Topic: Until the shirts / the shirts in the closet

[Patriot1]

OMG look at his face he have the "Don't even try to take me this from me" when he looks at Old Twist!!!

And when you see the movie again Carlos, watch how Ennis moves the shirts from where they are in this picture, to his right side, like he is telling the old man just that....You ain't getting these!  LOL

[keren_b]

He's so volnurable in this pic, he looks like a young boy again...  :'(

[Sunflower79]

thanks for the picture..I think he looks protective over the shirts..there mine and you aren't going to take it..and a little vulernable too..
I appreciate the comments so far..thanks.. maybe Ennis is finally realizing what he could have with Jack..a real true love and good life with him..for now he will keep the shirts close to his heart

[edgar]

Edgar, why would you think Mrs. Twist didn't know about the shirts?  She said she kept his room just like it was when he was a boy (19?).  Mr. Twist probably never went into the room but Mrs. Twist surely did if only to dust once in a while.  She knew the shirts were there just from dusting.  But, I am convinced Jack told her about the shirts.  If he hadn't, Mrs. Twist would surely have washed them.  Just like she did his pants, all washed and ironed.  Ironed jeans???  But she ironed them.

Okay. Mrs. Twist being a good domestic type, she wouldn't just let dirty, smelly, *bloody* (omg) shirts hang there for years. Even if Jack hid them for a while, she would have found them. Mayb Jack just said to him mom, "Please don't wash this shirt" (these shirts?). (You know, unless you look carefully, you'd think it was just one shirt.)

But my question remains--IN THE BOOK did he steal them or ask for them?

[Patriot1]

But my question remains--IN THE BOOK did he steal them or ask for them?

Well, in the book it doesn't say one way or the other.  I see no need to make Ennis into a thief though.  Guess we have to remember, Annie was writing a short story and therefore left out a lot of unnecessary details. I suppose if she was writing a novel she would have put that in there.

[TJ]

But my question remains--IN THE BOOK did he steal them or ask for them?

Well, in the book it doesn't say one way or the other.  I see no need to make Ennis into a thief though.  Guess we have to remember, Annie was writing a short story and therefore left out a lot of unnecessary details. I suppose if she was writing a novel she would have put that in there.

Annie Proulx left out certain details in lots of places in her story and she did it on purpose to get the reader to use his (or her) imagination to answer some of the questions which she brought up. There are lots of unanswered questions in her book published version of the story.

I feel that the screenplay writers attempted to answer as many of those questions as possible; but, in doing so, they did not answer very many of them and created even more unanswered questions. And, then in the final version of the theatrical movie, there were even more unanswered questions.

I am reminded of a book on Ecology written by Al Gore, the former Vice President of the USA. A member of the "Christian right" decided to write a book criticizing what was in Gore's book and I read a review of the critical book in a "Christian" publication. What the reviewer said was in Gore's book was not even in there. The reviewer even wrote if "Gore said something was in the Bible, you know that he made it up. And unlike what Gore wrote, God did not promise the earth and the animals that He would never flood the earth again." But, the critical person and the reviewer were both wrong; in the very same version of the Bible which they used, it actually said in the text that when God put the rainbow in the clouds, he did make that promise not only to humans, he made it to the earth and animals, too.

My "Brokeback Mountain Bible" is Annie Proulx Brokeback Mountain short story as published in "Close Range" and in the stand-alone BbM book.

[TJ]

Edgar, why would you think Mrs. Twist didn't know about the shirts?  She said she kept his room just like it was when he was a boy (19?).  Mr. Twist probably never went into the room but Mrs. Twist surely did if only to dust once in a while.  She knew the shirts were there just from dusting.  But, I am convinced Jack told her about the shirts.  If he hadn't, Mrs. Twist would surely have washed them.  Just like she did his pants, all washed and ironed.  Ironed jeans???  But she ironed them.

Okay. Mrs. Twist being a good domestic type, she wouldn't just let dirty, smelly, *bloody* (omg) shirts hang there for years. Even if Jack hid them for a while, she would have found them. Mayb Jack just said to him mom, "Please don't wash this shirt" (these shirts?). (You know, unless you look carefully, you'd think it was just one shirt.)

