Author Topic: Is Jack still alive?  (Read 25713 times)

Offline brokeplex

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Re: Is Jack still alive?
« Reply #30 on: January 30, 2008, 11:27:33 pm »
http://www.davecullen.com/forum/index.php?topic=17094.msg552102#msg552102

this is a link to the Annie Proulx article at cullen's TDS, with contributions from   brokies like Tellyouwhat, FrontRanger, me  and AdrianDelmar. It's the Oct27, 2006 issue at Casper, Wyoming. It has a great deal of information within it, of benefit to anyone who likes discussing the story. If it wasn't for this thread I'd have lost it myself>> had to hunt for it---and now I've saved the page.



again OT, but I don't know where to put it.

Thank you for your elaboration on your comments over several posts. I too see the parallels between the BM story and several of the Greek mythological tales.

You may have already read them, but I would like to point out that there are two scholarly essays in "Reading Brokeback Mountain" ed. Jim Stacy which substantiate much of what you are saying in your posts.

 I refer to :

"Arcadia and the Passionate shepherds of Brokeback Mountain", by Henry Alley

"Proulx's Pastoral: Brokeback Mountain as Sacred Space", by Ginger Jones

if you do not have a copy of this collection of essays, I highly recommend purchase.

Offline Phillip Dampier

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Re: Is Jack still alive?
« Reply #31 on: January 30, 2008, 11:45:18 pm »
I think that both of us were singing out of tune that night and we made the choir sound a bit sour.

As I wrote to you in a PM, we're all a bit like long tailed cats in a room full of rocking chairs this past week or so.  Everyone is sort of on the edge of their seats, and tolerance levels are way down as people deal with the hand we've been dealt.  I have always respected and enjoyed spending time writing to you in public and private.  Your gracious message here makes me respect you even more than ever.  It's a pleasure to know you and have you as a part of our community!

You're a part of our family - BetterMost, Wyoming

Offline brokeplex

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Re: Is Jack still alive?
« Reply #32 on: January 31, 2008, 12:02:07 am »
thank you very much, I appreciate your thoughts!

Offline brokebackjack

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Re: Is Jack still alive?
« Reply #33 on: January 31, 2008, 12:33:14 am »
Bill, that was one of the nicest messages I have ever read. Thank YOU.  I can fly off the handle, which amounts to jumping off of a cliff.   From now on I think twice before hitting the send button.These past days have been so crazy...We were both 'long tailed cats' this week. And that is a great analogy if there ever was one.

I haven't read the essays but will. Sounds fascinating. Thanks for the tip, I'm going to buy that book. I'm glad you liked the articles. They have a lot of information in them, info which might help us all understand the story, and the author's intent, better. Hell, I wrote one of them and had forgotten a few things myself. Things like those shouldn't be allowed to gather dust.
"I couldn't stand it no more so i fixed it"

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: Is Jack still alive?
« Reply #34 on: January 31, 2008, 11:40:08 am »
Based on this very interesting conversation, I think we can definitely state that, yes, Jack is still "alive," his spirit, that is. And with Mardi Gras and Lent coming up, it's something to contemplate!!!

My friend brokebackjack reviewed Annie Proulx's presentation very well, but there's even more here:

http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,4224.0.html

and there's some quotations from an excellent interview with her here:

http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,16252.0.html

And there's a general book discussion here:

http://bettermost.net/forum/index.php/topic,8238.0.html
"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline Artiste

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Re: Is Jack still alive?
« Reply #35 on: January 31, 2008, 12:26:23 pm »
Thanks moremojo, and thanks to all too!!

Please keep on posting, your comments are interesting.

For now, I just re-read right your first post on this thread moremojo, and may I quote it:
Quote
Believe it or not, a former member here once opined elsewhere online that Jack did not die at all, but moved on from Lureen, his family, and Ennis for that matter, and Lureen and Mr. and Mrs. Twist concocted and repeated the tire-explosion story both to save face and to punish Ennis.

......

Moremojo and others: since you (moremojo) say that a former member opined that Jack did not die, (but moved on from Lureen, his family, and Ennis for that matter...), I could believe that with my experiences with some males.

In the past, I have had many males come as a surprise or wanted to come to live with me, leaving either secretly their females wives or their male lovers. Some did with their wives knowing after or before. I always refused them.

Even lately in the past few years, some men want to leave their female wives without telling them; they each told me... in order to live with me. Some, I do understand or try since each is unhappy in their female-male relationship or that has become so; but, others, I do not know if they have reasons, if there is a reason.

In the years that Ennis and Jack would have lived, sex or freedom became somewhat more free (opened too?) and so men thought to leave their wives. Then that circle closed... they became afraid?

Of course some heterosexual, bisexual or gay men, married to a female, do have sex with a man (heterosexual, bisexual or homosexual); sometimes for some, their partner (each live with) knowns secretly or openly, and accepts that.

I have found many combinations in the gay world, in the straight world, in the bisexual world!!!

Again to my experiences, my own life with other males, so I could easily believe that Jack would have moved away and never told Lureen, nor Ennis, nor his own parents (the Twist)!! Does anybody else see that?

Do you all? That is one reason or way that Jack is still alive??

Hugs!! P.S., I had also many experiences where females came on to me; and I do not know why... they wanted me. Would Lureen or Alma, each married to their men, come on to live with me without me making advances or that thought to them?

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Re: Is Jack still alive?
« Reply #36 on: January 31, 2008, 12:34:52 pm »
It's not that I think that Jack surviving and moving on from his family and past relations would be absolutely impossible. Rather, it's that there is no evidence for this in the short story or film. We, and Ennis, are explicitly told that Jack died, so there is strong evidence for believing this to be true.

Furthermore, I found this former member's speculations regarding the actions and motivations of Lureen and Jack's parents to promote and preserve the story of his putative death, to Ennis at least, to be wildly implausible and based on nothing but sheer speculation, speculation, moreover, which had no basis in the actual texts of either story or film.

Offline Artiste

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Re: Is Jack still alive?
« Reply #37 on: January 31, 2008, 03:28:32 pm »
Thanks moremojo!

Then maybe we can search and find evidence that maybe Jack is still alive?

How to search for that?

Hugs! P.S. I continue with this subject of this thread since I have now a feeling that he could be alive and that can maybe be proven.

Offline brokeplex

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Re: Is Jack still alive?
« Reply #38 on: February 01, 2008, 01:36:43 am »
Jack died Artiste.

The question in my mind is: was it necessary for Jack to die in order to make the central point of the SS, and later of the film?

Ennis had lost Jack to Randall, Ennis was an isolated emotional widow, the closet and his internalized homophobia had destroyed Ennis's chance for lasting love. Some observers of the film and the readers of the SS have speculated that Jack's death was unnecessary and fit into an "anti-gay" paradigm.

See "Reading Brokeback Mountain".

Offline Artiste

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Re: Is Jack still alive?
« Reply #39 on: February 01, 2008, 07:08:54 pm »
Thanks brokeplex!

Jack is still alive, may I suggest brokeplex!!

That is what I am figuring so far, and seems to me that I am finding proofs or circumstancial evidence of that, depending on the light placed not only on Jack, but also on others. That in the BM movie!! That is so far that I have found and am still finding. I can't help it, doing that and it's  like the sleepless numerous nights I had (and still ponder about at times now still about Lureen being lesbian)!! Bear with me, ha! ha! (I don't know if you are gay bear club member?? ah? ha! ha!)

Quotes from your comment:
Quote
The question in my mind is: was it necessary for Jack to die in order to make the central point of the SS, and later of the film?

....

Brokeplex and to all too: To that, may I say sure... but that does not prove that Jack had died!! WE think that he has!! But that is NOT all of it!!

May I note:
Annie writes in circles, and since she does, so do the screen writers to follow her path, they wrote in circles; for: at-the-end-of-the-movie, that central point if I may use your expression is now ...
is shifting from the centre to there: the end;
plus:
and does shift to there, yes... and also to an in-the-after
- may I figure and think so for now!! That is because of circles of life, of lives!!

May I say that I can NOW relate finally to that! And illustrate a bit for now to start with: I paint in circles when I create my paintings on canvas. I just realized that I also think in circles, according to one of the lawyers  I sought to get his services that I had seen in his cabinet and, when he realized that I spoke in circles, he was so amazed  that he urgently called in his partner advocate and mention that in front of me to him... to my surprise. I was surprised by that and still was, and am, as I could NOT understand them 2 advocates!!! I had NOT realized that - I spoke in circles- so,
since that is my nature and my habits and culture, as my voice too, as a person as well as an master-artiste painter; museums and other venues such as art galleries and cultural centres world wide, I supposed do realize that somehow, hopefully, since they see that maybe as my tour-de-force as my own invention in the art world!!

I know that Annie is French-canadienne and that I enjoy that and her culture; plus, another culture(s) and bring in into that!! She creates circle-imageries as I do!!

Therefore, her uniqueness and mine are atractive to us... to moi and that, those circled-imageries  matters a great deal in our creations. Let's remember that chinese alphabet are innumerable images - their position of writing is therefore different than us occident; as oriental ways of reading and writing and painters differ somewhat greatly to European and  North American ways... common ones. Some cultures read from the bottom right down and guide themselves going upwards!! Other culture(s) walk on the other side of the sidewalk, different than us. The English still drive holding on a different side of the road... as you know that we do here in North America.

So, as you see I am now taking a different approach to the movie for my present discoveries; and, now discover that Jack is still alive... in more than one way!! or that's my dream?? Or my realisation?? It's life!!

.......

I must go... and comme back later, and await your news and that of others too,

hugs! Keep care Monsieur loveable teddy Bear, and to all teddy-bears !!

...........


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