Scene 1: Jack getting out of pickup

[jpwagoneer1964]

That's not obvious to me. I think the whole emphasis on the fact that this is Jack's second summer on Brokeback is meant to indicate he had experience with more than herdin sheep.

 

I still think that Jack was alone the first summer, the 25% loss in 1962 was likely the reason he was with Ennis in 1963.

[squashcourt]

I have to agree with JP.....19 -

Fantasies sometimes overtake some of us.

There is a lot of depthness in the stolen two glances than merely eyeing each other up as a possible "stem the rose" opportunity.

Let's not forget Annie Proulx's opening of the story. 

Pierre

[serious crayons]

Fantasies sometimes overtake some of us.

So true! But when this movie and story takes special care to emphasize a point, it's usually because they're trying to tell us something.

[Kd5000]

I just thought Ennis was just apprehensive that day.  His situation was much more dire.  He arrived with a paperbag, presume he hitchhiked to get there (?),  confides latter that he doesn't have any place to be as his brother got married, etc.   I would say he's got alot on his mind. 

Jack is more confident.  I think he might have met a cowpoke at a honky-tonk in the past.  Look at the moves he puts on Jimbo the Clown.   He knows something about cruising.  Yep, Jack is 19 and is not repressing his sexuality.  He's checking out his "company" for the summer.  I would. 

[Andrew]

What I really like about that scene is the transition between Jack getting out of the truck after that spectacularly bad entrance, kicking it, looking at it, then turning around to look at Ennis, first the quick glance then the leisurely  stare.

Here's the series of screen captures:

http://www.stripedwall.com/cpg/thumbnails.php?album=170&page=3

http://www.stripedwall.com/cpg/thumbnails.php?album=170&page=4

It's a great effect, that sputtering and lurching and door bang and kick thunk, then the silence as the machine and the noise recede, replaced by the silence, just the two men and their careful looks.  Jack's situation is presented in just a few seconds there, his poverty and his loneliness, the germ of the rest of his story.  The glance comes just a few seconds after the kick, but Jack's life is going to fork out in two opposite directions to address the two issues, to Texas and Lureen for the humiliating poverty represented by the truck, to Wyoming and Ennis for the loneliness.   In a way the contrast between the noise and the juxtaposed silence represents that.

[Jeff Wrangler]

I still think that Jack was alone the first summer, the 25% loss in 1962 was likely the reason he was with Ennis in 1963.

Sorry, Mark, but I still, respectfully, disagree.

The 25% loss in 1962 came from nobody watching the sheep during the night (as Aguirre says to Ennis and Jack) because both the herder and the camp tender spent nights at the approved Forest Service campsite, which, again, as Aguirre says, could be three or four miles from where they actually pastured the sheep. Aguirre's response to the prevous year's loss rate isn't to send up two men, it's to have the herder spend the night with the sheep on the QT instead of at the approved Forest Service campsite, where he's supposed to be at night. (Remember Jack's comment to Ennis, "Aguirre ain't got no right makin' us do somethin' against the rules.")

Moreover, I still feel sending up only one man would have been bad business--though I admit there is no basis in either the story or the film for this assumption. But if you sent only one guy up on the mountain by himself, and something happened--he had some sort of accident, maybe got thrown by his horse and broke a leg or hip or something--he could be dead and the whole flock of sheep lost--scattered and destroyed by coyotes--before anyone found him. Never mind any concern for the welfare of the herder, but do you really think Aguirre's bosses would risk losing an entire flock of sheep? I think not.

Incidentally, in her essay in Story to Screenplay, Annie writes about an old rancher who always sent his sheepherders into the mountains in pairs. The old rancher made a joke about it--said it was so that if they got lonely they could poke each other  --but surely the reason for sending up two men together was really that it was good business, protecting your investment in the sheep.

BTW, Pierre, if you do not yet have a copy of Brokeback Mountain: Story to Screenplay, I strongly urge you to get one. No one who loves this movie should be without it. 

[squashcourt]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for your observation and comments.

I respectfully disagree as I interpret the scene as I originally stated. 
I have the book you mentioned - read it in one sitting (story and screenplay).  Perhaps I'm missing something but it's not registering as my interpretation leans towards what I have observed.

Chat with you soon.

Affectionately,
Pierre

[Phillip Dampier]

Essentially I agree with David. Jack is clearly cruising Ennis.

For myself, however, I don't conceptualize Ennis's behavior as checking out the competition for the job, but this is one of those places where I'm guilty of allowing Annie Proulx' story to inform my interpretation of what's happening on the screen. Despite Joe Aguirre's line about the pair of deuces "lookin' for work," per the story, I believe they already had their jobs and had been told to report to Joe Aguirre in Signal at that time. So I conceptualize Ennis's behavior as just being curious about this other guy with whom he probably was going to be working that summer but being too shy and unsocialized to go over and say hello.

I agree.  I think those of us who are gay instantly picked up on Jack's wandering eyes right from the first moment, but for everyone else, it was conveyed like a hammer by the time Jack was shaving and adjusting the side view mirror to put Ennis dead in the mirror so he could stare even further.  Jack clearly knew what he was even if he was unwilling to publicly admit it.  When the first encounter happened, the following day, Jack quickly agreed he was not gay either, no doubt to try and protect what he had with Ennis.  Additionally, there was considerable prior discussion about whether those guys would have been able to comprehend what "queer" was in 1963 rural Wyoming, beyond the vague homophobic insults that I'm sure they would have heard growing up (and Ennis saw and heard even worse).  Denial and secrecy about sexual matters were far more common then than now, of course.

One wonders just how long they sat outside Aguierre's trailor waiting.... Uncomfortable silence.

[Jeff Wrangler]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for your observation and comments.

I respectfully disagree as I interpret the scene as I originally stated. 
I have the book you mentioned - read it in one sitting (story and screenplay).  Perhaps I'm missing something but it's not registering as my interpretation leans towards what I have observed.

Chat with you soon.

Affectionately,
Pierre

I might have also added, if memory serves me correctly, in the sequence where they have to separate the two flocks of sheep after the hailstorm, the other flock is tended by two Chileans, so I would bet the usual practice was to send teams of guys into the mountains with the flocks.

[jpwagoneer1964]

Speaking of the sheep, it really wouldn't matter that the heard were mixed. the sheep know their herder(s) and will follow. the storm would have caused them to scatter though.