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E7. I Wish I Knew How to Quit You
25 Plays1 month ago
Join us as we discuss Annie Proulx's 1997 short story, Brokeback Mountain and its 2005 film adaptation, directed by Ang Lee.
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Transcript
Reunion and Friendship Origins
00:00:01
Speaker
Two nerds went to college and found each other in the English department basement and became instant friends. Eight years and three degrees later, they're reunited.
Introduction to Podcast
00:00:12
Speaker
You're listening to Book Club, the movie, the podcast.
00:00:41
Speaker
Hello everyone and welcome to Book Club the Movie the Podcast, where we read, watch, and discuss books and their film adaptations. I'm your host Jen. And I'm your other host Em.
00:00:54
Speaker
We hope you read the book.
Summary of 'Brokeback Mountain'
00:00:55
Speaker
But if you didn't, here's the summary. Caution, spoilers ahead. Brokeback Mountain follows the story of Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar, two young ranch hands who find themselves intertwined in a complicated relationship spanning two decades.
00:01:12
Speaker
Beginning in 1963 rural of Wyoming, Jack and Ennis meet while tending sheep in isolation on fictional Brokeback Mountain. We follow their stories in parallel for almost 20 years as they attempt to lead traditional lives by marrying women and raising children, lives sprinkled with intermittent romantic reunions under the guise of fishing trips.
00:01:33
Speaker
First published in The New Yorker in 1997 and later included in the short story collection, Close Range Wyoming Stories, author Annie Prue poignantly explores themes of masculinity, repression, isolation, and homophobia, winning an O. Henry Award.
00:01:50
Speaker
Annie Prue grew up and lived in New England for the first 60 years of her life before moving to Wyoming in 1994. It was here that she was inspired to write Brokeback Mountain based on what she described as, quote, the result of years of subliminal observation and thought, end quote.
00:02:07
Speaker
She is adamant that this story is not about gay cowboys, as the movie was described in 2005, but is about, quote, destructive rural homophobia, end quote.
Rural Landscape Reflections
00:02:18
Speaker
So this movie made me pretty homesick. What part of this movie made you homesick? Well, I mean, I didn't grow up in Wyoming. Wyoming is beautiful, as well as like Montana and everything. Obviously, I grew up in Missouri, which has a much more understated beauty. And I'm not a boy. um But my dad had a ranch. It was kind of like a hobby ranch. We just had about 100 cows, nothing too impressive. um It was about 300 acres.
00:02:49
Speaker
And um I grew up going out there every other weekend, taking care of those cows, counting them, working them. We didn't usually ride horses. We had ATVs. But yeah, i mean, I bottle fed calves sometimes. Yeah, it just kind of made me homesick for all that because that's what the movie reminds me of, you know?
00:03:11
Speaker
Yeah, i did not grow up on a ranch. We had the family farm, which was a non-functioning farm. um i think at one point we had a bunch of chickens and just one by one, the wildlife just ate them. So I guess we were feeding coyotes.
Ang Lee's Direction
00:03:28
Speaker
um chickens We were a ah ah coyote farm or something I don't know um But that's Yeah I've done no ranching I am not a gay cowboy um Or a gay ranch hand Yeah I have dug like post holes though Nice For offense I think that that's gotta count for something Yeah yeah
00:03:57
Speaker
Ang Lee, the director of Brokeback Mountain, is known for directing dramatic movies such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, and Life of Pi, among others. He was born and raised in Taiwan and later moved to the U.S. s to earn his BFA in theater from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and an MFA in film production from and NYU.
00:04:17
Speaker
He won his first Academy Award for Best Director for his work as the director of Brokeback Mountain. And he opened up the movie with a lone semi driving across the empty highway of
Short Story vs. Movie
00:04:31
Speaker
Wyoming. We see a park and let Ennis out just outside of town, which he has to walk into town to get to the trailer where he gets this job on Brokeback Mountain, which really sets us up for the isolated landscape of Wyoming and perhaps the emotional isolation that our main characters feel throughout the story.
00:04:51
Speaker
um Meanwhile, the short story opens with a brief backstory on Jack, played by Jake Gyllenhaal in the movie, and Ennis, who's played by Heath Ledger. Rest in peace. Both characters came from similar circumstances. They grew up with no money, dropped out of high school, and both dreamed of owning their own ranch.
00:05:10
Speaker
But yet they shared a lot of similarities, and in a lot of ways, they were still pretty different from each other.
00:05:20
Speaker
So let's talk about the craft of the story. You mentioned that you felt the prose was understated. it was just enough, but we weren't necessarily left satisfied.
00:05:32
Speaker
Did you want to expand on that?
Annie Proulx's Writing Style
00:05:34
Speaker
Yeah. So I think it kind of has to do with not only just the barren landscape of Wyoming, um or really rural areas like Wyoming,
00:05:48
Speaker
but it also has to do with perhaps the relationship that Jack and Ennis share they aren't able to be their whole selves all the time and so the the few times that they are able to get together and kind of express their full sexuality their full identity um it's it's just enough to like keep going um but you're not satiated they're not satiated and so i think i think annie prue's doing
00:06:21
Speaker
a lot of work in the writing. She's really trimmed all the prose down. You know, this could easily be a novel four times. It's like, you know, eight times.
00:06:33
Speaker
um But, you know, like I said, we have just enough, but we're not really full, not really satiated. See, whenever you first discussed this, I assumed that you meant like, it's not enough. Like, why aren't you fleshing it out more? And i we hadn't talked about it yet at all, ah like we are right now. And I was offended in a way. i was like, are you kidding me? No, it's fantastic. But now that we have kind of like put a few notes down and discussed it a little bit more, i think that that's a really good point that ah the way that she wrote it, number one, like
00:07:13
Speaker
I wish I could edit down this much. I use way too many words and wait just too much. i i need to get better at editing down my own writing for sure. um But it definitely does reflect ah the world that they lived in within this story like perfectly. um Yeah, not only like the social world of yeah homophobic society, but also the the physical setting. Yes.
00:07:40
Speaker
No, that's a very good point.
Iconic Lines and Themes
00:07:43
Speaker
Yeah. And in in that, you know, throughout the story, we have a lot of kind of like quality lines, right? We've got the one that, you know, I think a lot of people remember from the movie, but it's, I wish I knew how to quit you. Yeah. That's something Jack says to Ennis at the end of their falling out. But, you know, another line that kind of reappears throughout the story, and I think in the movie it's only only said he really one time. yeah um But in the story we get it as dialogue and we also get it as narrative. um
00:08:19
Speaker
If you can't fix it, you've got to stand it. And I, you know, we've both talked about how that's the thesis statement of the story. Exactly. The I wish I knew how to quit you. That is the thesis of a movie that was definitely a love story, like a tragic love story, but still a love story. I wish I knew how to quit you fits that theme perfectly. If you can't fix it, you've got to stand it.