But my question remains--IN THE BOOK did he steal them or ask for them?

Read what I quoted from the BOOK! The shirts had no odor at all. Ennis smelled absolutely nothing or almost nothing when he sniffed the shirts. If he smelled anything, it would have been the natural odor of the air and of the old house in the bedroom.

If one takes back what was stolen from him in the first place without telling anyone he recovered his stolen property, did he steal it, too? The book says absolutely nothing about how Ennis got the shirts.

Jack had hung the shirts as one shirt which had a lining, which was not uncommon (and still isn't) with shirts worn when it is cool. So, when Ennis took the shirts, IMO, it was more like he only took one from the closet and the fact that the "liner shirt" was his, both of them were then HIS shirts.

I will contine to give my opinion that no matter how neat and orderly Mrs. John C. Twist, Sr. was, I just seriously doubt that she even knew the shirts were in the closet. I don't think that she was a snoop and I just believed that she did not do any more with the upkeep of Jack's room than necessary. When she says that she kept Jack's room like it was when he was a boy, she could have also meant, "I left the room like Jack himself kept it even when he was back to visit every year." With country folks (I am one of those people), "kept something the same way" also means "left something the way that it was in the first place."

[edgar]

Okay. Mrs. Twist being a good domestic type, she wouldn't just let dirty, smelly, *bloody* (omg) shirts hang there for years. Even if Jack hid them for a while, she would have found them. Mayb Jack just said to him mom, "Please don't wash this shirt" (these shirts?). (You know, unless you look carefully, you'd think it was just one shirt.)

But my question remains--IN THE BOOK did he steal them or ask for them?

Read what I quoted from the BOOK! The shirts had no odor at all. Ennis smelled absolutely nothing or almost nothing when he sniffed the shirts. If he smelled anything, it would have been the natural odor of the air and of the old house in the bedroom.
 

Oh, come on. After the guys had been wearing the shirts all summer, and washing them out only in the stream, and then wearing them during a sunny day and having a wrestling match/fight in them, and getting them dirty and bloody, don't tell me they wouldn't be smelly.

The reason Jack smells nothing is because, for goodness' sake, the shirts have been hanging there twenty years.

Hmmm. I don't know whether Mrs. Twist would be so officious as to keep everything nice and clean, or so reserved as to "not snoop." The thing is, after your child dies, I think you would go into the room and look around.

In fact, you might even smell the shirts.

[TJ]

Oh, come on. After the guys had been wearing the shirts all summer, and washing them out only in the stream, and then wearing them during a sunny day and having a wrestling match/fight in them, and getting them dirty and bloody, don't tell me they wouldn't be smelly.

The reason Jack smells nothing is because, for goodness' sake, the shirts have been hanging there twenty years.

Hmmm. I don't know whether Mrs. Twist would be so officious as to keep everything nice and clean, or so reserved as to "not snoop." The thing is, after your child dies, I think you would go into the room and look around.

In fact, you might even smell the shirts.

Well, I and millions (take a few thousand more or less, LOL)  of other people who have seen the movie and read the book and we just believe that Jack Twist was not even dead. Yes, I know that I am speaking in hyperbole here but, I have been in several different kinds of internet discussion about this and the every same arguments and agreements kept coming up.

By reading the published book version, I get the impression that because Jack's mother changed the subject to Jack's room after her husband made a comment about Jack going in the family plot, she as a Holy Spirit filled Pentecostal refused to be involved in the lie that Jack was dead.

Even Ang Lee said that Lureen Twist was lying when she told Ennis about the accident on the phone. And in the book, Lureen was politely cold when she talked to Ennis on the phone about it. I take that to mean that she really didn't even love Jack. She probably had a crush on him when she met him but wasn't exactly in love with him. And, every time that Jack talked about her in the book, from the motel scene onward, he never had much good to say about her nor her father. I realy think that Jack was alive but not living with her and there might have been a financial arrangement with her to say what she did that way. Their marriage was dead anyway. She could have paid Jack to get lost herself.

