Topic: the men that murdered Jack

[ejr]

.

[brober]

Ang.. said there was a scene in a draft script that had the 3 garage mechanics witnessing Jack saying goodbye to Randall Malone the ranch forman....which lead to Jacks murder.. this scene was deleted very early on as Ang did not want to dwell on Jack's violent end.. and the only place he could have inserted the scene was when Ennis comes to vist Jacks parents.. Ang said he felt it was unecessary and would distract from the focus ...which of course is Ennis's grief .

[stacp]

I, for one, don't think I could have stomached Jack saying goodbye to Randall.  I think the mechanics were supposed to see them hugging goodbye.  I didn't need to see this.  Maybe I'm fooling myself, but I think Jack and Randall just met up for some sex, nothing more.  Sure Jack mentioned bringing Ol' Randall up to LF, but maybe Jack was just blowing off steam.  Thank goodness Ang saw fit to cut this out of the film.

[tpe]

I, for one, don't think I could have stomached Jack saying goodbye to Randall.  I think the mechanics were supposed to see them hugging goodbye.  I didn't need to see this.  Maybe I'm fooling myself, but I think Jack and Randall just met up for some sex, nothing more.  Sure Jack mentioned bringing Ol' Randall up to LF, but maybe Jack was just blowing off steam.  Thank goodness Ang saw fit to cut this out of the film.

Yes.  One God.  And one Love for Jack Twist: Ennis del Mar.

[stacp]

I, for one, don't think I could have stomached Jack saying goodbye to Randall.  I think the mechanics were supposed to see them hugging goodbye.  I didn't need to see this.  Maybe I'm fooling myself, but I think Jack and Randall just met up for some sex, nothing more.  Sure Jack mentioned bringing Ol' Randall up to LF, but maybe Jack was just blowing off steam.  Thank goodness Ang saw fit to cut this out of the film.

Yes.  One God.  And one Love for Jack Twist: Ennis del Mar.

Amen.  If Jack would have lived, he would have dumped Randall like a hot potato to meet up with Ennis in Nov.  Sorry to get OT. 

[welshwitch]

One God, TPE, but he's a trune god - so ? No, I'm being frivolous, and 

[Twisted]

I got one fuzzy pic on one the man who beat Jack, he looks like the angry man on the garage, what do you think?

[tpe]

The horrror...

[Jack del Sur]

I do not agree with the topic.

Jack died in a car accident. He was not murdered. What we see in the movie is what Ennis imagines while he is speaking with the widow.

I can not believe that in USA, in 1983, If somebody is murdered, there is not a research, or there are not guilty.

[tpe]

I do not agree with the topic.

Jack died in a car accident. He was not murdered. What we see in the movie is what Ennis imagines while he is speaking with the widow.

I can not believe that in USA, in 1983, If somebody is murdered, there is not a research, or there are not guilty.

Jack del Sur, in the story, there is an ambiguity about it that is beautiful.

I think the intention of the film makers and actors is not necessarily the same (witness Hathaway's comment about Lureen lying about Jack's death in the Oprah interview), although I think they translated the ambiguity beautifully.

We shall never truly know, so there is no right or wrong answer here.

But I have recieved comments from people familiar with film-making who have said to me that the way that scene is shown in the movie indicates that the suggestion that he was murdered is stronger.

The beauty of the film/story is that we shall never truly know.  That is part of what makes all this ever more beautiful and profound.

[Patriot1]

I do not agree with the topic.

Jack died in a car accident. He was not murdered. What we see in the movie is what Ennis imagines while he is speaking with the widow.

I can not believe that in USA, in 1983, If somebody is murdered, there is not a research, or there are not guilty.

Then I suggest very strongly you read the Matthew Shepard story. Matthew was murdered in 1998. That is only 8 years ago.

http://www.matthewshepard.org/

[greenfrog]

I, for one, don't think I could have stomached Jack saying goodbye to Randall.  I think the mechanics were supposed to see them hugging goodbye.  I didn't need to see this.  Maybe I'm fooling myself, but I think Jack and Randall just met up for some sex, nothing more.  Sure Jack mentioned bringing Ol' Randall up to LF, but maybe Jack was just blowing off steam.  Thank goodness Ang saw fit to cut this out of the film.

I agree. I just couldn't have watched Jack saying goodbye to Randall.

