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

Timeline following Lake Scene?

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Jeff Wrangler:
Scott, with all due respect, I'll add a few things with my copy of Story to Screenplay in front of me.

As published in Story to Screenplay, the screenplay dates the confrontation at the lake simply as 1981, with no month attached.

This is a significant difference from Annie Proulx, who in the story clearly places Ennis and Jack's last trip into the mountains in May 1983.

The published screenplay places the scene of Ennis reading the postcard outside the Riverton post office in 1982, again with no month attached to it.

The November mentioned in the text of Ennis's postcard clearly must be the same November they were arguing about at the lake. And this is why I personally pay no never-mind to those dates in the screenplay. I don't think it makes sense for the the two scenes, the confrontation at the lake and Ennis reading the postcard, to have taken place in two different years.

Somewhat allowing the story to inform my understanding of the film here, I take it that in the film the final camping trip and confrontation took place in May 1981. I'm guessing that after Ennis's collapse and before he drove away, they somehow made up and Jack agreed to meet Ennis in November (considering the text of the postcard, maybe Ennis agreed to try--but ultimately failed--to get away in August after all). I take it that Jack dies sometime in the summer of 1981, and Ennis gets his postcard back in, say, maybe October of 1981.

Just my POV.  :)

Almost as an aside I'll also say that I'm not happy that the movie, according to the published screenplay, kills off Jack two years earlier than Annie Proulx did in the story. In the script, Jack speaks about the few times he and Ennis have been together in "nearly twenty years," whereas in the story he says, exactly, "twenty years." In other words, in the story, the final trip into the mountains is a good, round, twenty years, after they met at Joe Aguirre's office in 1963.

jpwagoneer1964:
I think the lake scene was the spring of the year Jack died, so May would fit. They probably met about the same time every year.

I think Ennis went to the Twists soon after he found out about Jack. "Can't eat eat no cake just yet..."

Mark

jpwagoneer1964:

--- Quote from: Jeff Wrangler on December 19, 2006, 12:09:45 am ---Scott, with all due respect, I'll add a few things with my copy of Story to Screenplay in front of me.
 :)

Almost as an aside I'll also say that I'm not happy that the movie, according to the published screenplay, kills off Jack two years earlier than Annie Proulx did in the story. In the script, Jack speaks about the few times he and Ennis have been together in "nearly twenty years," whereas in the story he says, exactly, "twenty years." In other words, in the story, the final trip into the mountains is a good, round, twenty years, after they met at Joe Aguirre's office in 1963.

--- End quote ---
Remember Jack says at the lake " The few times we've been together in nearly 20 years..." So i'm sticking with 1983.

injest:

--- Quote from: jpwagoneer1964 on December 19, 2006, 12:11:17 am ---I think the lake scene was the spring of the year Jack died, so May would fit. They probably met about the same time every year.

I think Ennis went to the Twists soon after he found out about Jack. "Can't eat eat no cake just yet..."

Mark

--- End quote ---

you talking book or movie?? in the movie it did seem to happen right away...but in the book it was the following spring

jpwagoneer1964:

--- Quote from: injest on December 19, 2006, 12:14:24 am ---you talking book or movie?? in the movie it did seem to happen right away...but in the book it was the following spring

--- End quote ---
The movie. Although  in the film nobody bothered much with dates at all. When Junior mention her marrage of June 5, in  1984 that was a Tuesday.

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