Topic: the men that murdered Jack

[greenfrog]

What I meant was, I think Randall outed Jack.

[Patriot1]

What I meant was, I think Randall outed Jack.

Oh, I see. Yes, that is a possibility in the scene that was cut with the garage. For sure something happened that made the mechanics stand up and watch.

[greenfrog]

What I meant was, I think Randall outed Jack.

Oh, I see. Yes, that is a possibility in the scene that was cut with the garage. For sure something happened that made the mechanics stand up and watch.

Definately! I would love to know what happened.

[tpe]

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?

I also continue to be haunted by Lureen's last words in th film. 

As for the case with Randall, I do suspect that Jack let down his guard.  He was so tired of living the lie for 20 years.  I suspect he did become careless out of a sheer need for liberation...

[tpe]

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.

Jack did seem to take such risks, no?  The scene with Jimbo is indeed quite telling...

[welshwitch]

and of course it's human nature to become more careless the longer you get away with something.

the other thing that may have happened is that a sort of head of steam built up - gossip from Jimbo and anyone else on the rodeo circuit who had their suspicions, Randall or those who knew him maybe, takk by locals like theones at the dealership, even gossip about all Jack's unexplained absences from home - the cover story of going to see his parents has always seemed to me a weak one, given that he only ever went at certain times in the year and not the obvious ones either.

[Rosie]

I can't bear to join in. Just don't want to think about the ....what word to use?.....b*****d's (there were worse ones I wanted to use, believe me) that killed our Jack. :\'( :\'(

[dirtbiker]

and of course it's human nature to become more careless the longer you get away with something.

the other thing that may have happened is that a sort of head of steam built up - gossip from Jimbo and anyone else on the rodeo circuit who had their suspicions, Randall or those who knew him maybe, takk by locals like theones at the dealership, even gossip about all Jack's unexplained absences from home - the cover story of going to see his parents has always seemed to me a weak one, given that he only ever went at certain times in the year and not the obvious ones either.

Sometimes I wonder if Jimbo and his cohorts were so threatened by Jack because of his masculinity that they plotted to have him lynched.  I think if Jack was the gay caricature/stereotype, they would've left him alone distancing themselves from him, and using him as entertainment for their sick jokes.  Being masculine is obviously not what they expect a gay person to be, and thus they felt threatened that they may be losing their ability to "pick them out of the crowd."  Jack upset their belief system making them feel vulnerable...

[welshwitch]

What an interesting idea - you mean that if he'd had the sort of girly characteristics and the silly voice like the caricatures on TV they'd have seen hiom as less of a threat because he was so obviously a natural focus for jokes and so clearly weak that they knew thay could make fun of him and get away with it? If he's gay but looks and behaves like a " normal" man, then that's frightening, because if he can be gay, so could they...

[dirtbiker]

What an interesting idea - you mean that if he'd had the sort of girly characteristics and the silly voice like the caricatures on TV they'd have seen hiom as less of a threat because he was so obviously a natural focus for jokes and so clearly weak that they knew thay could make fun of him and get away with it? If he's gay but looks and behaves like a " normal" man, then that's frightening, because if he can be gay, so could they...

Exactly.  Don't all (or mostly all) gay jokes hone in on certain stereotypical characteristics?  Just go to Comedy Central.  It gets tiresome...

[tpe]

and of course it's human nature to become more careless the longer you get away with something.

the other thing that may have happened is that a sort of head of steam built up - gossip from Jimbo and anyone else on the rodeo circuit who had their suspicions, Randall or those who knew him maybe, takk by locals like theones at the dealership, even gossip about all Jack's unexplained absences from home - the cover story of going to see his parents has always seemed to me a weak one, given that he only ever went at certain times in the year and not the obvious ones either.

Sometimes I wonder if Jimbo and his cohorts were so threatened by Jack because of his masculinity that they plotted to have him lynched.  I think if Jack was the gay caricature/stereotype, they would've left him alone distancing themselves from him, and using him as entertainment for their sick jokes.  Being masculine is obviously not what they expect a gay person to be, and thus they felt threatened that they may be losing their ability to "pick them out of the crowd."  Jack upset their belief system making them feel vulnerable...

I do think that the rodeo clown and his friends were contemplating something nasty for Jack -- and I think he sensed it.  This is why I am a bit puzzled by the murder.  At that point, did Jack no longer care if he was "found out"?  The reason, I think, is that he was unaware that he was found out by the mechanics.  But I am not sure about any of this...

[welshwitch]

But the rodeo clown bit was years earlier - before he met Lureen - they wouldn;t have waited something like seventeen years to initiate something. The mechanics we just don't know enough about - I wonder whether having given up on Ennis after the scene by the lake and having got away with the Randall thing for a while, Jack either became careless oor simply did';t care all that much, and gave away what head been possibly a badly-kept secret for a while?

[tpe]

But the rodeo clown bit was years earlier - before he met Lureen - they wouldn;t have waited something like seventeen years to initiate something. The mechanics we just don't know enough about - I wonder whether having given up on Ennis after the scene by the lake and having got away with the Randall thing for a while, Jack either became careless oor simply did';t care all that much, and gave away what head been possibly a badly-kept secret for a while?

