at the beginning of my BBM journey: I'm so unutterable glad that you all are here too. Glad that my only fellow Brokie in RL is still as infected as I am. Makes me feel less like a weirdo.


This has become a long post and I zoned out a bit. The question I wanted to ask you is: Do you sometimes wish Annie Proulx would have written the story different? Not only as a short thought, as a kind of joke, but seriously?



Offline jpwagoneer1964

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The more time goes by the more I appreciate the way the story was written especially in movie form. I would like a happy ending as much as anyone, given to times and location the story was I understand it more. I see why Ennis could not give in to his fears, he had good reason to be fearful.  I see Jack, who grew up more more insolated than Ennis, always the dreamer, comfortor, wanting so much more. Although a tragic ending, both Jack and Ennis treasured their relationship, and never gave up.
« Last Edit: August 19, 2006, 12:56:29 pm by jpwagoneer1964 »
Thank you Heath and Jake for showing us Ennis and Jack,  teaching us how much they loved one another.

Offline opinionista

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Well, I happen to like the story the way it is. And it needed no happy ending no matter how much we all wish Ennis and Jack would've been able to stay together, and live the sweet life. IMO, this is not just a love story, it's also a story about what it meant to be gay in 1963 in Wyoming, and the difficulties it entailed. I think gay people in general had it tough during that period, and some still do today in 2006, and not just in Wyoming. The story sends a strong message about it. I think Annie Proulx somehow wanted to show us the damage intolerance and homophobia can cause to a person. It can even take their lives away, both emotionally and physically. IMO if this story had a happy ending, we wouldn't have learned that lesson.
« Last Edit: August 19, 2006, 03:46:50 pm by opinionista »
Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement. -Mark Twain.

Offline nakymaton

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I wish that Jack and Ennis, the people who are too damn real in my head to be characters in a story or on film, could have a happy ending.

But the story? If I step back and appreciate the story and the movie as art, then, well, I think the sad ending is a big part of why the story feels so powerful. If they had had a happy ending, I could have walked out of the theater and left them behind, living happily ever after. Because... I don't know why. Maybe it isn't necessary to have empathy for people who live happily ever after; maybe they just don't need the rest of us. (As if there's anything the rest of us can do about the sad ending. I mean, it's not like we can stop by Ennis's trailer and bring him half a cooked chicken and a dish of peach cobbler, is it?) But because the ending's so tragic... well, that's what makes me care so much, I think.
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Offline tamarack

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I don't watch the movie as much as I think about it because I just don't want the sadness sometimes, and the aftermath for me of my second time in the theater was also much worse than the first time, penthesilea. But no, I don't wish that Annie had written a different story.

I agree with naky that if it had ended on an up note, they wouldn't have needed us to care as much as we do. Probably there wouldn't be a BetterMost or a Chez Tremblay, and there wouldn't be many, many people making huge and not-so-huge changes in their lives because of what they learned about themselves through Jack and Ennis.

I have learned so much about what it means to be a homosexual in our society, something that I hadn't even thought about before, and have been shocked and saddened and moved to tears by much of it. I'm still changing my thinking about many things and questioning many long held beliefs and ideas, including many on the religious side of things, and it is all due to Jack and Ennis, and Annie, of course (and some of the people on BetterMost and dave cullen).

Have you really not read any good fan fiction?


Offline Katie77

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I have voiced my opinion of Annie and her book on many occassions here.....and once again I will say what I always say....

I just wish the book had been a novel.....you know, where chapters go back and tell you about what happened it the characters life to make them the way they are.....delve into their thoughts and tell you what they are thinking.....give you a day by day of each of the characters whether they are together or not....just more in depth of everything about the story.

I guess if that had been the case, there woulndt be so many questions to be asked and answered about Brokeback, I guess, we woulndt have to form our own opinion of what one was thinking or doing, I guess it would have answered all our questions.

Of course if all those questions had been answered, then maybe we wouldnt have needed a message board, to bring us all together with our ideas and opinions of what different things meant in the movie, so I have no regrets that because of the shortness of the book, it caused us all to meet up.

