Timeline discovery

[Jeff Wrangler]

First of all Jeff, I'm glad I'm not the only one, who dwells on some of these threads, when I'm driving, or just sitting quietly.....

Generally speaking I do my best and clearest thinking about lotsa stuff, not just Brokeback Mountain, when I'm away from the computer--in the shower, at the gym, on the train. ...  Then the issue becomes remembering these profound thoughts when I'm in a position to do something about them. 

It just seems to me that he really needed that time to understand and come to terms with his own actions and feelings, and he wouldn't have been able to face Jack the same day.

This I think is almost certainly true. He needed some time to come to some terms with what had just happened.

For myself, I'm not resolved on how much time elapsed encompassing all these events, TS1, the "I ain't queer conversation," and TS2, only that all three did not take place within one span of, say, 36 hours.

I'm not sure Ennis didn't come back down for supper the night after TS1, though it's plausible that he didn't and that would have made for a rather awkward meal, I'm afraid. I imagine Ennis spent at least a couple of nights with the sheep--like he was supposed to--after he found that sheep killed by the coyote, before he spent the night in the main camp again, and went into the tent with Jack.

[Penthesilea]

I'm not sure Ennis didn't come back down for supper the night after TS1, though it's plausible that he didn't and that would have made for a rather awkward meal, I'm afraid. I imagine Ennis spent at least a couple of nights with the sheep--like he was supposed to--after he found that sheep killed by the coyote, before he spent the night in the main camp again, and went into the tent with Jack.

This is a setting I could imagine (although I'm not convinced of it): That Ennis came back only for awkward supper, maybe skipped breakfast and took some bisquites instead - in short: that he did what his job was: eat supper (and breakfast, or maybe skipped breakfast) in camp, but stayed with the sheep, for the rest of the time.

What I can't believe is that Ennis just did not appear for supper the night after TS1, without any possibility to let Jack know. No mobile phones up there  . Remember how concerned Jack was when Ennis was just a couple of hours late after Ennis came on a bear? No way Jack would have waited one and a half day or even longer without any sign of life from Ennis. They were at the  wilderness out there, there were dangers like bears or whatever. They had to rely on each other and to back up each other. If Ennis hadn't come back for supper the next evening after TS1, and additionally hadn't come for breakfast the next morning - Jack would not have waited till afternoon to go up and check on Ennis. Unattached from their relationship it would have been careless, even if Ennis had been a total stranger to him.

Another thing comes to my mind; Annie Proulx' essay in the STS book:

In such isolated, high country, away from opprobrious comment and watchfulk eyes, I thought it would be plausible for the characters to get into a sexual situation. That's nothing new or out of the ordinary; livestock workers have a blunt and full understanding of the sexual behaviours of men and beast. High lonesome situation, a couple of guys, - expediency sometimes rules and nobody needs to talk about it and that's how it is. One old sheep rancher, dead now, used to say he always sent up two men to tend the sheep "so's if they get lonesome they can poke each other." [...] The complicatin factor was that they both fell into once-in-a-lifetime love.

So sure a big deal for our homophobe Ennis, with his history - but maybe not *that* earth-shattering. Ennis was pretty free and uninhibited with Jack their first summer. The total effect of his internal homophobia only set in once they came down the mountain, back into society, into the "real" world.
Ennis indeed needed time alone to mull over TS1. But I believe he managed in one day.

In the light of Annie's above quote, Ennis' words in the ain't queer dialog, seem almost natural: "This is a one shot thing we got goin' on here" (=one summer, and only sex, not in love, therefore not queer) - not: It was a one shot thing, period (=only the one night).

[nakymaton]

On the other hand, TS2 doesn't exist in the story. There's a romantic quality to TS2 - a sense that, yes, this is love, even if Ennis gropes at Jack without completely opening his eyes - that isn't present in the descriptions of the sex on the mountain in the story. The screenwriters clearly grappled with how to convey this, if you read the earlier drafts of the script -- TS2 was a late addition, and the earlier scripts show the relationship close to how it's conveyed in the book.

TS2 takes the relationship from the realm of "poking each other" and wrestling into something else, something that makes people watch the scene over and over on Youtube and so forth. So... could movie-Ennis have gotten to that point in one day? I don't know. I personally think it's a major emotional leap, and that the movie doesn't show us for sure one way or the other. I think that there could potentially be a week or more in the time from Ennis leaving after TS1 to the "I ain't queer" conversation to TS2. I think there could be awkward dinners and confused wrestling and everything before TS2... the early drafts of the script hint that the screenwriters toyed with all sorts of story-like ideas before letting TS2 and the happy tussle stand alone as the depictions of the romance and sex on the mountain.

But it's hard to say.

(I also don't think Ennis spent the entire night in camp again, except for the night when the sheep got mixed. But that's because the story implies that, not because of anything I see in the movie. And that doesn't mean he didn't eat there.)