No I did not mean that the rodeo clown and his friends instigated Jack's murder when Jack was 39.  I brought up the Rodeo clown scene because it is there that you see Jack making a quick exit when he felt he he was "found out".  He may have been taking a chance with Jimbo, but you can see that his survival instincts were on high alert. 

How then did the mechanics found out that he was different?  There are only 2 possibilities.  Either Jack was no longer as careful and as watchful as he was in earlier years, or that he did not think that the mechanics observed him and Randall in the deleted scenes.  Even if the second was true, it would have been remakably careless of Jack not to have been on his guard when he was with Randall.  The fact that he was found out seems to indicate to me that he may no longer have cared...

[welshwitch]

I think that's true - I can extrapolate to a Jack who has periods of bitterness about Ennis, whom he's not going to see for six months, and may not see then - he doesn;t know Ennis is going to send a postcard and he obviously doesn't - imagining it's over, trying to pretend that someone else can take Ennis's place but knowing deep down that no-one can, and getting into a reckless frame of mind and being less guarded than he's been in the past, and nearer home, where he's well-known. I was going to say some sort of death-wish, but that's probably not true - Jack has too much of a life-force to wish himself dead, I think.

[greenfrog]

I think that's true - I can extrapolate to a Jack who has periods of bitterness about Ennis, whom he's not going to see for six months, and may not see then - he doesn;t know Ennis is going to send a postcard and he obviously doesn't - imagining it's over, trying to pretend that someone else can take Ennis's place but knowing deep down that no-one can, and getting into a reckless frame of mind and being less guarded than he's been in the past, and nearer home, where he's well-known. I was going to say some sort of death-wish, but that's probably not true - Jack has too much of a life-force to wish himself dead, I think.

Jack at times can be just as complex as Ennis.

[Carefree Wind]

Aguirre also knew about Jack and Ennis.

Even though Jack's death was many years after Brokeback...could it be possible that maybe Aguirre spread word over the years about Jack...and it then came full circle to the point where it reached the mechanics themselves?

It's a thought which came to me just now..so I haven't really had time to see if it actually would be plausible or not. 

[tpe]

I think that's true - I can extrapolate to a Jack who has periods of bitterness about Ennis, whom he's not going to see for six months, and may not see then - he doesn;t know Ennis is going to send a postcard and he obviously doesn't - imagining it's over, trying to pretend that someone else can take Ennis's place but knowing deep down that no-one can, and getting into a reckless frame of mind and being less guarded than he's been in the past, and nearer home, where he's well-known. I was going to say some sort of death-wish, but that's probably not true - Jack has too much of a life-force to wish himself dead, I think.

I think you just said the idea that I could not put down directly in words -- a death wish.  It was as if he had a death wish.

I am not saying that this is true.  We really can't tell 100 %.  But this feeling is at the heart of what I just said.

[LuvJackNasty]

I think that's true - I can extrapolate to a Jack who has periods of bitterness about Ennis, whom he's not going to see for six months, and may not see then - he doesn;t know Ennis is going to send a postcard and he obviously doesn't - imagining it's over, trying to pretend that someone else can take Ennis's place but knowing deep down that no-one can, and getting into a reckless frame of mind and being less guarded than he's been in the past, and nearer home, where he's well-known. I was going to say some sort of death-wish, but that's probably not true - Jack has too much of a life-force to wish himself dead, I think.

That's what I always believed- that after that confrontation Jack became reckless. Seeing the toll it took on Ennis and knowing the toll it has taken on himself he just got into a depression and went into an I don't care sort of mode.

[Patriot1]

Aguirre also knew about Jack and Ennis.

Even though Jack's death was many years after Brokeback...could it be possible that maybe Aguirre spread word over the years about Jack...and it then came full circle to the point where it reached the mechanics themselves?

It's a thought which came to me just now..so I haven't really had time to see if it actually would be plausible or not.  :-\

I don't think so Carefree Wind, the distance is too great. Aguirre is in Signal, Wyoming and Jack died in Texas, presumably in Childress.

[welshwitch]

DEpends on the grapevine maybe. Aguirre recruited the two of them from some agency called Farm and Ranch Employment - all he had to do was say something unpleasant, or drop hints, about Jack when he was in company with other people using the agency, or those who ran it. The gossip might spread - I don;t know how far, though hundreds of miles seems a bit of a stretch.

[edgar]

My two cents' worth:

Concerning Jack's behavior after he and Ennis had the fight at the last meeting, I don't think he had a "death wish"; as ww said, he is a life force. However, in a temporarily depressed state of mind, Jack could have gotten a little careless. Partly just being tired, feeling less guilty himself, etc.... but partly, perhaps subconsciously, something of this impulse may have crossed Jack's mind: "I don't really care if I get beat up or killed. Without Ennis, what does it matter." Like I said, not that he really meant that, but at the time, it might have been a conscious or unconscious impulse.

Some of you have heard this before. In fact, I'll quote from a thread I started a while back.

"Near the end of the movie [trailer], the three assailants are mentioned. One, called "Grease Monkey," is played by Christian Fraser. Then, when the stunt doubles are listed, one of Ennis's doubles is Christian Fraser."