I just sometimes think it was a "cop out" to only write so few pages to a wonderful story and wonderful characters, but I will always be thankful to Annie, for bringing Jack and Ennis into my life.

Being happy doesn't mean everything is perfect.

It means you've decided to see beyond the imperfection

Offline Front-Ranger

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Did you know that this story went through more than 60 revisions? She probably DID write a novel but pruned and finessed it so much that only the essential parts are left. And, as Lee, Ossana, and McMurty showed, you can take a paragraph, a phrase, sometimes a single word and expand it into a whole new sidestory or backstory. Like the one about Uncle Harold, I have spent DAYS thinking about him, how he went up on Brokeback Mtn with Aguirre 20 years before, about how he was married to Alma's sister but they divorced, etc. etc. Another thing that's fun to do is to read the story on different levels, the sociological level, the metaphorical, the spiritual level, the food symbolism level, the metal implements level, etc. etc. The reason you can't get BBM out of your mind, Katie, is because there is more there that your curiousity wants to understand! Your brain is trying to tell you something!!
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Offline MaineWriter

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Obviously, I do wish she wrote a different ending and because she didn't, I did.

Seriously, this is the first time in my life that a story/movie has stayed with me so much that I actually could envision a different ending. I think the "real" BBM is wonderful, but sad, but I also think that Annie P. has given us wonderful, complex characters who can be imagined in many different ways. I did some of that imagining and so have many others. It is really quite something, when you think about it.

Leslie
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Offline tamarack

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Who the heck is Uncle Harold? Seriously.

Offline jpwagoneer1964

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Who the heck is Uncle Harold? Seriously.
When Jack and Ennis are on Brokeback Joe Agguire ( their boss ) rides up to tell Jack his uncle Harold is in the hospital with   pneumonia and would likely not make it. He does survive though. No explinanation of how he his related to Jack.
Thank you Heath and Jake for showing us Ennis and Jack,  teaching us how much they loved one another.

Offline tamarack

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Like the one about Uncle Harold, I have spent DAYS thinking about him, how he went up on Brokeback Mtn with Aguirre 20 years before, about how he was married to Alma's sister but they divorced, etc. etc. 

jp - thanks - I wasn't even thinking about that (I wasn't even thinking at all, apparently) - I was thrown off by this sentence, but now I realize that I was completely misinterpreting what FrontRanger is saying.

Offline RouxB

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I am a happy ever after kinda gal-that is the purpose of fan fiction. The story as written, however, is just perfect enough for me. I think we bonded over the story and movie as it was written-I'm pretty sure I would not be here, at 1:12 AM (on a school night) after 8 hours of air travel if the story had been written differently-in any way.

 O0

Heathen

Offline Penthesilea

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I wish that Jack and Ennis, the people who are too damn real in my head to be characters in a story or on film, could have a happy ending.

Yep.

Quote
But the story? If I step back and appreciate the story and the movie as art, then, well, I think the sad ending is a big part of why the story feels so powerful.

I agree completely with what you said. I guess I wasn't able to make clear what I'm thinking. When I step back and look at the story or the movie I very much appreciate them for the art they are, each in it's own way. Then I don't want a change for the ending, for the reasons you and the other posters have mentioned: it makes the story so powerful, it's not only a love story, but also a story about homophobia and probably we all would not be here, it (probably) wouldn't have such an impact on us.


Quote
I don't watch the movie as much as I think about it because I just don't want the sadness sometimes
Yes, me too. This story and the movie got me really good. And the last time I saw it, I wasn't able to shrug off the sadness for days. Guess that was what made me wish it would have ended in another way.

I wish very badly for Ennis and Jack they could have a happy end.
And sometimes I wish for my own peace of mind Annie Proulx would have written it different. When I wrote the OP I definately had such a moment. But not now anymore.
« Last Edit: August 23, 2006, 05:49:42 am by Penthesilea »