Jack and Ennis are (or were) meant for each other, and seeing them with anyone else is almost meaningless.  :\'( :\'( :\'(

I've set off the waterworks ... Again !!!  :\'( :\'(

[CrimsonSky]

I, for one, don't think I could have stomached Jack saying goodbye to Randall.  I think the mechanics were supposed to see them hugging goodbye.  I didn't need to see this.  Maybe I'm fooling myself, but I think Jack and Randall just met up for some sex, nothing more.  Sure Jack mentioned bringing Ol' Randall up to LF, but maybe Jack was just blowing off steam.  Thank goodness Ang saw fit to cut this out of the film.

I'm with you all the way on this one, stacp As much as I love reading everyone's different takes on the movie, and I like to think I'm open-minded enough to see most scenes from different perspectives, but where Randall's concerned, I refuse to believe he was anything more than a f*** buddy to Jack. I reckon that when Jack went to Lightning Flat after the final scne with Ennis, his dad was probably moaning about having to cope on his own, and was winding Jack up about this Ennis Del Mar fella he kept going on about, who'd never actually shown his face, and Jack probably mentioned Randall, like you say, blowing off steam, still hurting from that final confrontation with Ennis. Like I said, anything else, I have an open mind about, but I'm a stubborn Scorpio,and where Randall is concerned, no-one will ever change my mind

[Glynn]

hiya

this part really gets to me...makes me want to cry my eyes out...lump in throat...lol...I have more than one view...

was the rodeo clown a part of the gang who beat him...as he walked away from Jack at the bar and said something to those men around the pool table...?

Did Jack's wife have him murdered...?

was it ennis or Jacks wife who was seeing the murder was it real or just in either ennis's or jacks wifes mind...this when ennis on the phone?

and why does this film have to be so damn sad....lol...

also do the actors Jake and Heath read as much into all this as we do...and do they have an affection for each other...out of the roles....lol

glynn

[hpv]

I got one fuzzy pic on one the man who beat Jack, he looks like the angry man on the garage, what do you think?

You're right! it's him...

[tpe]

hiya

this part really gets to me...makes me want to cry my eyes out...lump in throat...lol...I have more than one view...

was the rodeo clown a part of the gang who beat him...as he walked away from Jack at the bar and said something to those men around the pool table...?

Did Jack's wife have him murdered...?

was it ennis or Jacks wife who was seeing the murder was it real or just in either ennis's or jacks wifes mind...this when ennis on the phone?

and why does this film have to be so damn sad....lol...

also do the actors Jake and Heath read as much into all this as we do...and do they have an affection for each other...out of the roles....lol

glynn

Hello Glynn.  There are entire threads here that are devoted to a number of the questions you raised (did Lureeen have Jack murdered, etc.)  Be patient, as there are quite a lot of threads in this part of the forum already, and it is difficult to go through all of them.  Take your time, as I am sure a lot of the posts will affect you and move you.

They certainly moved me.


As for the actors reading too much, we should note that they were privy to the interpretations of Ang Lee, the screeplay writers, and Proulx herself.  I grant them a deeper insight into the story because of this.  But I think the story is rich enough that it will stand more thatn one interpretation, as in the murder scene.


 

[Umi_Slash]

I do not agree with the topic.

Jack died in a car accident. He was not murdered. What we see in the movie is what Ennis imagines while he is speaking with the widow.

I can not believe that in USA, in 1983, If somebody is murdered, there is not a research, or there are not guilty.

Jack del Sur, dear... In Sonora, gays are killed, and we are in 2006!!

And also, there are gays killed in some parts of the US, Mexico, EUROPE and other places as we speak... u_u So yes... I think Jack was killed... And there was no research because nobody would research anything about a queer's death... If you were living in a homophobic place, would you??

[greenfrog]

I got one fuzzy pic on one the man who beat Jack, he looks like the angry man on the garage, what do you think?

You're right! it's him...

Yikes !!!

That's a really creepy picture.  :\'(  :\'(  :\'(

[Umi_Slash]

I got one fuzzy pic on one the man who beat Jack, he looks like the angry man on the garage, what do you think?

You're right! it's him...

Yikes !!!

That's a really creepy picture.  :\'(  :\'(  :\'(

It gives me the willies... Such a scary pic... O.O

[welshwitch]

Yes, though I find the whole sequence less scary than weird - it seems somehow grafted on and doesn't really convince me - looks like an after thought or substitution from something else.

[tpe]

I find the murder sequence so difficult to watch.  It is perhaps best to leave the identities of the murderers in the shadows.  The less we know about them, the better...

[welshwitch]

I have a feeling that the whole sequence would have been better omitted - it doesn't clarify anything, since we  don;t know if what we're seeing is reality or Ennis's imaginings. The ss does it better by leaving it ambiguous then letting Ennis think he knows but leaving us to think what we like.