00:08:46
Speaker
fits perfectly with the short story that was definitely more about the homophobia and the society that they found themselves in. So they're doing, I mean, both of them are in the short story, but they're doing completely different things.
00:08:59
Speaker
um The short story and the movie, if that makes sense. Yeah, um i'm I didn't read the movie as really being a different kind of story than the short story, though. I guess not the story, but maybe how society took it. And then also, ah i don't know, just the end result, if that makes any sense.
Cultural Reception and Society
00:09:22
Speaker
And maybe I'm you know taking it in through like a different lens. Even though I literally just watched and read all of this this week, um the feeling is just a little bit different, if that makes sense.
00:09:35
Speaker
Interesting. yeah Are you talking about the kind of like the social um response in the early 2000s when the movie first came out? Kind of. I don't know.
00:09:49
Speaker
So it depends on who you're asking, I guess, then. if you were to go back to 2005 and five and ask I think you'd get a whole lot of different answers. um I guess what I'm saying is that the movie was definitely seen like whenever it came out as a love story. And so that's where I think I wish I knew how to quit you is stronger as like a sentence than if you can't fix it, you've got to stand it. Whereas how, whenever I read the short story, yeah, I wish I knew how to quit you definitely stood out. But to me, it didn't stand out as much as if you can't fix it, you've got to stand it. I didn't read this short story or watch the movie until this week. So I wasn't in tune with the like cultural response in the early two thousand
00:10:39
Speaker
to the movie when it came out. So I can't really comment. I can't really talk about that. shit But feel like being removed from the hype of it all, you know, watching it 20 years after the movie came out for the first time, both the story and the movie feel like an exploration of homophobia rather than one being more of like a love story and one being an explanation Sure, yeah, and and I guess that's that's not what I meant, just that each of those separate lines definitely hold different weight depending on which which way you're experiencing it.
00:11:18
Speaker
Totally. So, Jen, we did just finish Forrest Gump, and i heard that you don't hate the Gs being left off of words in this short story nearly as much.
Dialect Comparison
00:11:29
Speaker
Would you like to expand on that? Yes, I would. And it simply boils down to, you know, the... The G's being left off of words, words being like misspelled so that you can understand how they should be pronounced.
00:11:45
Speaker
All of that is left with, like it's only in the direct dialogue. The actual narrative sentences of the short story are written grammatically correctly. um And so it's just dialogue. And I mean, the the syntax of sentences still lends itself to like a more rural style of speaking. Sure. um But we get the full words, right? We get the D on and um regardless, you know, ah whereas in Forrest Gump, even like narrative lines, there wasn't in Forrest Gump. I don't think there was a lot of i dialogue.
00:12:27
Speaker
There wasn't, but also it was in first person. true. true that That took away all of the Ds for you and the Gs on like something. um
00:12:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of things I don't like about Forrest Gump. I wonder if Forrest Gump would have been better to you if ay it hadn't been written in first person.
00:12:57
Speaker
Maybe. Like maybe it would be better. i don't know. but But I also think that if Annie Prue had written this in first person, like alternating first person points of view between Jack and Ennis, I still think I would have gotten the D on and in the narrative lines.
00:13:14
Speaker
Maybe. Whereas we might not get them in the direct dialogue lines, but I think that we would still get a narrator who knows the correct
Literary Fiction Elements
00:13:24
Speaker
grammar. So yeah, the differences between the two, this short story is a literary short story, and that's a big hoity-toity word.
00:13:34
Speaker
um i mean, it was published in the New Yorker for crying out loud. But yeah, for those who don't know what literary means, Literary stories are are supposed to be more focused on characters rather than just plot.
00:13:50
Speaker
You know, something that's genre fiction is maybe more focused on plot. um But literary focuses on humans, the character, and they explore complex human conditions. Correct.
00:14:05
Speaker
And sometimes it's okay if they don't go on a big journey. So, like, do you think that... heated rivalry, for example, would be considered literary? Unfortunately, no.
00:14:17
Speaker
I think it's definitely more in the genre camp of writing. And it's funny that you bring it up because having never read the story having seen the movie, nope but kind of just growing up with the general knowledge of like, it's about gay cowboys.
00:14:36
Speaker
I was ready for like a yeehaw version of Heated Rivalry. Oh, word. sat down to read and watch this. Well, when I sat down to read it. And then, of course, I read it. And I was like, that was not, did not, nope, very different. Nothing like it, Very different.
00:14:52
Speaker
And then of course the movie is very different too. Really good though. Like, I'm not complaining, I'm just saying i it took me by surprise at first. Well I'm glad that it did. um i personally, i don't know. i mean we're going to probably, maybe possibly read Heated Rivalry at some point. I haven't read it and I haven't watched it Um, I know, i know more about actual hockey than I do about that particular TV show. And all of that I really know about hockey is that the puck is supposed to go in the goal.
00:15:25
Speaker
Um, and that they should be wearing neck guards and that's it. That's really all I got at this point. And I've been watching professional women's hockey league lately, and I have no idea what's going on, but it's really exciting. Um, whatever they're doing. um Anyway, another component of literary fiction would be ah tight and intentional prose.
00:15:49
Speaker
So more compression, more narrowed down focus will equal intensity. Right, and I think that's what we see in the prose in this story and kind of like what we already talked about for sure.
00:16:04
Speaker
um and then another aspect of a literary short story is oftentimes, you know, we end with this, ah the endings come with like a sense of open-endedness, right? There's some ambiguity for the reader. We maybe don't exactly know how things turn out.
00:16:21
Speaker
And I can't remember who said this. I'm sure you remember. um but there's there's a famous writer out there. Someone said, like, your ending should feel um surprising yet inevitable.
00:16:38
Speaker
And yeah, I have no I have no idea who said that. Okay, well that's piece- also can't remember like regular names half the time anymore. i i don't know.
00:16:50
Speaker
It's fair. Yeah. That's like a tidbit from the writing days. Yeah. You know, your endings need to feel surprising yet inevitable and and it's not necessarily has to be a thing for literary writing, but I do think with literary writing It's okay. it's It's nice to leave the reader thinking, right? And leaving your ending open open to interpretation, a little bit and ambiguous.