Ennis never saw any proof that Jack Twist was dead.

Old clothing that has hung in a closet for 20 years does not have much of a smell in it. You also have to remember in the book, it was  a makeshift closet created by a cretonee curtain. It was not a regular closet with a door. IMO, by that time, the only smell in those shirts would be the odor of the room in the old 4-room house on the ranch at Lightning Flat.

[NoReins]

TJ, that is definitely the strangest take on it that I've heard - Jack not dead

Nope, sorry - I can't believe for a second that Jack could still be alive. If he was, his mother would know - and there is no way she would allow Ennis to go through the agony that he's clearly going through. Roberta Maxwell said in an interview that her character knew that Ennis had loved her son....and knowing that, she would not - could not - let him suffer and, in doing so, let Jack continue to suffer without Ennis's love.

[aimi15]

I may be a sad hopeless romantic, but i cannot imagine Jack could be alive and leave Ennis thinking he was dead. Ennis was the love of his life - surely he couldn't take money to get lost and never contact Ennis again? Just my opinion but i don't buy that.

[LuvJackNasty]

OMG look at his face he have the "Don't even try to take me this from me" when he looks at Old Twist!!!

I never really noticed that look on Ennis' face before. I don't think there was a chance in hell that the stud duck was going to get those shirts away from Ennis.
I also agree that Jack's mother knew about the shirts. I could see her going into that room and looking around or even perhaps sitting in Jack's room because she missed her son. I also think that the "imagined power of BBM" became very real to Ennis in realizing just how much Jack loved him. That summer up on BBM was the only time they were free to love each other they way they wanted to- no one else in the way; seeing each other everyday.  Jack took that shirt because he needed some part of Ennis with him. Ennis was inside of him and that's where Jack kept him for 20 years. Jack was tending to Ennis while in that shirt, now he is tending to Ennis with that shirt. Ennis knew with those shirts that no matter what was said or went unsaid between them that Jack loved him and that time, geography or even death could never change the one thing that was true.

[TJ]

This is sort of a BTDT situation in my case. I love a certain young man very much and I have not seen him since December. He is a whole lot like the fictional Ennis Del Mar. He told people that he was not gay when he was living with me and they knew that he was sleeping in a twin-sized daybed with me. Although there was a pop-up trundle bed which he could have used instead, he claimed it was too much trouble to pull it out and make it up and then put it back the next morning.

I have quit Kaland in a way that I stopped chasing after him like Jack Twist decided to "Let be, let be" in the book in a section seperate from the last time Ennis and Jack are together. When Jack has the "flashback" in the book which las the let be words in it, there is triple spacing.

We don't have to argue and call other members liars in these internet forums. But, while I am a member here, I am more like a guest who is here for free. And, here in the United States of America, as long as there is a Democratic party with people in the US Congress,  we will continue to be guaranteed to have freedom of speech in the 1st Amendment of the Bill of Rights added to the US Constitution.

I just say what I feel from my own world point of view (WPOV). In both of those formal literary criticisms classes which I took after earning a BA in Education, one of things to consider when reading literature was the author's world view at the time, too.

Annie Proulx's "world view" or more exact, her "Wyoming view," needs to be understood here, first of all, since she wrote the original story. She has that Wyoming view as well as the view of an admitted heterosexual by orientation lady. Her WPOV is not the same as Larry McMurtry's Texas POV nor the same as Ang Lee's Taiwan POV about the same subject.

[aimi15]

This is sort of a BTDT situation in my case. I love a certain young man very much and I have not seen him since December. He is a whole lot like the fictional Ennis Del Mar. He told people that he was not gay when he was living with me and they knew that he was sleeping in a twin-sized daybed with me. Although there was a pop-up trundle bed which he could have used instead, he claimed it was too much trouble to pull it out and make it up and then put it back the next morning.

