Our BetterMost Community > Chez Tremblay
Timeline for the last scenes
TJ:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on May 12, 2006, 08:32:13 pm ---Interestingly, and messed up as usual, the screenplay says their last meeting took place in 1981, the last postcard and the trip to the Twists in 1982.
--- End quote ---
Well, for some odd reason, it was quite a while after Ennis sent the postcard about the November (7) meeting before he got the card returned.
And, I think it was actually a hot Wyoming summer when Ennis finally ended up a Lightning Flat. That's why Annie Proulx said that Jack's boyhood bedroom was tiny and hot.
From Page 49 of the paperback book -----
--- Quote ---The old man spoke angrily. "I can't get no help out here. Jack used a say, 'Ennis del Mar,' he used a say, 'I'm goin a bring him up here one a these days and we'll lick this damn ranch into shape.' He had some half-baked idea the two a you was goin a move up here, build a log cabin and help me run this ranch and bring it up. Then, this spring he's got another one's goin a come up here with him and build a place and help run the ranch, some ranch neighbor a his from down in Texas. He's goin a split up with his wife and come back here. So he says. But like most a Jack's ideas it never come to pass."
--- End quote ---
IMO, the "this spring" does not refer to the spring month that Ennis last saw Jack, it refers to the spring in the current year.
What Jack's father said makes me believe that Jack was not dead or even in an accident in the first place. And, even according to Ang Lee, Lureen was lying when Ennis talked to her on the phone; and AP wrote that she was polite but cold.
delalluvia:
The screenplay and movie deviate I think.
In the movie, the last postcard says something like 'November is still looking like the first chance...' or something like that, implying that it is late summer of the same year of their last meeting.
The John Twist comment 'This spring, he's got another fella..." That could have been Jack's trip to visit his folks after that last fateful meeting with Ennis. Jack was hurt and angry and resigned to giving up on any hope of something permanent with Ennis. He could have easily spoke of Randall to his folks without ever having talked to Randall to see if he was game, the same way he spoke about Ennis to his folks. It was just Jack's 'talking'.
So that means the last meeting, the postcard and the trip to the Twists all took place in the same year and not over a span of two years like the screenplay states.
TJ:
Here in Oklahoma when a rural or small town person says "this spring" and it is two seasons later than springtime, he most often means "next spring," as in "next year." That is, unless it really is spring, when he is talking.
serious crayons:
--- Quote from: delalluvia on May 12, 2006, 10:35:32 pm ---The John Twist comment 'This spring, he's got another fella..." That could have been Jack's trip to visit his folks after that last fateful meeting with Ennis. Jack was hurt and angry and resigned to giving up on any hope of something permanent with Ennis. He could have easily spoke of Randall to his folks without ever having talked to Randall to see if he was game, the same way he spoke about Ennis to his folks. It was just Jack's 'talking'.
--- End quote ---
Good point, Del. Sometimes we all talk as if, since Ennis didn't go for the idea, Jack went back and either did or didn't go off with Randall and they (potentially could have) lived happily ever after. But for all we know, Randall was as reluctant as Ennis. It wouldn't have been a particularly easy decision for anyone, I wouldn't think, back in them days.
azphil:
Hi, all...........
Sounds like you have some fun and some "larn'n" here, so let a newbie jump in, won't you?
Don't know about the time lines on other events you've been discussing here, but as concerns Ennis' visit to Lightning Flat, I don't think he'd of let any grass (er, make that tumbleweed) grow under his feet after his phonecon with Lureen. He'd have wanted to make sure that he quickly got to the parents before they'd taken any final action with Jack's cremated remains.
Hey, just a thought. :)
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