00:17:19
Speaker
That makes
Depiction of Intimacy
00:17:20
Speaker
you think. It provokes thought. It doesn't have to be tied up. difference It doesn't have to be tied up with a neat bow. It doesn't have to have the ah happily ever after or even like a super sad forever after. It doesn't have to have...
00:17:34
Speaker
i
00:17:38
Speaker
a well-defined ending, like you like you literally just said. um yeah Yeah. Yeah. So both in the short story and in the movie, we do have a little bit of a graphic nature surrounding these sex scenes. um At least in the short story, we do kind of have, you know, some really like pleasant writing around it to kind of not ease us into it, but introduce the idea to us. As the short story opens, we do kind of just see them, you know, having a good time together and offering to help one another with their tasks around the mountain and everything.
00:18:13
Speaker
And then one evening they are both drunk and it is so cold outside and, um, Jack is like, Ennis, you cannot sleep outside. You're going to you know just come into the tent. It's fine. um Ennis does stumble into the tent. And then we get... i liked this line because it really just...
00:18:38
Speaker
It was written well and it's not like too direct and it has a really good language to it as far as like cowboys and stuff goes. But um it is quote, they deepened their intimacy considerably, end quote. And then it leads right into their initial sexual encounter with one another.
00:18:56
Speaker
um it didn't hold back for sure. Like it definitely has more graphic language than that, but it wasn't, it didn't feel gross to me.
00:19:08
Speaker
if that makes sense. It didn't feel over the top, but we definitely knew what was happening. Totally. And I would just like to say, you know, hats off to Annie Pru, her bingo card for what words she got published to the New Yorker. Off the charts, my lady. She ah didn't get a regular bingo. She got the bingo where you get every single square blocked out and then you get a bigger prize.
00:19:35
Speaker
yeah Yeah, yeah. And and the XXX rated version. Kind of. As far as words go. As far as words go, yes, sure. um But it wasn't like, like, it wasn't porn. It wasn't porny.
00:19:54
Speaker
No, not at all. um It was, yeah, like you said, it was graphic, but it wasn't vulgar. No, vulgar is a good word. Yeah, I was, yeah I was gonna say ah it's a literary sex scene.
00:20:06
Speaker
Yeah. It was a literary sex scene. Yeah. um Isn't it Melissa Fivos who has, um i think she's done a workshop before, or maybe it was like a craft essay on about how to write a good sex scene. Vaguely familiar.
00:20:23
Speaker
yeah It's been a long time since I reddit or read read about it or something. But um I feel like this short story could be part of, you know, could be a sampling of a literature review for a craft talk on how to write about sex, you know?
00:20:46
Speaker
Um, yeah. Yeah. I agree. I think it was great. It wasn't too much. Um, but I still remember cause I had never read this before I'd seen the movie. Um,
00:21:00
Speaker
um And even though I knew it was coming, it still like kind of took me by surprise, like, oh, boys. Oh, yeah. yeah um You know, it's it's at the bottom of page four on like my printout of the story, when their first intimate moment.
00:21:16
Speaker
And I literally wrote down, that escalated quickly. Because until that point, it's like... You know, we're just, we're vibing in the mountains. Yeah. You know, a couple of guys get to know each other, drink whiskey by the fire. Herding sheep. And, uh, ignoring the sheep. Yeah.
00:21:35
Speaker
Yep. And, you know, not really a tender moment. What shared between them. Up until this point. And then I was like, oh, wow. Because, like, you are right you you kind of knew what was coming, right? Like, you knew that it was about gay men, but it still kind of took you by surprise.
00:21:53
Speaker
yeah Yeah. Well, and if i if, you know, it hadn't been made into a movie and I didn't know, like, generally about the movie, i um i imagine when this was submitted to The New Yorker and they were reading the submission slush pile, you know, up until this point, they're like, okay, like, well, we've heard of Annie Proulx, we'll keep reading. And then they got to that and they're like, oh, oh you know, it's, a because up until that point, I don't know that we...
00:22:21
Speaker
we really get a whole lot about like their sexuality. No. Really any indicators. No, not at all. It's just two guys working a job with kind of crappy circumstance in that one of them has to sneakily camp without a fire up on the mountain um while the other one stays back at home camp. um And that's it. That's all that we got. Just two young guys saving up for their own ranches and that's it. Yeah. Yeah.
00:22:52
Speaker
So it definitely catches you by surprise. um But you said that you you saw the movie before you ever read the short story and you watched it as a young teen, right?
First Viewing Experience
00:23:03
Speaker
Yes. I was ah doing like cabin camping with my best friend and um her dad,
00:23:11
Speaker
did not know what movie we were watching and she just so happened to have it on DVD and she was like, hey, do you want to watch this movie? And I was like, sure, knowing nothing. And um we just watched it right before bed, like in our bedroom. And I was absolutely shocked I had never really seen anything like this and I was raised like a I'm like cradle Catholic over here and I didn't know like I knew that gay people existed because I watched a lot of will and grace but I didn't know like the implications of that or anything. um So I was
00:23:48
Speaker
a little bit not, I mean like kinda shocked. I vaguely remember writing about it in a journal that I cannot find. I looked so long to try to find it for this episode because I know I wrote about it. I remember writing and um couldn't find it. Like it was it was some kind of awakening for me to see that movie, but also
00:24:11
Speaker
disregarding all of that, There was some like major like joking points with this movie from that point on. And I heard about it ah for probably too long afterwards, because you know how kids like to latch a hold of a joke. um But the initial sex scene in the movie was ah was a great big joking point. and it's It's different now, like 20 years later, 20 years later, somehow we have shows ah like we kind of talked about heated rivalry. We have heated rivalry now and everybody's talking about it and loving it and apparently crying at episode five, whatever the heck happens there. um
00:24:49
Speaker
i don't know. um And then we have an upcoming season of Bridgerton with a ah like a lesbian movie. um relationship between ah Francesca and Michaela, who in the books is originally Michael. I haven't read those books either. And we have a whole bunch of other stuff that includes LGBTQIA stories, and they aren't treated like a joke anymore. Not really. I mean, we're all i don't want to say we're always going to, but we're likely probably...
00:25:19
Speaker
Hopefully not, but we're always going to have a certain segment of the population that does still treat them like a joke, even though, you know, that's not even like a clever thing to make fun of anymore. Like,
00:25:31
Speaker
pick something else I guess don't make fun of people but also it's not a punch line it's not a punch line anymore not the way that it used to be 20 years ago and then we also have a major push for casting actors that at least have like some real life experience in those roles also and hopefully that's going to make the stories told to us deeper so I'm really excited about that Yeah, I mean, as far as we know, as far as we could tell, Jake Gyllenhaal identifies as straight heterosexual, and I believe Heath Ledger did as well. Yes. um
00:26:07
Speaker
But, you know, in interviews in the two thousand like early two thousand s after this movie, I think Jake Gyllenhaal said that he thought it was important for two straight actors to play gay characters to kind of like hopefully reduce stigma around homosexuality because obviously it was still really stigmatized. For sure. In the early 2000s. And there's definitely places in the world and, you know, in rural United States that it's still probably heavily stigmatized to not be straight. For sure. So.
