Brokeback Mt. don't read if you haven't seen it! "spoiler alert"

[rainy]

Help, just saw the movie and I am confused as to how Jack died? The flash back of him being beaten what was that all about?

[GrumpyGreg]

1. Add "spoiler alert"---I thought you were talking about a book.

[TomInTib]

2. I read it the same as you. Spoiler alert.

[newsguyatl]

4. o.p. said "seen it"

how can you see a book?

it didn't confuse me.

[GrumpyGreg]

7. I read it as "Don't read the book if you haven't seen the movie"

[newsguyatl]

3. i'm thinking it was

the uncles and brothers of the supposed "girl" he said he'd been seeing on the side near the end of the movie... the one he told heath's character in one of their last scenes together.

now, whether it was truly a girl or a man, it's up for us to decide. but either way, i took it as the brothers/uncles finding out and killing him... because remember he'd mentioned that they didn't like the idea of him (jack) being around the girl/guy.




then again, there's just the possibility of it being a random hate crime... but i think the former's probably what happened.

[Indykatie]

5. I read the Short Story and Plan

on seeing the movie. I'm OK knowing that he dies differently in movie.

[rainy]

8. How does he die in the short story?

[rusty charly]

6. i think what ennis pre-sages

that, as a child, he was taken by his father to look at the body of the gay man the men of the town killed, happens to jack. his sneaking to mexico, the new friend he goes to the woods with, catches up with him and he meets the same fate.

everyone repeats the lie of the car accident, since that's the "official story".

that's my take, anyway

[rainy]

9. Is there any possible way ennis did it because he did say

"if I ever learn the other stuf, Jacks affairs, I'll kill you." Later in the end he says "swear Jack!" He was prone to violent outrages.

[rainy]

10. I guess there is no way because there were two men plus Jack in

the flash-back.

[WorldTraveler777]

11. Short story explains it

I was told by someone who saw the movie *and* read the short story that Jack did NOT die in the short story the way Ennis saw it in the flashback. That was just Ennis' fears about how Jack died. But Jack died just as his wife said.

[newyawker99]

15. Hi WorldTraveler777!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Ediacara]

14. no

Ennis is surprised when he learns Jack is dead.

[AlienGirl]

12. I took it this way:

I thought Jack actually did die in an accident, but Ennis flashed onto his old fears and had a traumatic vision that Jack had died like the guy who was beaten died (the bit about drowning in his own blood).

Tucker

[1932]

13. You don't know. But Heath Ledger's character believes Jack was murdered.

Or he was just flashing back to the murder of the guy when he was young.

[rainy]

16. any more thoughts on this? Could Ennis have killed Jack?

he was violent and very jealous, his father was a murderer?

[1932]

19. Why would he have been so sad about it if he did it?

And why turn him into a murderer in order to redeem him at the end with the scene with the daughter and the beautiful shot of the shirt, post card, window and brokeback mountain way way off in the distance?

And why call the wife to ask where he was if you knew he was dead???

[saltpoint]

17. In the original short story, Proulx has Ennis realize that

Jack's wife is lying to him about the cause of his death -- accidental -- while in Ennis' mind he knows that Jack was beaten up and left for dead, not unlike Matthew Shepard.

Proulx lives about 30 miles from where Matthew Shepard was beaten to death and was even called to serve on that jury. She did not get chosen for that jury, but the death lingered in her mind, she says in interviews.

Jack Twist was killed by homophobic locals.

[Shine]

18. I just saw the movie last night, too.

I think Jack's wife was lying when she told Ennis how Jack had died. She said one thing and the flashback showed what REALLY happened. It was in keeping with how the characters in the story were so disconnected with their own true INNER natures: What's true vs. what's presented to the world.

I posted a thread about this very subject in the lounge, in fact. Please feel free to add your thoughts, if you're so inclined:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=105x4587720

:hi: