I am firmly back in the Jack was murdered camp. The "flash-back" of what happens seems to be more Lureen's to me than Ennis's. And that little cry/moan she makes when she realizes who Ennis is, is her realization that Jack had the same relationship with Ennis that he was having with Randall. As Annie says in her story...the little voice is as cold as snow.
You know that old addage you don't shit wear you eat, will I've come to the conclusion that Jack did indeed take up with Randall and he was telling the truth when he told Ennis he almost got caught a coupla times sneaking out to be with the "wife"(when actually he was sneaking out to be with Randall)....that time he did get caught and it cost him his life..
I may change my mind after another half dozen viewing but this is where I'm sitting rightnow pretty strong in that conviction.
I agree with everything you said Victoria, except I think it was Ennis who imagining the murder not Lureen.
Same here. I'm firmly in that camp, too, though I've also come to think that the central core of the tragedy is more heavily weighted in that Ennis was the cause Jack's death than in how exactly it happened. But I think that the imagining of it was definitely Ennis'. I thought that even before I read the short story and saw that it says so. It has to be - it follows the arc of his being shown what he was shown as a child and how that made him what he is. And I agree, Vic, that that's exactly what happened - Jack took up with Randall, people found out, and some of them killed him for it. In the story, this, to me is made clear by "So now he knew it was the tire iron." As soon as John Twist alludes to Randall, he knows that's exactly what happened. That's all Annie has to say, and we know, too.
Look at Willie Nelson's song, as well - "He never done no wrong, he never done no wrong. A thousand miles from home, and he never harmed no one. He was a friend of mine." Sure, even that can be seen as ambiguous, but I think it implies that Jack was an innocent killed by ugly outside forces.
I do love the ambiguity, though. That's one of the many splendored things of this movie. I love that it doesn't tell me what to think and gives me credit for having the intelligence and heart to draw my own conclusions and to take from it what I need. I've come to get just plain pissed off when a movie or television show manipulates me or tries to. That's why I always loved Six Feet Under, too. The stories and characters just unfolded like flowers for you - there was no knocking you over the head with who you were supposed to like and what you supposed to think was happening.