I have quit Kaland in a way that I stopped chasing after him like Jack Twist decided to "Let be, let be" in the book in a section seperate from the last time Ennis and Jack are together. When Jack has the "flashback" in the book which las the let be words in it, there is triple spacing.

We don't have to argue and call other members liars in these internet forums. But, while I am a member here, I am more like a guest who is here for free. And, here in the United States of America, as long as there is a Democratic party with people in the US Congress,  we will continue to be guaranteed to have freedom of speech in the 1st Amendment of the Bill of Rights added to the US Constitution.

I just say what I feel from my own world point of view (WPOV). In both of those formal literary criticisms classes which I took after earning a BA in Education, one of things to consider when reading literature was the author's world view at the time, too.

Annie Proulx's "world view" or more exact, her "Wyoming view," needs to be understood here, first of all, since she wrote the original story. She has that Wyoming view as well as the view of an admitted heterosexual by orientation lady. Her WPOV is not the same as Larry McMurtry's Texas POV nor the same as Ang Lee's Taiwan POV about the same subject.

TJ, please don't think i would seek to call anyone a liar or belittle their opinions on this or any other forum. If i have another point of view to someone else and choose to voice it i always make sure i include that this is only my opinion in my post. This is not being argumentative, only expressing my own right to freedom of speech. Thats not to say i don't find your idea of Jack Twist being alive interesting, just that i see things from a different, but also valid, point of view.

[NoReins]

TJ, I'll echo what Aimi said there - we've all got different points of view on all of this and that's what makes this forum so damn interesting.

[TJ]

In regard to our POVs here, some of in the USA have different points of view because some have had experience in the country with AND as real cowboys and real farmers in the states where the residents consider themselves to be Westerners.

And then some of us here have different world views of the movie and the book because we are in different parts of the world.

American English is my first language with Spanish next followed by some French. I used to be a Spanish and French teacher. I had a person disagree with me on a certain subject related to the movie and English (of any location) was not even her first language.

[proulxfan]

So much of our interpretations of this film, in particular, involve trying to read body language. i believe Mrs. Twist knew about the shirts just from something in her eyes as she is telling Ennis he can go up in Jack's room. It's like she wishes she could say more, but can't.

As for Jack not being dead: how did they get the Post Office in on the scam?

[Kemmer]

The book says Jack's mother "was never a part of her husband's life";  I'm very sure Mrs Twist had very strict orders from Jack NOT to wash and iron the shirts.  Whether precisely why, may or may not have been expressed, but she certainly knew one of the shirts was not Jacks and they both were bloodstained.  I think Jack's mother assumed far more than what we give her credit for.  And I further believe her invitation to Ennis to come back to visit--despite the hateful Mr Twist--was an invitation to take Jack's ashes back to Brokeback where they belong.

[NoReins]

Yeah, Jack's mum knew - Roberta Maxwell confirms that in an interview that was posted over in the soundtrack forum - the link is http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/live/ if you want to listen. She also said that Annie Proulx thanked her for getting over the fact that Jack's mum knew....

[welshwitch]

I don't see how Jack's mother, at least, couldn't have known - Jack talked openly ( as you do talk incessantly about the one you love when away from them) about bringing Ennis up to Lightning Flat, then later about bringing the TExan neighbour - it can't have escaped them that these were both men, and that he was apparently talking about leaving his wife, whom he's never brought to Lightning Flat. I don't know whether they even went to the funeral - Lureen says she sent the ashes to them.

As for the shirts, I think it's true that Ennis was going to keep them no matter what. John Twist clearly loathes his son and intuitively knows that refusing Ennis permission to take Jack's ashed to BBM will hurt him - he's a vicious old man, and maybe deeply angry that his son turned out to be what he was. In return Ennis takes the shirts, which are all he has left of Jack and those old cold days on the mountain - he can keep them, because they hanging in the closet they give nothing away. In the story he leaves them in the open, and I like that idea - that he's moving on and freer than he was. The movie version makes him as guilty and secretive as he was in the past, without any sense of reconciliation with his nature.

