Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum
Would it have worked? Merged with "Would a SWEET LIFE ever have been possible?"
nakymaton:
--- Quote from: opinionista on September 14, 2006, 10:39:45 am ---As for inheriting his dad's ranch, I've always wondered how come he didn't tell this to Ennis when he brought up the idea of the little cow and calf operation. He doesn't even tell Ennis about building a cabin and help his father on the ranch. This is something Ennis hears from Jack's dad and not from Jack himself. Jack only talked about LD giving him money to disappear. IMO Jack didn't think inheriting his father's ranch was something he could actually count on in order to pursue a life with Ennis.
--- End quote ---
There's an interesting story/movie difference in Jack's proposal of the "cow and calf operation." In the story, Ennis interrupts Jack in the middle of the proposal:
"You won't catch me again," said Jack. "Listen. I'm thinkin, tell you what, if you and me had a little ranch together, little cow and calf operation, your horses, it'd be some sweet life. Like I said, I'm gettin out a rodeo. I ain't no broke-dick rider but I don't got the bucks a ride out this slump I'm in and I don't got the bones a keep gettin wrecked. I got it figured, got this plan, Ennis, how we can do it, you and me. Lureen's old man, you bet he'd give me a bunch if I'd get lost. Already more or less said it -- "
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. It ain't goin a be that way..."
So Jack mentions Lureen's dad's money, but doesn't say it's for a down payment. And he never gets around to describing the plan. So maybe, if Ennis hadn't jumped in there, story-Jack was going to explain about Lightning Flat.
(But I don't know. I mean, Jack's father is so awful in the story.)
In the movie, Jack does lay out his whole plan, complete with Lureen's father providing the down payment on the imaginary ranch, and then there's this pause before Ennis responds. It isn't clear to me why movie-Jack never brings up Lightning Flat to Ennis. Was the plan unrealistic? Did Jack only start imagining Lightning Flat as an option later on? Did Jack have a whole bunch of competing dreams that he imagined at different times? I don't know.
Marge_Innavera:
--- Quote from: opinionista on September 14, 2006, 10:39:45 am ---Ennis at least, would have to quit his daughters in order to be with Jack, and that is painful. No matter how happy Ennis can feel being with Jack, losing his daughters is a painful situation that puts a lot of strains in a relationship. I just don't picture Alma allowing Ennis to stay in their daughters' lives while living with Jack under the same roof. No way. And the worst part is that any judge will side with Alma on this.
--- End quote ---
That would happen at the time; but what would happen in later years is less clear, as (1) times did change after Ennis and Jack first met; not that homophobia isn't still rampant. But racism is too; and the days of segregated lunch counters and interrcial marriage being called "miscegenation" are far behind us. And (2) Ennis' daughters being subject to Alma's decisions obviously wouldn't last beyond their 18th birthdays. After that, who knows? They might have grown up believing that their father had just deserted them or one or both of them might have decided to look up the dad who had left when they were so young and satisfy their curiosity.
Also, if they'd started living together in the mid-late 1960s, which is when Jack first proposes it, I doubt they'd be doing so openly. Even in cities, there would be problems and dangers. Painful as it might be, they could have made arrangements for Jack to not be there when the daughters visited. Actually, even today in some states heterosexual couples have to do that if they don't want to put the visitation arrangements in jeapordy.
I don't agree with the comments that they could have managed only in a perfect world, or even a better one. Both individuals and relationships manage to thrive under very hostile circumstances but if they'd stayed in rural Wyoming I suspect it would take some subterfuge and careful planning even today.
nakymaton:
--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on September 14, 2006, 09:18:45 am ---Maybe he really just wanted to get away from his old man. The little cow and calf operation was his idea.
--- End quote ---
True. But some people throw out wild ideas that they don't actually want to live with, not in reality. And Jack seems like he could be one of those people, from the way both Jack's father and Lureen comment on Jack's ideas not working out, in both the story and the movie. (Of course, the saddest thing is watching Ennis's awareness that he kept Jack's dream from coming true. I haven't watched the movie in a month or so, and I'm still tearing up just thinking about it. That little hint of a smile through tears that Ennis gets whenever someone describes Jack's dreams... :'( :'( :'( )
--- Quote ---Not to change the subject, but has anyone ever commented on the fact that Jack took up the same rodeo event has his old man? Was that one more failed attempt to win his father's approval?
--- End quote ---
That's a really good question. I think it's come up, along with the fact that Jack still keeps going up to Lightning Flat every year and helping out. And I wonder, sometimes, if Jack told his father about Ennis in some kind of attempt to get his father to accept him (Jack). As if Jack could offer his father the help he needed on the ranch, and get his father to see Jack in a better light as a result.
opinionista:
--- Quote from: nakymaton on September 14, 2006, 11:28:08 am ---There's an interesting story/movie difference in Jack's proposal of the "cow and calf operation." In the story, Ennis interrupts Jack in the middle of the proposal:
"You won't catch me again," said Jack. "Listen. I'm thinkin, tell you what, if you and me had a little ranch together, little cow and calf operation, your horses, it'd be some sweet life. Like I said, I'm gettin out a rodeo. I ain't no broke-dick rider but I don't got the bucks a ride out this slump I'm in and I don't got the bones a keep gettin wrecked. I got it figured, got this plan, Ennis, how we can do it, you and me. Lureen's old man, you bet he'd give me a bunch if I'd get lost. Already more or less said it -- "
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. It ain't goin a be that way..."
So Jack mentions Lureen's dad's money, but doesn't say it's for a down payment. And he never gets around to describing the plan. So maybe, if Ennis hadn't jumped in there, story-Jack was going to explain about Lightning Flat.
(But I don't know. I mean, Jack's father is so awful in the story.)
In the movie, Jack does lay out his whole plan, complete with Lureen's father providing the down payment on the imaginary ranch, and then there's this pause before Ennis responds. It isn't clear to me why movie-Jack never brings up Lightning Flat to Ennis. Was the plan unrealistic? Did Jack only start imagining Lightning Flat as an option later on? Did Jack have a whole bunch of competing dreams that he imagined at different times? I don't know.
--- End quote ---
Thank you! I didn't notice it. It puts the whole situation in a different perspective then. It means that maybe Jack wasn't so much of a dreamer as he is portrayed in the movie, and that he did have a coherent and reliable plan for a ranch operation. But who knows.
ednbarby:
I like to think that John Twist would have so wanted/needed help on the ranch, and from two young men instead of just one who in his mind can never do anything right to boot, that he'd have been willing to mostly look the other way about their relationship. Oh, he'd have bitched and snickered about it, and probably mostly to Jack's poor mom, but he'd have looked the other way to get that help. I think Jack knew that. And I think he was just floating the idea of their own little cow and calf operation to test the waters with Ennis. If he'd have gone for it, Jack would have clarified that it was his father's ranch he was thinking they could "whip into shape" and make profitable again, and that when Old Man Twist kicked off, it'd be all theirs.
And I absolutely think he took to bull riding in an attempt to impress his Dad. Or show him up. Or more than likely both. The line "He kept his secrets to himself, never taught me a thing, never once come to see me ride" and the bitterness with which it's said pretty says it all.
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