Brokeback Mountain: Our Community's Common Bond > Brokeback Mountain Open Forum

"Did your foks run you off?"

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serious crayons:
Back to Barb and David's fascinating idea that Jack asked Ennis if his folks ran him off because he was gay. I never thought that at all; I guess I just assumed he wondered why Ennis was far from home looking for work at 19, or noticed Ennis looked broke, or maybe was just making conversation. Those all make sense.

But I really like the idea that Jack was fishing for info! Maybe it was wishful thinking at that point on Jack's part, but I can imagine him searching for clues, and that would be a good subtle way to go about it.

Jeff Wrangler:
Tell you what, I've never suspected any particularly deep motive behind Jack's question, any particular probing to try find out if Ennis is gay. It's just always seemed to me to be a not unnatural response to Ennis's own peculiar statement:

(I'm adding the italics here)

Jack: You from ranch people?

Ennis: I was.

Jack: Your folks run you off?

Even knowing that Ennis's parents are dead, it's always struck me as peculiar for him to say that he was from ranch people. Even though his parents are dead, his background hasn't changed. He still is from a ranching background.


--- Quote ---TJ: I wish you wouildn't set the short story up against the movie so much. They are two different works of art. And the screenplay is yet a different woirk of art from the movie.
--- End quote ---

This, I know, is where I part company from of lot of folks. I understand that the story and the film are two separate works of art, and I intend no disrespect to anyone else's opinion, but the film wasn't created in a vacuum. In the end it still derives from the short story. I find it endlessly fascinating to compare the two, and I find it can be useful to refer to the story in places where I might find it difficult to understand what the filmmakers were trying to say in a particular scene.

I look at "everything Brokeback" as one phenomenon, not several phenomena, because this is the approach that works for me. My appreciation for the accomplishment of the filmmakers is increased when I look at what was added to "open up" the story. And I need the published screenplay because I find it unwise in discussion to trust my memory alone. (Noting where the film differs from the published screenplay is something else that I find fascinating.)

I've also seen people--nobody here, thankfully--go off in directions that are just plain wrong because they insisted on looking at the film in a vacuum, so to speak: "Jack wasn't trying to initiate sex that first time in the tent. He just wanted to snuggle up because it was cold" (I'm paraphrasing). Well, no. Jack was attempting something sexual because that's the way the story was written, and so that's the way the movie was written.

RouxB:
So true, Jeff, and I agree that the story and movie are pieces of a whole. I think maybe what the other's mean-and sorry if I'm putting words in anyones mouth- is that when the discussion is about an element that is specific to the movie, discussion of the story doesn't quite apply.

I am a big fan and lover of the story, and love threads specific to that, and also the compare/contrast thoughts. I think the movie is very faithful to the story-with some obvious ehancements and diversions and slight-to-pronounced character interpretations. What is most important, the essence of the story-the sparseness, non-sentimentality and overall tone is completely unchanged. Maybe there should be a topic devoted to the written word.

 O0

Had to edit-it pays to proof before hitting that send button!

Jeff Wrangler:

--- Quote from: RouxB on May 13, 2006, 12:32:31 pm ---So true, Jeff, and I agree that the story and movie are pieces of a whole. I think what maybe the other's mean-and sorry if I'm putting words in anyone's mouth- is that when the discussion is about an element that is specific to the movie, discussion of the story don't quit apply.
--- End quote ---

Now, that makes perfect sense, RouxB!

And if I misunderstood the intent of any previous posts--or came off more dogmatic than I intended to in my last post--my apologies!

TJ:
Ennis Del Mar is/was FROM ranch people because his father was a rancher! And, due to the fact that until the ranch finally folded due to financial reasons, Ennis was still living with ranch people, his brother, K.E., and sister who later got married and moved to Casper. (In the movie section where the question was brought up, making it jibe with the Annie Proulx story, K. E. was living in Signal when Jack asked that. Annie Proulx NEVER gave the marital status of K.E. in her short story. I think that K. E. probably had the same sexual orientation as Ennis and decided not to get married at all. Of course, in literature, that is what is called "an argument from silence" since we don't have proof of that. McMurtry and/or Ossana decided that K. E. should be married in their own screenplay adaptation of the story.)

Jack Twist, a rodeo bull-rider with not much to prove that he was good at it, is/was from ranch people because his father was also a rancher.

I, Joe Allen Doty, am from farm people because my father was a farmer before he met my mother and his father had been a farmer, too (my father and grandfather lived on the same farm in the late 1930s). But, after being graduated from college, I was never involved in farm work again.

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