[Kemmer]

I don't see how Jack's mother, at least, couldn't have known - Jack talked openly ( as you do talk incessantly about the one you love when away from them) about bringing Ennis up to Lightning Flat, then later about bringing the TExan neighbour - it can't have escaped them that these were both men, and that he was apparently talking about leaving his wife, whom he's never brought to Lightning Flat. I don't know whether they even went to the funeral - Lureen says she sent the ashes to them.

As for the shirts, I think it's true that Ennis was going to keep them no matter what. John Twist clearly loathes his son and intuitively knows that refusing Ennis permission to take Jack's ashed to BBM will hurt him - he's a vicious old man, and maybe deeply angry that his son turned out to be what he was. In return Ennis takes the shirts, which are all he has left of Jack and those old cold days on the mountain - he can keep them, because they hanging in the closet they give nothing away. In the story he leaves them in the open, and I like that idea - that he's moving on and freer than he was. The movie version makes him as guilty and secretive as he was in the past, without any sense of reconciliation with his nature.

I think when Ennis saw what happened to Rich and Earl, the irretrievably set--consciously or subconsciously--his mind against ever having any open, public display of who he really was. And that was one of the major tragedies of the story.  Jack wasn't overly bothered with living with Ennis openly, but Ennis never could reconcile himself with who he was and what happened to Rich and Earl.

[NoReins]

I'm pretty sure that in the short story version of Ennis's phone call to Lureen, she tells him that Jack's folks didn't come down for the funeral, so you're right welshwitch.

[Valandil Eluch]

I'm pretty sure that in the short story version of Ennis's phone call to Lureen, she tells him that Jack's folks didn't come down for the funeral, so you're right welshwitch.

on the short story and i think the movie Lureen never met Jack's parents they never went to visit him it was only when Jack was with Ennis when he visits his parents

[TJ]

The book says Jack's mother "was never a part of her husband's life";  I'm very sure Mrs Twist had very strict orders from Jack NOT to wash and iron the shirts.  Whether precisely why, may or may not have been expressed, but she certainly knew one of the shirts was not Jacks and they both were bloodstained.  I think Jack's mother assumed far more than what we give her credit for.  And I further believe her invitation to Ennis to come back to visit--despite the hateful Mr Twist--was an invitation to take Jack's ashes back to Brokeback where they belong.

Which book said that about Jack's mother? I don't read that about her not being a part of her husband's life in the stand-alone short story.

But, I do think that Jack's father and his mother were not in agreement on some things. And that includes lying for Jack to claim he was dead. In the book, Mrs. Twist's talking is between Mr. Twist's speeches. After what he said first about the family plot, she ignored him and changed the subject and talked about how she kept Jack's boyhood bedroom and invited Ennis to go up and look at it.

I feel rather than lie about something which I think never happened and believe that Mrs. Twist knew that Jack was still alive and as well as ever, she decided to talk about something else. And when she told Ennis to come back, she was not pretending to be polite, she meant it.

[TJ]

Yeah, Jack's mum knew - Roberta Maxwell confirms that in an interview that was posted over in the soundtrack forum - the link is http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/live/ if you want to listen. She also said that Annie Proulx thanked her for getting over the fact that Jack's mum knew....

I heard that interview and I have also read another interview with Roberta Maxwell. There used to be a very popular Country song with the title "Mama Knows." Well, my mother, who was also Pentecostal, knew lots of things about her family which they had not told her. Oh, sometimes she knew that something was going on in a particular child's life (even after they became adults), while she did not know the specifics of it. But, she never knew that I was homoseuxual until I "accidently" outed myself to her and Dad.

Roberta Maxwell seemed to have a good understanding of REAL Pentecostal mothers. I use "REAL" to refer to those who are not judgmental fundamentalists; but, evangelical Pentecostals. I don't consider evangelical and fundamentalist to be synonyms.

[TJ]

When I was in the closet, my mother knew whom my friends were, even those who were homosexual and in the closet.

BUT, while she knew whom they were, she never knew that they were just as homosexual as her middle son (also a middle child -me). And, like Jack, I did talk about those friends when they were not around.