00:26:41
Speaker
Which he actually had to fight a whole bunch of rumors that he was like at least bisexual. And he kind of said, thank you for that rumor. That just proves that I am a really good actor. Well, yeah, they did win an MTV award for like best kiss. They did Which kiss was it? I don't know which kiss, but like if I were the one tallying the vote or like voting on it.
00:27:05
Speaker
Deciding, making that decision, it would have been the kiss that they shared after, like when they initially saw each other, um when Jack pulls up Parks in front of Ennis' apartment, and then the two of them like kiss, and they think they're hiding like in the stairs, and they're hiding from the street, but they're not hiding from Alma. But like that kiss, I was like, whew, okay.
00:27:28
Speaker
They missed each other. That was a pretty good kiss. For my own personal kisses, like, Be gentle. um But i I see the appeal. I see the appeal. Yeah. And yeah, they also, you know, hadn't seen each other in four years.
00:27:44
Speaker
So yeah, and I think good actors make you believe that and I believed it in both the movie and the short story. They speak about their relationship with women freely. um But once Ennis discovers that Jack has been going to Mexico for male prostitutes, the feeling completely changes and the conversation turns. So Jen, do you think that Ennis was jealous or concerned by Jack traveling to Mexico?
00:28:12
Speaker
yeah You know, I think there's definitely room for him to be jealous, but I do have to wonder if it's mostly concern because, again, it's male prostitutes and not necessarily from a like personal health standpoint, but more of a safety for Jack standpoint.
00:28:31
Speaker
Because this is after, you know, they talked about, this is after Ennis told Jack about the tire iron and an Earl, um someone who lived by him and passed. But we'll talk more about the tire iron later.
00:28:46
Speaker
So yeah, i do have I do have to wonder if it's, I'm angry because I'm scared for you. um Not necessarily I'm angry because I'm jealous.
00:28:58
Speaker
I was kind of thinking of it specifically as jealousy, not just because Ennis was basically saying, and I don't know how much he meant it, but he did say, like, Jack, if I learn these things about you, I'm going to kill you.
00:29:13
Speaker
So I don't know if that's a... like I'd better get to you before they do kind of situation or a how dare you try to be with another man kind of thing. um So that's, that is my thought process on it. And i I, don't know, I kind of think that it's more jealousy just because they were able to bring up a girlfriend or their wives or whoever, as long as it was female, that seemed to be okay.
00:29:42
Speaker
and maybe And maybe that's just the way that I was reading it. Totally. And also it could be different because I you know i think Jack is gay, but I wonder if Ennis is gay. Just gay, right? Like clearly he has feelings for and likes to be intimate with Jack, but it seems like he doesn't totally mind intimacy with women.
00:30:04
Speaker
um And he also says that he's never looked at another man. So he's never been interested in another man. It's only Jack. So I, you know, I kind of took it as he's Jack sex, like Jack sexual, if that makes any sense, because he doesn't really.
00:30:19
Speaker
he doesn't really seek out relationships with anybody else. Like sure, he is, Ennis is married to Alma and they do have some kind of an intimate life with one another. But even whenever he meets the the waitress, which I don't even think she gets a name in the short story. I think she's just mentioned in one singular line. um Whereas how in the movie,
00:30:44
Speaker
she's an actual character um he's not really that into her either it's not a relationship that sticks around or at least she's never mentioned again in the short story it seems like he only wants to be with jack however he is uh incredibly aware of the life circumstance that he finds himself in. He does not feel safe enough to pursue a sweet life with Jack. And he also does not wish to leave Alma and his girls behind.
00:31:18
Speaker
So he feels very stuck. And because he's stuck, if he can't have Jack, then he doesn't really care to have anybody. If that makes sense. That's kind of, I guess I'm taking from both the short story and the movie, but also,
00:31:31
Speaker
He didn't go to Mexico. he didn't, you know, make eyes at some other cowpoke anywhere else. Like it was just Jack for him. so Right.
00:31:42
Speaker
Yeah. So, I mean, that kind of leads us into talking about gender roles and masculinity, even social class.
Masculinity and Gender Roles
00:31:51
Speaker
Yeah, so cowboys are the epitome of manliness. We have John Wayne, we have Buffalo Bill Cody, Jesse James, and pretty much anybody who's ever ridden a bull for PBR, that's a man, that's a manly man. And this short story completely challenges that notion, and the movie even challenges the notion. Although i remember back in the early 2000s, a lot of people ah were claiming like, oh, but they're not real cowboys, they're sheep herders. as if, you know, a cowboy or a ranch hand.
00:32:24
Speaker
Are they only allowed to work with cows? Is that is that the hard rule? i don't know. don't think so. I don't think it is either. I'm not 100% sure. but then today we also have ah Willie Nelson, who I love. um He and Orville Peck, they wrote a song together called Cowboys Are Frequently, Secretly Fond of Each Other, and it is a good one.
00:32:47
Speaker
We do love Willie Nelson in this house. Yeah, I actually listened to that earlier today. It's good. It's good one. It's a good song. Yeah. That horrible peck. I mean, it's silly. It is a silly song, and I think it's just the word choice that they use in it, but it's also like, it is actually saying something. Like it is saying, hey, you can be a gay cowboy. It's all right.
00:33:12
Speaker
Well, I like that it's there's a little bit of cowboy in every lady and there's a little bit of the feminine in every man kind of thing. Yeah. like no one's all one thing or the other. Exactly. Exactly.
00:33:25
Speaker
So let's talk about Alma and Lorene, our wives. Yeah, so Jack and Ennis, neither one of them is too good of a provider.
00:33:36
Speaker
They are both high school dropouts. Their relatives are dead or just dirt poor. Like, they come from nothing. We don't really know Alma's background, but we do know Lorene.