[greenfrog]

I find the murder sequence so difficult to watch.  It is perhaps best to leave the identities of the murderers in the shadows.  The less we know about them, the better...

I can't bring myself to watch it. It's just too painful and sad.  :\'( :\'( :\'(

[tpe]

I can't bring myself to watch it. It's just too painful and sad.  :\'( :\'( :\'(

I understand the motivation and need to show this scene in the film, no matter how difficult it is to contemplate.  It is good that the entire scene is short and retains an air of mystery about it.

[greenfrog]

I can't bring myself to watch it. It's just too painful and sad.  :\'( :\'( :\'(

I understand the motivation and need to show this scene in the film, no matter how difficult it is to contemplate.  It is good that the entire scene is short and retains an air of mystery about it.

Yes, I'm glad it is short too.  :\'(

[tpe]

I can't bring myself to watch it. It's just too painful and sad.  :\'( :\'( :\'(

I understand the motivation and need to show this scene in the film, no matter how difficult it is to contemplate.  It is good that the entire scene is short and retains an air of mystery about it.

Yes, I'm glad it is short too.  :\'(

The brevitiy of it all truly adds to the sense of mystery.  There is also a loneliness in the opening shot of the murder scene -- a solemnity almost like a religious procession.  It is almost like a Chirico painting transposed to the American plains.  Jack's figure in the opening shot is so strange and almost not like the Jack we had seen in the rest of the movie. 

I admit that one of the elements in Jack Twist's character that impresses me is the air of mystery surrounding some of the things about him> what did he do prior to meeting Ennis at 63, what experiences he had with other men, how he died...  He is less an open character than we may think initially.  There are so many lacunae barely hinted at...

[welshwitch]

It occurred tome after reading something in another thread - is it just a coincidence that Jack apparently lived in childress all those years with no problems and it wasn't till after he's talked, at least in Lightning Flat, of divorcing Lureen and coming back to Wyoming with Randall, that he dies? Did he go back to Texas full of bitterness about Ennis, and start talking openly about his plans? If so, you could work out a scenario where Lureen said something to someone there and it got back to some good old boys who weren't about to let the Newsome name be associated with a diivorce in these circumstances...Lureen wouldn;t have needed to know - they might just have thought they were doing her a favor and acting as her father would have done.

[Patriot1]

It occurred tome after reading something in another thread - is it just a coincidence that Jack apparently lived in childress all those years with no problems and it wasn't till after he's talked, at least in Lightning Flat, of divorcing Lureen and coming back to Wyoming with Randall, that he dies? Did he go back to Texas full of bitterness about Ennis, and start talking openly about his plans? If so, you could work out a scenario where Lureen said something to someone there and it got back to some good old boys who weren't about to let the Newsome name be associated with a diivorce in these circumstances...Lureen wouldn;t have needed to know - they might just have thought they were doing her a favor and acting as her father would have done.

That is a plausible possibility welshwitch, but because there exists a scene where Jack outs himself at a garage I don't think that is the way it happened.

However, Lureen's statement to Ennis, "Get in touch with his folks. I suppose they'd appreciate it if his wishes was carried out. About the ashes, I mean.[/i]" Seems to indicate Jack had other wishes also. What were they? Did Lureen know he planned to leave her and go off to Lightening Flats with Randall? Did Jack ask Lureen for a huge sum of money? L.D. Newsome was dead and could no longer pay Jack to get lost. That, "About the ashes I mean." has always haunted me.

Did Jack, after deciding to give up on his dream to live with Ennis, become careless with Randall and out himself?

[greenfrog]

To be honest, somehow, it wouldn't surprise me if Jack became careless after giving up on Ennis.

I doubt he loved and Randall anywhere near a much as he loved Ennis and probably kept up the affair with him because he felt so alone.

I don't know wheter he would out himself or not. That just doesn't seem like something Jack would do.

Personally . . . I suspect Randall.

[Patriot1]

To be honest, somehow, it wouldn't surprise me if Jack became careless after giving up on Ennis.

I doubt he loved and Randall anywhere near a much as he loved Ennis and probably kept up the affair with him because he felt so alone.

I don't know wheter he would out himself or not. That just doesn't seem like something Jack would do.

Personally . . . I suspect Randall.

You know greenfrog, I use to suspect Randall also. He did call his boss a "good old boy." Good old boys are notoriously known to be homophobic rednecks in the US.

But, Jack and Randall were together for...what...3 years? Don't seem likely Randal would have waited that long.

As for Jack outing himself, I think that is exactly what he did with Jimbo. Once outed, Jimbo took off to tell his friends.