My parents became friends with Bill, a bisexual friend of mine, and his wife and family and they never knew that I was one of the guy's boyfriends. They just assumed that he was heterosexual. Oh, they would NOT have even thought of the word "heterosexual" (or any other sexual orientation) when they thought of people. I had met Bill at a business where closeted homosexuals went.

I wrote the above to say that I doubt that Mrs. Twist even knew that her son had a sexual relationship with Ennis. And, I doubt that Mr. Twist even guessed that either.

If Jack had talked to his parents about Lureen like he was always complaining about her to Ennis, they might have approved of them splitting up. I think that Mrs. Twist stayed with her non-Pentecostal husband because of her own religious beliefs (or because of financial reasons in that she would have had no income if she divorced him). My sisters stayed with abusive husbands because they believed that it was wrong for a person to get a divorce.

[edgar]

Yeah, Jack's mum knew - Roberta Maxwell confirms that in an interview that was posted over in the soundtrack forum - the link is http://www.hollywood-elsewhere.com/live/ if you want to listen. She also said that Annie Proulx thanked her for getting over the fact that Jack's mum knew....

Thank you, NoReigns. That was beautiful interview...

Roberta Maxwell did a great job in such a short onscreen time.

It's very cool to know that Heath Ledger showed up--beyond contract--to shoot the closeups with her.

[TJ]

In another thread, someone posted, in words to this effect, "In the screenplay, Jack's mother 'was never a part of her husband's life'."

So, it must have been in the "Story to Screenplay" book where that was written.

[proulxfan]

I don't see how Jack's mother, at least, couldn't have known - Jack talked openly ( as you do talk incessantly about the one you love when away from them) about bringing Ennis up to Lightning Flat, then later about bringing the TExan neighbour - it can't have escaped them that these were both men, and that he was apparently talking about leaving his wife, whom he's never brought to Lightning Flat. I don't know whether they even went to the funeral - Lureen says she sent the ashes to them.

As for the shirts, I think it's true that Ennis was going to keep them no matter what. John Twist clearly loathes his son and intuitively knows that refusing Ennis permission to take Jack's ashed to BBM will hurt him - he's a vicious old man, and maybe deeply angry that his son turned out to be what he was. In return Ennis takes the shirts, which are all he has left of Jack and those old cold days on the mountain - he can keep them, because they hanging in the closet they give nothing away. In the story he leaves them in the open, and I like that idea - that he's moving on and freer than he was. The movie version makes him as guilty and secretive as he was in the past, without any sense of reconciliation with his nature.

I basically agree with this post. Whether or not her mind led her to inquire about her son's sexual relationships, that is open to question. Parents can maintain a high level of denial in this area, and when there are questions, they may not want consciously to know the answers. But the film scene does give us the idea that she was aware of Jack's love for Ennis, that she knew it was true and deep, and that she was in sympathy with it. And remember, her son is Jack, who wears his heart on his sleeve, pun unintended. And Jack was probably in varying degrees of pain after the partings with Ennis at the end of their trips, which is when Jack would head up to his parents' ranch. And a mother knows better than anyone when her child is hurting. She may have known enough not to ask questions.
And I like the story's description of the shirts being out in the open, moving in the drafts blowing through Ennis's trailer. I guess Ang or the screenwriters wanted to use the symbol of the closet to emphasize their point.   

[Marge Innavera]

And I like the story's description of the shirts being out in the open, moving in the drafts blowing through Ennis's trailer. I guess Ang or the screenwriters wanted to use the symbol of the closet to emphasize their point.   

But it seemed to me in the story that Ennis had not moved on at all - if anything, he was relying more and more on fantasy and dreams for psychic survival. My take on the shirts being in the closet is that (1) he was giving them a special space, as opposed to having them hanging on the wall where they were exposed to dust and drafts; and (2) he had taken some small steps in the interim to be more honest with himself. The shirts aren't fully inside the closet; they're just on the inside of the door. The "old" Ennis would have had them in the very back of the closet, where there was no chance anyone would have seen them.