00:33:49
Speaker
is she comes from you know a successful like farm equipment business family so jack's wife loreen who's played by anne hathaway um when her father passes she inherits the business and in the short story and in the movie like we see her taking the business by the reins you know she is she knows what she's doing she's a boss babe she is a boss babe and we love a boss babe very much But that doesn't leave a lot of room for Jack to be like the stereotypical provider. No. But he also he also just didn't really seem to have those skills, period, though. I mean, like we discussed earlier, he doesn't have an education. He doesn't come from anything. he The only... ah
00:34:35
Speaker
experience that he really has is as a bull rider and he's not as good at it as his dad was. He doesn't make any money at it. He just doesn't, he doesn't have the skills needed to be that stereotypical provider.
00:34:47
Speaker
I also don't get the impression that Jack is much of like a hard worker. i don't see a lot of hustle in him. You know, in the 60s, 70s, you could provide for a family, especially they only had one child, Jack and Lorene. They only had a son.
00:35:03
Speaker
You could provide for a family on one income if you were willing to like maybe work a shitty factory job. You know, like it wasn't unheard of that somebody without a high school education could make something of himself.
00:35:16
Speaker
It required a lot of grit, determination, probably a little bit of luck, you know, but it wasn't impossible. For sure. But he also even discusses with Ennis whenever, i he's trying to formulate a plan with him and be like, hey, we could open up you know our own ranch. We could have a little cow and calf operation. And his idea for making this plan a reality is to go to Lorene's dad, who does not like Jack, and ah ask for a payout to just walk away, to just walk away from Lorene. What would you pay me? And then that could maybe um afford the life that he wants with Ennis. And I...
00:36:00
Speaker
Do what you gotta do, i guess, but I don't know, that doesn't sound like a go-getter to me Right, it seems a little no gold digger-y A little bit, unfortunately, because I really, i i don't dislike Ennis or Jack, but now that we're talking about it, I'm kind of like, ew Jack, come on. Well, and, you know, on the flip side of that, right, we've got Ennis and, you know, his, I won't say poor wife, Alma, but she she definitely, doesn't seem to come for money or anything. She doesn't seem to have connections.
00:36:34
Speaker
um she is played by michelle williams in the movie and she gets a job at the local grocery store to help ends meet which i think is just what sometimes families have to do and they have two children rather than just one so that's not nothing well and it says in the short story too that she gets that job to make up for the fact that ennis was not bringing in enough money right and it it There's many times where she's trying to get him to get a job at like the, I think it's electrical plant or something that would probably would pay more than the ranching work.
00:37:06
Speaker
It is the electrical company, which would be like a good union gig. And I know that at least in the movie, he says, oh, nope, I don't want to get shocked. And that was his whole reasoning to her for why he couldn't take the job when really he just wanted to be able to take off as needed so that he could meet up with Jack.
00:37:24
Speaker
Oh, I think there's also an element of... So I see Innes as not being afraid of hard work because ranching, cowboying, it's not easy. Yeah. But it's...
00:37:37
Speaker
It has like a free form structure to it that in the romanticization of it, I think he maybe romanticizes the work a little bit. You know, it's really boring to work at the electrical plant, but. Which goes along well with the theme of cowboys and how they are trying to, ah both Jack and Ennis are trying to ah shove themselves into the structure of masculinity, which is cowboys.
00:38:06
Speaker
Yeah. Like they are, they, they do not have it in them to perform masculinity and for the patriarchy as, ah as society would dictate it of them. They're not doing a good job. They're not the best at it. um Same thing as they are not able to perform very well as traditional straight men for their families.
00:38:30
Speaker
Right. Yeah. That's a good point. Good explor explanation. Because it doesn't really make sense. It's not like the electrical plant's going to be... it's it might be different work, but I don't think it would be harder than ranching.
00:38:43
Speaker
And so it's like, if Ennis didn't want to work hard and wanted to make more money, then why wouldn't he have gotten right a job at the electrical plant where if he's in a union, he's going to get vacation time.
00:38:56
Speaker
um It might be more structured than ranching. But... Yeah, he's he's not willing to do whatever it takes. He's only willing to do what he wants to do.
00:39:09
Speaker
Yeah. Which puts Alma in a weird spot and ultimately, you know, is part of what probably causes them to separate eventually. Oh, for sure, because she, i whenever they do divorce, I think she ends up getting married to the man that like owns the grocery store.
00:39:29
Speaker
Just call him the grocer, and I don't know if the grocer means the owner or if it means, either way, somebody who also works at the grocery store and or maybe owns it.
00:39:39
Speaker
Yeah. She goes all in. she sure does. That grocery money. So yeah, we have to talk about the tire iron,
Foreshadowing with the Tire Iron
00:39:50
Speaker
right? It's a literary device.
00:39:52
Speaker
If I've ever seen one, uh, in the short story and in the movie, it's a tool for foreshadowing, right? We get, we get Ennis telling the story of seeing Earl, um, one of two cowboys who lived together when he was growing up.
00:40:12
Speaker
Um, they were, i think he said they were tough old birds, but, uh, Earl was beaten to death by a tire iron and then um he was, yeah, he was found dead in a ditch and he'd been drug around by his penis too. And in the movie, I was shocked that they actually saw, like showed a flash of his body on screen. That was...
00:40:43
Speaker
um Shocking to me today, and I think it would have been exceptionally shocking in 2005. Yeah, but Ennis, he, Ennis cannot get the tire iron out of his head through the whole story. It only comes up, I think, like maybe two times total or like three separate times, I guess. um The first time being the story that he tells Jack.
00:41:04
Speaker
um The second, whenever he, um calls Lorene to ask about Jack and where he may be. um And he he does blame like, oh no, you know, it wasn't a tire exploding as Lorene explained it.
00:41:20
Speaker
um The tire iron got him or they got him with a tire iron. um And even in the second to last paragraph, ah as Jack is appearing um in Ennis's dreams, along with a can of beans and the spoon handle jutting, that notes that the spoon handle could have and notes that the spoon handle was the kind that could be used as a tire iron. So what what even could that mean other than the tire iron was the destructive rural homophobia?
00:41:50
Speaker
We know that Joe Aguirre,
00:41:54
Speaker
definitely saw Ennis and Jack up on the mountain, which kind of brings into question of who else might have known either about their sexuality or even about their relationship. So do you think that Jack's wife, Lorene, about Jack's sexuality or his relationship with Ennis?
00:42:16
Speaker
In the story, I i can't tell you. fifty fifty I don't know. Anybody's guess. in the movie with the way that Anne Hathaway delivered the line ah on the phone with Ennis when Ennis called to see what had happened to Jack because he sent a postcard and it was returned with the stamp deceased.
00:42:40
Speaker
um So Anne Hathaway's delivery of the line you know She has a very flat tone, but we see her on camera and she's crying. um And when Ennis says stuff, you know she's kind of like, she actually has a response and feelings to that.
