Annie says Jack's death is a "test"

[ifyoucantfixit]

        Me personally, the way I saw it.  And have seen it thru every time I have watched the "movie."
Has continued to be the same.  I have two reasons for how I feel this..besides the way Ennis feels.
Maybe it is Ang Lees interpretation, rather than Annies, so it only fits the movie version...
        The way that Lureen recounts the way Jack died.  Is like she has to hesitate and remember the
way she has told the story before... She goes uh, yes well, he was out on a back road,pumpin up a tire...,,etc etc etc...
         If you are telling a story you dont usually have to qualify it, to begin with, as to how to start it.  This
always sounded more like a moment to remember her lines...Just my thoughts.   
         And having had two people in my family that worked in automotive repair and tire service as youngsters...A regular tire just doesnt  blow  like that..A big 18 wheeler with the kind of rims they have would do that...the rims blow can and do blow off, and hit people in the face...they are called split  rims..very dangerous things...That would have made total sense if he was driving a big rig...but a pickup...very unusual to have split rims.  That could have blown apart and hit him in the face like that.   But those split rims have killed many a maintance person, and injured a great many  more...That is the reason they are being fazed out i believe...
        But maybe I am just plain dumb, and it certainly isnt beyond the range of possablity, 
        However  I just dont have what it takes in logic ,to make the jump...from; if you see it as an accident you are more  comfortable with your sexuality, and if you see it as a murder, you're insecure with yours..  I dont see how anyone could be more set with their sexuality than I am...I am a card carrying proud heterosexual.  I like men...period.  and I saw it as a murder also... But there again I could be being influenced, by Mr Lees interpretation and presentation...So at this time, I dont think we can ever separate our own thoughts represented in, or  by the movie, from his...
        Because however subtly he has done it.  He has ingrained us with his own personal view.
        My logic also has always told me that Ennis had good reason to be afraid.  Especially back then.
Matthew Shephard has been testamony to that.  I myself saw the aftermath of some poor man,
having been beaten up by a bunch of straight guys.. I dont think that I am any different than a gay
man or even woman, as to thinking it is quite feasable to have someone being murdered for their
sexual orientation...To me its plain common sense.

[belbbmfan]

Or, I wonder if from the perspective of an audience member who believes the accident scenario... Could the argument be made that Ennis's ability to imagine a graphic violent scene happening to Jack be the ultimate extreme expression of his "paranoia" or of the fears that were the main reason he kept himself removed from Jack all those years?

This is how I've always seen it. Ennis doesn't believe Lureen's version. Even as she's talking, he 'knows' what happened, Jack was murdered. His worst fears have come true. And Ennis had already witnessed a graphic violent scene, when his dad took him to see Earl's corpse... which left him scarred for life.

I'm still wondering why Annie Proulx used the word 'accident' in the short story Ennis didn't know about the accident for months. The movie was more ambiguous as to exactly what had happened to Jack. The first thing my husband asked me after we saw the movie was 'was Jack really murdered?' I had read the story first, so I said I didn't think he was. Like Jeff said, what matters is what Ennis thought.

[Artiste]

Jack was murdered unfortunately because he was bi or gay! That is a plain fact we see in the BM movie!!

Jack's wiife will never tell that her husband was murdered, because she goes with the Jones!!
She will not tell the truth about her husband, even when we (the audience of the movie) know that she knows that Jack is bi or gay!! She does not use the word murder... so not to complicate her life, in her high society!
So, of course, she will call that murder simply an accident!!

For that reason Annie calls also Jack's death not murder, but an accident?

Hugs!

[tampatalon]

I can never think that Jack was not murdered in the movie! And yes, it is an anti-gay film!

As far as Jack's wife in the movie, it seems evident that she did hide Jack's gay tendercies, why? Was she anti-gay?

Hugs! Have a good night or a good day all!!

Artiste, I am trying ta get a grip on this anti-gay thang. Okay, First Lureen dazzles Jack with her
B Bs, then they do the wild thang which results in a doughboy in the oven. Is Lureen anti-gay because she is trying to make Jack strait or because it covers up he is gay?

TampaTalon^">

[Jeff Wrangler]

I'm still wondering why Annie Proulx used the word 'accident' in the short story Ennis didn't know about the accident for months. The movie was more ambiguous as to exactly what had happened to Jack. The first thing my husband asked me after we saw the movie was 'was Jack really murdered?' I had read the story first, so I said I didn't think he was. Like Jeff said, what matters is what Ennis thought.

I'm glad to see someone bring up Annie's word choice in the story, as I've wondered about that myself. She could just as easily have written, Ennis didn't know about Jack's death for months, but she didn't. What this may mean for the truth about Jack's death, however, I really don't know.

I think it's interesting to note, too, that--I guess in the editing stage of the film--a decision was made--I presume by Ang Lee--to make Jack's death more ambiguous. We know from the trailer that a scene was filmed showing Jack and Randall separating after a rendezvous, and being observed by some mechanics--the same people we see in Ennis's imagining of Jack's death. If the scene with Jack and Randall and the mechanics had been left in the final cut of the film, I think it would have clearly pointed to murder. Not including the scene makes the truth of Jack's death more ambiguous.

[BelAir]

I would also say that Annie's "quote" doesn't quite ring true/make sense to me.  Maybe it is like that old game of "telephone" and perhaps she did say something about Jack's death and litmus test, but exactly what she said has gotten rephrased with the passing of time.

The point about the use of the word "accident" in the story is very interesting.  It is only used in that one sentence.  Lureen is not quoted as saying "accident" and Ennis does not again refer to the death as an "accident."  I have two thoughts.  1) Perhaps she uses the word accident in an attempt to convey the mystery around his death.  Ennis thought it was the tire iron, but perhaps he was never sure.  I do not know, but I would wonder, if that lack of knowing with a certainty how Jack died, is one of many things that kept Ennis lonely in his trailer.  (2) My mind remembers an Annie quote regarding each reader completing the story (any story) for themselves... So maybe she uses the word accident to put doubt in our minds, so we would be forced to work on completing the story for ourselves...  (no idea if my quote is any more accurate than the litmus test quote)

[Artiste]

Thanks tampatalon, and others. I will reply to others later...on.

It seems obvious to me in the BM movie that Laureen covers up that fact that she knows that her husband (Jack) is bi or gay. Like Alma, she did mention once (or more? surely often being married to Jack all these years that he saw alone Ennis: why does your fishing friend do not come to Texas, another words to pay us a visit!!?? She surely noted that Jack is nervous or hides, (goes away quickly when this subject comes up! She is no fool!! And, Lureen also heard in her office two men talking about Jack (now her husband) being gay?? You say that Lureen is trying to make Jack straight? and, therefore, she knew that Jack is a gay man or bi? To me, she does cover up that Jack is bi or gay, look at the two men who seems to say so in front of her in the office??!!

Hugs!

[Penthesilea]

Regarding Jack's death being a litmus test, I'm with Lynne. I just don't buy it.
You think murder --> you're insecure about your sexuality
You think accident --> you're secure about your sexuality.

C'mon, that's far too simplistic and shortsighted. Annie is an intelligent and articulate woman. Therefore I think she either didn't say it the way it's cited. Or, the other side, everybody has a stupid day sometimes or makes a not well thought-out comment. So maybe she said it in exactly those words, but didn't mean in so simple.

I find it interesting that somebody (Lynne?) said Annie was more ambiguous in the story than Ang was in the movie. I think it's vice versa.
I think the story is less ambiguous, because of her use of the word "accident". "Ennis didn't know about the accident for months". Later she writes "So he [Ennis] knew it had been the tire iron".

I think the emphasis of the sentence is He knew - and not He knew. See what I mean? Ennis knew. And for hundreds of years people knew that the earth is flat. It is Ennis's subjective perception of truth at this very moment.

When I read Annie's story, I tend to believe it was an accident, but I'm not sure.
When I see the movie, I don't know what to think. My initial reaction to the movie was that it was murder. Lureen tells a lie and what Ang shows us is the objective truth = murder. But the more I thought about it the more unsure I got. At later viewings I recognized that what we see is Ennis's projection. Maybe I had read about it somewhere on imdb in the meantime, I don't think I was able to be so observant so early. To this day I'm not able to consciously notice any subtleties in the last part of the movie. They come later consciously to my mind, when I'm thinking about it; or I detect them on stripedwall.

I'm still totally undecided about what caused Jack's death; respectively sometimes I'm more in the murder-camp, sometimes more in the accident-camp. Regarding the OP theory, what does this say about my confidence about my sexuality? Nothing.

[Artiste]

I think that I am starting to understand Annie's point!

But my butt can not yet explain it! Without my lower cheeks, my upper ones are trying to understand it! And I think that I am commencing that, but can not grab it yet nor explain it!

Being a gay man, one must fight for such freedom; it that what she means??

Hugs!!

[tampatalon]

This term "accident" reminds me of news reports where one spouse "accidently" shoots the other spouse. It seems to me its a polite term for the murder.

TampaTalon^">