The following is a timeline i posted on another board some while ago. I htought peole might like to take a look at it on this board:
Aha! I think I found it!
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Revised timeline for Brokeback Mountain
by chowhound (Sun Nov 18 2007 12:16:52)
This is a further revision of the timeline I reposted a few days ago. The main revision is to do with Ennis’s divorce and when the meetings between Jack and Ennis took place after that divorce. See footnote *2. As before, ss=short story and sp=screen play.
1941 K.E. del Mar born
1943 Jack and Ennis born (Sept.-Dec.)
1952. Ennis and K.E. forced to look at Earl's mutilated body by their father
1957 ? Ennis's parents killed
1963:
May 7 Jack and Ennis meet
May 8 Full moon
May 24 Elk and potato dinner
June 7 TSN1. Full moon
June 8 TSN2
June. Ennis and Jack switch routines
June. Ennis and Jack move the sheep further up the mountains
July. Aguirre spying
July. Hailstorm and sheep tangle
August. Snow. Forced to leave Brokeback. *1.
Nov. Ennis marries Alma Beers
1964:
Jan. Alma pregnant
spring: Ennis employed shovelling asphalt
spring: Ennis and Alma see "Surf Party" (1964)
spring: Jack returns to Brokeback
autumn: Alma jr. born
1965:
winter: Jenny born
1966:
July 4. Alma, Ennis and the two children attend Independence Day celebrations.
August. Jack meets Lureen at rodeo
1967:
Jan. ?Bobby born.
Sept 27 Jack and Ennis re-unite in Riverton
Sept 28-? Wyoming campsite
[1967-83:
"Years on years they worked their way through the high meadows and mountain drainages, horse-packing into the Big Horns, Medicine Bows, south end of the Gallatins, Absarokas, Granites, Owl Creeks, the Bridger-Teton Range, the Freezeouts and the Shirleys, Ferisses and the Rattlesnakes, Salt River Range, into the Wind Rivers over and again, the Sierra Madres, Gros Ventres, the Washakies, Laramies, but never returning to Brokeback." ss. p.17]
1971:
Girls on swing scene
Jack driving tractor scene.
1972:
July Ennis receives postcard from Jack ("See you in a couple of weeks") [postmark: July, 1972.]
July/August Blue parka scene. 14 hour drive for Jack.
July/August Ennis leaves for Big Horn mountains. Almost forgets his tackle box.
July/August Jack and Ennis meet up in the Big Horn Mountains. ["Jack comes out of the tent, the intense pleasure of being with Ennis all over his face." sp. p.58]
August/September Jack with Bobby probably driving one of the "new models" Lureen mentions to Jack before he leaves for the Big Horns.
1973:
Alma: "We could still smarten up, head over to the church social" (sp. p.60).An episode from "Kojack" is playing on the TV.
-
Ennis: "If you don't want no more of my kids, I'll be happy to leave you alone." (sp. p.60)
1975:
Nov. 6 Alma and Ennis divorce. *2.
Nov. Jack drives up to be with Ennis. Rejected.
Nov. Jack goes to Mexico.
Dec. Jack meets up with Ennis? Jack says "see you next month, then..." (sp. p.63) in the "rejection" scene. *2.
1976
April. Jack receives the “divorce” postcard. Drives up to be with Ennis. Rejected.
April. Jack goes to Mexico.
May. Jack meets up with Ennis? Jack says “see you next month, then…”(sp.p.63) in the “rejection” scene.*2.
1977:
Nov. Thanksgiving weekend. The two Thanksgiving dinners.
1978:
Mountain scene. Jack suggests that Ennis might move to Texas.
-
Ennis meets Cassie.
-
Jack and Lureen have dinner with the Malones. [Banner behind bar reads "Welcome to the 1978 Benefit Dinner, The Childress County Children's Home"]
1979:
Bar scene where Cassie asks Alma Jr. "...your daddy ever gonna see fit to settle down again?" (sp. p.77) [sp. notes that Alma is 15]
1983:
May. Hail Strew River Drainage. Final time together:
(a) Jack: "tell you what...truth is, sometimes I miss you so bad I can hardly stand it." (sp. p.80)
(b) Asleep in tent, Ennis curled around Jack.
(c) The quarrel. Jack: "come here...it's alright, it's all right...damn you Ennis". (sp. p.83)
(d) Flashback to Brokeback, 1963. The Dozy Embrace.
(e) Jack watches Ennis's truck as it drives away.
July. ? Final scene with Cassie
August/Sept. ? Jack dies.*3.
October/early Nov. Ennis phone call to Lureen [Ennis's postcard to Jack had proposed they meet at Pine Creek on Nov 7] *4.
Nov. ?Ennis visits the Twists
1984
spring: Alma Jr. visits Ennis. [Alma is 19]
June 5 Alma presumably marries Kurt.
NOTES:
*1 I prefer these dates with the first full moon we see occurring in May and TSN1 taking place at the next full moon in June. I chose the May date in part because, when Jack and Ennis are first going up the mountain, the foliage has the very light green look of spring (May) rather than the somewhat darker green of full summer (June). It also gives Jack and Ennis a longer time together after TSN2 before they are forced to leave Brokeback. But making everything a month - or full moon - later also works.
*2 One possibility is that what the judge says here is an “interlocutory” decree and not a final decree. The final decree would then have been granted some months later – say, in March or April of the following year. If Ennis sent Jack that postcard shortly after receiving the final decree, then Jack would have probably driven up in April and his reference to their meeting next month would point to May.
Another possibility is that the judge’s pronouncement is final but that Ennis spends some time getting things sorted out before sending Jack that postcard. This again could result in Jack’s driving up in April.
In general, a number of Brokies feel that it is much more likely that the meeting referred to would take place in the spring and not in wintery December. There is some textual support for this. In one of the earlier scripts for Brokeback Mountain, Jack’s line reads: “I’ll see you first week in June, then.”
*3 The exact time of Jack's death is unknown. Jack has presumably gone to Lighning Flat for a few days before heading back to Texas after his May meeting with Ennis which is when he must have said to his father that he would be returning with "another fella" (sp. p.90). OMT then goes on to say "...but like most of Jack's ideas it never come to pass". (sp. p.90). Therefore, I think a fair amount of time must have passed between Jack's offer and his death. If Jack had died shortly after his return to Texas, surely OMT would have put it differently.
*4. I'm assuming here that Ennis's postcard - the one stamped "deceased" - is returned to Ennis before Nov. 7.