00:42:59
Speaker
Which I mean, if my husband died, Even if he wasn't, you know, as good at selling tractors and stuff or combines as I was. And even if our relationship maybe wasn't what it should have been, i think that I probably still would have cried like she did.
00:43:16
Speaker
In a way, I mean, it's there's who knows how much time there was in between his death and this phone call. We're not really sure. But I don't know. She was still really sad about it. So it might not have had anything to do with his sexuality.
00:43:31
Speaker
I do still think she knew. well so in the story, we don't really get... to see her and her response, right? We only see her through Ennis's part of the conversation, Ennis's side of the phone.
00:43:45
Speaker
And it's just that she delivers the information very flat-toned, like very direct of, this is what happened. He choked on his own blood.
00:43:56
Speaker
um And it's Ennis who said, you know, who it's Ennis who's like, uh did did a tire explode and cause him to to choke on his own blood before help arrived or did somebody beat him with a tire iron you know and so Ennis has this question but in the movie I'm yeah I uh well I guess in the story with Lorene's delivery it it doesn't yield anything um
00:44:27
Speaker
And I think as far as time passing, we know that it's six months or less. Like it hasn't been a year because this is um the postcard that Ennis sent was to talk about November, right? And the last time that they met was sometime before August where Ennis said, I'm not gonna be able to do August, but I can do November.
00:44:50
Speaker
And Jack was unhappy with that. So we know it's... you know And it's not dead of winter when they meet, so it's probably like May or June, and then and then skip August, and then now when he's calling, it's probably like September. So sometime that summer, you know Jack died. Yeah.
Speculation on Wives' Awareness
00:45:12
Speaker
I do have like some circumstantial evidence for why i think that, uh, Lorene definitely knew. And it was only because of, i Randall Malone existing as he did in the movie. Cause he's only mentioned without a name. i don't even think he had a name, um, in the short story, just as a ranch hand up the road from Jack, um, who Jack knew and was potentially going to move up to Jack's folks place to build,
00:45:42
Speaker
a cabin and help whip the ranch into shape right but randall malone um is i i was calling him uh anna faris's husband in my head because i just why would i remember that character's name he's on there for not that long he's played by david harbour Yeah, David Harbour, yes, but he does exist in the movie. Lorene meets him. She knows this person. There is now that definite connection between the two of them, and it is very heavily implied that this is the person that Jack then forms a relationship with to potentially move to his folks' place for the cabin and all of that. So based on that alone and the fact that David Harbour, Randall Malone, exists in the movie...
00:46:27
Speaker
She definitely knew something. Word got around for sure. I think in the movie, she definitely knew. In the story, it's ambiguous. we We're left not really knowing if Lorene knows or not.
00:46:38
Speaker
But Alma, yeah she definitely knows. She confronts Ennis about it 100% knows. And the scene is heartbreaking and confusing. I don't understand why they're in the kitchen making a ruckus and having a fight and Alma's new grocer husband does not immediately get up to go help her. Like he's...
00:46:59
Speaker
Like Ennis is booking it out the door after like hurting Alma's arm. He's booking it out the door. He had time to grab his jacket and everything. And husband grocer is still sitting in his armchair like, what's going on?
00:47:13
Speaker
That makes no sense. But it's it is a a pretty good confrontation i think and it has some uh fairly quotable lines in it and everything too um where she basically just tells him the you know i i always wondered why you never brought home any fish and i set a trap for you via a note in your creel box asking you to bring home trout and the note was there forever afterwards so you know I know what's going on. um Yeah, you're not fishing. You're not fishing.
00:47:46
Speaker
you're not fishing We know what you're doing. Yeah. So speaking of Alma, do you think Alma Jr. knows? Maybe. So in the movie, Ennis picks up Alma Jr., played by Kate Mara. They go out for food or something. It looks like they're at a pool hall. I don't know. There's dancing. um And it just so happens that Ennis' girlfriend, Cassie, played by... ah Linda Cardellini happens to be there and she's like kind of annoying but in a way couldn't think that she was only being annoying but because she was in love with Ennis and just making that everybody's problem around her the way that young people in love do um and Alma Jr. is very clearly not happy to be there
00:48:32
Speaker
So I kind of wonder if she felt like Cassie was encroaching on her time with her dad, or maybe she already knew at that point.
00:48:43
Speaker
I kind of wonder if she went home after that like lunch date with her dad and... Cassie the Crasher, if she went home and complained about it with her mother afterwards, saying like, hey, mom, ah dad has a new girlfriend and she was kind of driving me nuts and insinuating that they were going to get married and all of these things. And I don't like it because I'm 13 or whatever. And maybe her mother told her that.
00:49:09
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not sure. That doesn't really happen in the story. And also that's the no not at all that's the outing where Alma's like, hey, like with the new baby mom isn't really treating me and Jenny right and neither is our stepdad, so maybe we could like come live with you?
00:49:27
Speaker
And Ennis is like, I'm not really set up for that. I'm not a deadbeat dad, but I'm not a great dad either. So maybe at that point, because she did ask to move in with him she didn't know yet. Yeah.
00:49:44
Speaker
Or it didn't bother her. she was like, that's got to be better than, and she's probably like experiencing like a little bit of neglect or something at her yeah house. Yeah. yeah And then at the end of the movie, you know, and again, this is just the movie and it's not in the story, but we've got Alma Jr. who shows up at Ennis's trailer and she's riding this hotshot Mustang.
00:50:06
Speaker
um She's getting married to a guy working in the oil field. So he's got a little bit of money or something. um It seems like she knows there. Oh, first I think so. Yeah. I just assume that everybody in the movie at some point is going to know, and that's definitely whenever she does, because she's she's a lot more gentle with him, and they've clearly not seen each other very often for years at this point, so maybe...
00:50:32
Speaker
Maybe she was told that evening after he dropped her off and told her that, no, you can't come live with me. um And then had time to really like sit with it and think about it.
00:50:43
Speaker
um But she does want some kind of a relationship with him. Yeah, I mean, she wants him to walk her down the aisle. And at first he's like, well, I'm supposed to be working cows.
00:50:54
Speaker
But then he's like, kind of like, e it, you know, I'll quit the job. I'm not gonna miss my baby girl's wedding. And it's like, were you really even considering that? Really? I think maybe for a second.
00:51:06
Speaker
Maybe, i don't know.
00:51:12
Speaker
Jen, do you think this is a love story? Yeah. Ultimately, I think it is. i think in the short story, where're it's not until the top of my page five, and I've got about 20 pages, where we get the line, without saying anything about it, both knew how it would go for the rest of the summer, sheep be damned. And this is right after their first intimate encounter. It's like the morning after.