My theory on this is that Ang Lee wanted to imply one of two things. Either

a) Ennis was, in some way, responsible for Jack's death. By pushing Jack away, he pushed Jack into the careless behavior that got him killed. I am so sorry to type that.  :\'(

b) Ennis feels guilty about Jack's death, and envisions himself/his alter ego present at Jack's murder. That is very sad also. :\'(

[edgar]

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.

Jack did seem to take such risks, no?  The scene with Jimbo is indeed quite telling...

We hardly get to know Randall, but I don't see Randall purposefully and freely outing Jack. That would be a mean thing to do, and I don't see him as mean. On the other hand, someone could have forced or blackmailed Randall to out Jack.

I tend to think it was an accident.

And, about the Jimbo incident, I don't think Jack would get murdered over offering to buy someone a drink. Jack purposefully keeps everything on an "acceptable" "just friendly" level so that he won't get into trouble if Jimbo doesn't respond.

In my mind, Jimbo goes back to his friends and says something like, "Stupid traveling cowboys. Those guys think they're so cool." Maybe he says, "Does that guy seem a little weird to you?" He's not saying, "Hey, let's beat that guy up." IMHO.

[greenfrog]

I doubt Jimbo had anything to do with Jack's death. I really wish we could see the scene with the mechanics and find out what it was they were looking at.

[welshwitch]

Agreed, but whatever Jimbo said to the other men there may have been a part of a number of rumors about Jack's proclivities and eventually, and because of something we don't know about, they may have formed part of the impulse that led the three men to murder him - if of course the murder wasn't a construct by Ennis.

As far as the appearance of Ennis's doubl;e a shis mudered, I just wrote that off to the exigncies of film-making - they were a long way form home with a small num,ber of people and just used who ever was around, as they did for the Mexican prostitute.

(I worry about myself  - I'm not usual this inclined to pragmatism.)

[tpe]

My two cents' worth:

Concerning Jack's behavior after he and Ennis had the fight at the last meeting, I don't think he had a "death wish"; as ww said, he is a life force. However, in a temporarily depressed state of mind, Jack could have gotten a little careless. Partly just being tired, feeling less guilty himself, etc.... but partly, perhaps subconsciously, something of this impulse may have crossed Jack's mind: "I don't really care if I get beat up or killed. Without Ennis, what does it matter." Like I said, not that he really meant that, but at the time, it might have been a conscious or unconscious impulse.

Some of you have heard this before. In fact, I'll quote from a thread I started a while back.

"Near the end of the movie [trailer], the three assailants are mentioned. One, called "Grease Monkey," is played by Christian Fraser. Then, when the stunt doubles are listed, one of Ennis's doubles is Christian Fraser."

My theory on this is that Ang Lee wanted to imply one of two things. Either

a) Ennis was, in some way, responsible for Jack's death. By pushing Jack away, he pushed Jack into the careless behavior that got him killed. I am so sorry to type that.  :\'(

b) Ennis feels guilty about Jack's death, and envisions himself/his alter ego present at Jack's murder. That is very sad also. :\'(

I do agree that Jack was a "life force".  He seemed to have cherished life very much.  Wasn't this the whole point of moving on and sharing a life with Randall -- so as not to waste a lifetime of opportunity to love and be loved?

[Handell]

I wonder if anyone notice the old dirty mechanic and the younger looking man standing behind him in the distance int the trailer. Neither of them appear in the actual film, but I've always wonder who they might be. And I wonder if they roles will be included in the deleted scenes in the upcoming (1/23/2007) release of the 2 disc collectors DVD set? Any thoughts?
Handell

[tpe]

Handell, welcome.  I don't recall the trailer scene that well, and I assume that these two characters that you mentioned were not present in the scene where Jack is killed, no?  I don't really know.  They are probably not listed in the closing credits.  But a quick check might be a good idea...

I hope the trailers scenes not included in the movie end up as part of the bonus scenes in the January 2007 edition of BBM.

[Jennis]

Hi Handell,
As far as i know it's a deleted scene.There were mechanics watching Jack supposedly when he goes to see Aguirre about a job up on Brokeback the following year and there are also deleted scenes where men/mechanics again (i think?)are watching Jack and Randall hug one another,a goodbye embrace/hug when they part after coming back from a trip away together.One of them,Jack/Randall is picking up their vehicle.We shall have to see if any of this is included on the new dvd in January.

Jennis.x

[greenfrog]

I sure hope the show us that deleted scene. I really want to know what happened.

[tpe]

Hi Handell,
As far as i know it's a deleted scene.There were mechanics watching Jack supposedly when he goes to see Aguirre about a job up on Brokeback the following year and there are also deleted scenes where men/mechanics again (i think?)are watching Jack and Randall hug one another,a goodbye embrace/hug when they part after coming back from a trip away together.One of them,Jack/Randall is picking up their vehicle.We shall have to see if any of this is included on the new dvd in January.

Jennis.x

Thanks kathy.  I was not familiar with the tidbit you mentioned regarding the earlier scene with Aguirre.  Most interesting...