[Jeff Wrangler]

TS2 takes the relationship from the realm of "poking each other" and wrestling into something else, something that makes people watch the scene over and over on Youtube and so forth. So... could movie-Ennis have gotten to that point in one day? I don't know. I personally think it's a major emotional leap, and that the movie doesn't show us for sure one way or the other. I think that there could potentially be a week or more in the time from Ennis leaving after TS1 to the "I ain't queer" conversation to TS2. I think there could be awkward dinners and confused wrestling and everything before TS2... the early drafts of the script hint that the screenwriters toyed with all sorts of story-like ideas before letting TS2 and the happy tussle stand alone as the depictions of the romance and sex on the mountain.

(Boldface added by me.)

Obviously I agree with you, Mel, and I like the way you've explicated it here. Once you violate Society's taboo on having sex with someone of your own gender, you can never go back and "un"-violate it. The more I think about it, the more I take into consideration all we see of Ennis through the years, the less plausible I find it that Ennis could have brought himself to do it again so soon as the next night after TS1.

No offense intended, Penthesilea. We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one--though I am finding myself agreeing with you that Ennis did come down for supper the night after TS1.

[Penthesilea]

On the other hand, TS2 doesn't exist in the story.

Mel, you just shot my argumentation out of the sky. At least the part with Proulx' essay. You're right. Why didn't I think of this  ?

if you read the earlier drafts of the script

I will. Thank you very much! I'll pm you about them.

[Penthesilea]

No offense intended, Penthesilea. We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one--though I am finding myself agreeing with you that Ennis did come down for supper the night after TS1.

No offense taken. The world would be a pretty boring place if we all had the same opinions. And this board would long be dead if it were not for the movie's and story's subtlety and ambiguity - plenty of room for individual interpretation and discrepance.

[Jeff Wrangler]

No offense taken. The world would be a pretty boring place if we all had the same opinions. And this board would long be dead if it were not for the movie's and story's subtlety and ambiguity - plenty of room for individual interpretation and discrepance.

"Sure enough!" 

[nakymaton]

BTW... I wouldn't say that early drafts of the script tell us what "really happened," or that they necessarily fill gaps in the existing story. They tell us how the screenwriters changed their conceptions of the characters and the story through time. Some (most?) of the scenes were left out of the final version because they somehow clashed with the characterization or the progress of the story, or because they simply didn't feel right.

But I still think that the Ennis that we know from the movie really wrestles with his feelings as well as with Jack. And I think movie-Ennis cared a lot about Jack before the sex began -- ordering soup, for instance, and talking more than he had talked in a year. So my gut sense is that Ennis's feelings were probably tangled up from the moment he had sex with Jack. Combine that with Ennis's childhood memory of Earl's murder, and you get... well, you get a guy who probably couldn't take TS1 lightly.

[serious crayons]

TS2 takes the relationship from the realm of "poking each other" and wrestling into something else, something that makes people watch the scene over and over on Youtube and so forth. So... could movie-Ennis have gotten to that point in one day? I don't know. I personally think it's a major emotional leap

My feeling is that he was already at that point BEFORE TS1. That is, his feelings for Jack were simmering on some back burner of his brain, only partly acknowledged consciously, though perhaps subtly sensed by Jack. Ennis made himself think of his feelings as platonic deep friendship, as when he looks up at Jack on the mountainside, orders the soup, shoots the elk, speaks more than he'd spoke in a year. We do see some non-platonic thoughts try to sneak into his brain when he leans over to check Jack out as Jack is riding away. Then in TS1 -- in fact, in that particular moment in TS1 when Ennis goes from throwing Jack off to grabbing Jack's head -- the emotions suddenly move to the front burner, and Ennis lets himself confront the fact that his feelings for Jack aren't just platonic.

Throughout the next day, he mulls this over. As he wakes in the tent and then rides up to the sheep, he looks troubled and pensive, but not necessarily regretful. Even when he sees the dead sheep -- at first I thought it was supposed to be a sign that he'd sinned, now I think it's more a reminder of the dangers that could lie ahead. In any case, at this point, Ennis has to really deal with the fact that he's romantically and sexually attracted to Jack. He decides he'll go for it, but only with certain ground rules: one-shot thing, not queer.

But then, I think there's some truth to the notion that by "one-shot thing" Ennis ALSO means, at a deeper level, that he and Jack will be faithful to each other.

That's why I think TS2 happened that same night. By the time Jack showed up on the mountain, Ennis had already done all the hard work and come to a decision. Why, at that point, would he postpone acting on it?

[Jeff Wrangler]

I'll give you this much, Katherine, at least you're consistent with your own interpretation of Ennis. 

It won't surprise you that your interpretation is implausible to me because it's not consistent with my understanding of Ennis. If I've understood you correctly, you've more or less always thought Ennis was more self-aware and more self-accepting than I have--and I have a deeper faith in the human capacity for self-denial and self-acceptance than you do.

Now that I've really thought about the time frame for these scenes, assuming that all these events happened within one 36- to 48-hour period doesn't accord with my understanding of Ennis, and it also doesn't accord generally with my life experience-based understanding of deeply internally homophobic gay men.

As for when he finds that dead sheep, deep meanings aside, I think he looks--and feels--guilty, not because he had sex with Jack the night before, but because he wasn't where he was supposed to be that night--with the sheep, doing his job, not in the main camp, regardless of what he and Jack were up to--and look what happened.