00:51:36
Speaker
um And I think that's the point. That's the first indication point that's like, oh, you know, they've got it bad for each other. And this is going to be a story about their relationship. Up until that point, they're just two poor guys working kind of a shitty summer job ah and, you know, drinking whiskey by the fire at night kind of thing. So um there's not a lot of indication in the story early on what it's really about until we get to that point, which page five, that's not very many pages into the story, but being only 20 pages, it's like a quarter of the story until we we learn that, until we really connect that dot. In the movie, the first hint that we get that this is a love story, and it's it's not a verbal cue or anything, but we see Jack stealing glances at at Ennis in the parking lot right before they officially meet in the trailer to discuss the new job.
00:52:36
Speaker
Just the way that... And I don't even think that that Ennis was really doing it. He was... kind of being like the like the stereotypical cowboy leaning up against a ah wall with his little hat down and everything. But Jack is like really looking at him like, wow, he's beautiful. And I agree because Heath Ledger was beautiful.
00:52:57
Speaker
So it's Jake Gyllenhaal. Annie Proulx told the Paris Review in an interview that she wished she had never written the short story. Correct. She felt people had misunderstood the story. And after the movie came out, lots of people sent her letters telling her how they would have ended Ennis and Jack's story and how they would have done it differently. And in their opinion, like better.
00:53:19
Speaker
like What do you think about that? I get it. i understand. and i think it really depends on like what is the actual number of letters that she was getting. um She was quoted as saying, I can't tell you how many of these things have been sent to me as though they're expecting me to say, oh great, if only I had had the sense to write it that way.
00:53:40
Speaker
Totally understand that, but I would be curious to know like the actual number um and how how often it really... Was she opening like one hundred of them a day? Stop opening all of them at that point. But also this movie was many people's very first experience of queer characters in a major motion picture. So I totally understand the compulsion to like rewrite the ending to make it a little bit happier, even if that wasn't the point.
00:54:06
Speaker
Because you want to see yourself on the screen and you want to see yourself have a happy ending. And you're right. I mean, it wasn't the point of the story to give them a happy ending. It was social commentary.
00:54:17
Speaker
um It was exploring the complex human experience of homophobia. Unfortunately. Yeah. And I feel like as a writer... You know, you have to hope that your writing connects with your readers. Also, some readers are going to be jerks about it and be like, you didn't do this right. You know, this is, you could have done it better, differently.
00:54:41
Speaker
And that's kind of the challenge of writing and putting pieces of yourself out there like that, of like, you've just got to be able to be like, okay, that's not what I did. And I have my reasons. And i got published in New Yorker. So yeah, boo boo. Yeah. And then it was made into a major motion picture. so well like and I also don't even think that people were sending it like sending her letters like regarding the short story. I feel like it's actually like people saw the movie and were sending her movie notes also. Yeah. And maybe she was like, read the story. i mean, wouldn't they get the same kind of feeling if they read the story?
00:55:22
Speaker
Probably. Depending on how they read it. I don't know if they have a yeah a podcast about reading short stories and dissecting it with their also learned friend about the whole thing. I don't i don't know how they would have taken it. or Yeah, i guess we do kind of like we're trained to accept the story at face value and like analyze it and look into it. But we're not trying to change the story. We're just trying to understand it.
00:55:46
Speaker
I mean, I might change it in my head, but I'm not gonna take the time out of my day to write to the author and be like, here's what I would have done. i'm just, I don't know.
00:55:57
Speaker
I'm not gonna do that, yeah but maybe in my own head. So at the very end of the movie, we do get another well-known symbol in the story and the movie, and that is the bloodstained shirts.
Symbolism of Bloodstained Shirts
00:56:13
Speaker
But on their last day at Brokeback Mountain,
00:56:16
Speaker
While they were wrestling one another, Jack kneed Ennis in the nose. And I don't know if that was on purpose or or what, but they were just horsing around. um Caused a really bad nosebleed. And then without thinking, Ennis punched Jack in the face. So both men bled on their shirts. In the movie, this is kind of framed more as like an actual fight, sort of like a physical form of their frustration.
00:56:40
Speaker
um At the thought of leaving the mountain behind and each other behind In the story it's more described as like a contortionistic grappling and wrestling So horse playing And Ennis actually thought that he had lost his shirt And even in the movie he said Can't believe I left my damn shirt up there And Jack just smiles at him and is like yeah And in my notes I put like a little emoji smiley face after it Because it's like oh Jack you think you're being sneaky Ennis just isn't paying attention to you At the end of both the short story and the movie, Ennis discovers the two shirts hung together on a hanger in the back of Jack's childhood bedroom closet. pair like two skins, one inside the other, two in one. And he smells the shirt and he's hoping to smell Jack in it.
00:57:28
Speaker
Quote, but there was no scent, only the memory of it, the imagined power of Brokeback Mountain, of which nothing was left but what he held in his hands. End quote.
00:57:40
Speaker
oh It's so sad. So heartbreaking. Unbelievably heartbreaking. And very sweet that Jack, who still tried to find a replacement for Ennis, was holding onto this memento from the first few months that they knew each other on the mountain.
00:57:59
Speaker
And I think it had to be reassuring for Ennis, you know, of Jack's true feelings, especially since the last time that they had been together was when they had kind of their fight about Mexico.
00:58:11
Speaker
um Where Ennis learned that Jack had been to Mexico and he knew like the ramifications of that, like what it really meant. um And then also after having just talked to Jack's parents and Jack's dad was like, yeah, he had some neighbor dude that was going to move up here and run the ranch and whip it into shape, just like he said he was going to do with you.
00:58:34
Speaker
And, um you know, That had to be a bit of a shock to Ennis' system. Yeah. And then still having the reassurance that, no, Jack did love you He did value the time that he had with you. it was just really freaking complicated. Okay, should we talk about nitpickings? Pick this We're pick this nit. You want to go first?
00:58:55
Speaker
I want to know why they couldn't use the goddamn phone. I get that minutes are expensive. I don't think Jack cared about that so much, but like I know Ennis didn't have a phone, and or at least it seemed like he didn't, but like there's at least a payphone and you could be like, I'm gonna call you one day a week for 20 minutes and I'm gonna save up for that.
00:59:17
Speaker
I mean also I'm pretty sure that you can call payphones. I don't know this from experience, but I've seen it in like movies and stuff where somebody calls a specific payphone And then you just know to be there to answer it. So I don't know. I mean, we probably wouldn't have the same story if they did. So I'm 100% sure that's why it happened the way that it did. But yeah, I think you could call pay phones, but you know, um which I don't know if that meant that then Jack would be paying for the call and they could talk as long as it wanted.
00:59:47
Speaker
But regardless, Ennis could call and be like, hey, I'm free for the next hour. Call me back at this number. I just, why couldn't they talk on the phone? You know, even just once a week or something, not every day, that would be too suspicious, but regularly enough. Like, why did it have to be postcards? So is it Ennis or Ennis? I think it's Ennis and I think it should be pronounced as Ennis, but in the movie, even the same people pronounced it both ways.
01:00:17
Speaker
And that was really frustrating for me because it was like it's not Ennis, that's too close to penis. No, I agree. my But you've done a great job. You haven't said Enos in this recording. I have been very deliberate in not saying Enos. Also, yeah who in their right mind would name their child Enos because they would 100% be getting called Enos penis their entire grade school career. And that's just, you don't do that to a child.
01:00:49
Speaker
Yeah. But no, i have done a good job. Thank you. Yeah, I'm proud of you. I can't pronounce tire iron, though. Tire iron.
01:01:01
Speaker
I'm not from Philadelphia. I think that's how they pronounce it there. Oil. Oil.
01:01:11
Speaker
I think one of my main, it's not really like a gripe as much as it's like a... Oh, you're trying to do a movie thing. There was no bear in the short story the way that there was in the movie. And I even messaged you about this one, too. I'm like, am I crazy or am I just skipping over the bear repeatedly in the short story? Where is the bear? And you're like, there's no bear.
01:01:34
Speaker
Cool. Great. And I stopped checking after that point because I trust you. Yeah. There was no bear in the short story. In the movie, it's like they needed to find a reason for Ennis to fall off of his horse. um He didn't have the horse with a low startle point like Jack. um So instead, they introduced a bear to spook his horse.
01:01:56
Speaker
This way, we were able to have the romantic trope of Jack ah dipping a washcloth into some water to gently dab at Ennis' busted head. um But then Ennis took the cloth away from him, so I guess we don't fully get the moment, but we still had like the anticipation of it that, oh my gosh, Jack is going to tenderly care for him.
01:02:19
Speaker
How exciting. Right. Yeah. No, I was like, when I saw the bear, I was like, that didn't happen in the story. I immediately second-guessed my reading skills.
01:02:31
Speaker
I was like, I can't believe I missed that. There's no way. In all fairness, I didn't go back to reread. So maybe there was a bear and i we both missed it, but I don't think so. I don't want to rerecord. So we're going to say there was no bear.
01:02:44
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think there was a bear. don't think was a bear. I think one of the biggest, aside from like, why can't you pick up the damn phone? One of my other nitpicks, you know, in the story, we know that Alma and Ennis get divorced. And of course we assume like Ennis has got to pay some college some kind of child support or something. but It's not really discussed how much or what, but in the movie, they get divorced in 1975 and Ennis...
01:03:11
Speaker
and enni is required to pay $125 per kid for child support. in got they They have two kids, right? That doesn't seem like a lot of money in today's money, right? That would be like nothing. Couldn't get you anything in 2026. But like,
01:03:33
Speaker
That was the equivalent of $750 per kid. So poor Ennis has to pay $1,500 a month in child support for his two daughters. That's bonkers to me. That is totally bonkers.
01:03:50
Speaker
I wonder if he had to keep paying that much after Alma gets remarried. And I know it's not the same thing as alimony. i just wonder what the kids, I mean, like, I don't want to be like,
01:04:02
Speaker
stop making dads pay child support or anything, but what were they needing to, like what was that supposed to cover? Like everything, like their home and and everything that Alma needs too, like that's that's a lot, right? I kind of viewed it as like a, somebody didn't fact check it for the movie script.
01:04:21
Speaker
yeah You know, somebody was like, I don't know, $125? Like I've got to pay like bucks for my kid, so that seems right for years ago.
01:04:32
Speaker
I would really hope that that's not the answer. i mean, we have no way of knowing, but I'm just like, that is so much money and it's rural Wyoming of all places. know, yeah. It's not like Ennis makes a lot of money. So that was just crazy to me.
01:04:50
Speaker
i have no idea what the rate would have been back then. And i don't know, maybe the rules have, I'm sure that the rules have like drastically changed from then to now, but I don't,
01:05:00
Speaker
I don't know. Yeah. I mean, for perspective, my dad, he paid $273 a month in child support. He had to pay it till I was 21 because I went to college. But and that's that was the law in Missouri. I don't know if that's a law in every state, but he was a doctor.
01:05:19
Speaker
I think all of our nitpickings were based just on the movie and not the short story. i think you're right. i think I am right. I, yeah, I mean, I really liked the story.
01:05:32
Speaker
it was really well written. um I didn't, you know you know this, we talked about it, um initially I wasn't, and I had different expectations for it. So yeah, I was like, what?
01:05:45
Speaker
I don't like this. I was going to bring that up at first because you, I don't think that you had gotten to their like actual like first love scene yet. And I messaged you about it and I was like, hey, are you going to be ready to like do this thing yet and you were like, you didn't say this exactly but it was the vibes I was getting that I don't like it. Like I was so worried that you were going to hate this whole thing and I'm like, oh god damn it, we did Forrest Gump and Jen didn't like it and I kind of liked it and now we're going to Brokeback Mountain and i love it and Jen doesn't like it.
01:06:17
Speaker
When are we going to get on the same page? I was so worried. I wouldn't say that i love the story, like the short story, but yes, when you texted me, I think I was only at the bottom of page three. And at that point I was like, when are we getting into the gay sex?
01:06:33
Speaker
oh Oh my God. And I was also like, what is what is happening here? Like it's, it's just very sparse and you know, cause again, I came into it being like, yeah, we're having gay cowboy sex. You know, i was like, this is like heated rivalry, but Western. That would be so fun, but no.
01:06:54
Speaker
It would be, but ah it was not that dear listener. i I think my only, it's not even a nitpick, but it's just like I could read this as a novel, right? I could read the novelized version of this because it would i would get it would be more satisfying as a novel because we would get the prose fleshed out. Well, think in the short story collection that this was published in, I'm pretty sure it's not novel length, but I'm fairly certain that it's longer.
01:07:21
Speaker
Like she added more to it. I think I read that somewhere that she did published like an extended version in the short story collection which maybe I'll have to get that from the library and kind of compare and contrast and see what else she added I don't know what else um if we'd had more time that would have been an interesting thing to kind of read and compare here
01:07:47
Speaker
So I have to ask, do you think that you are a book slash short story nerd this episode or a movie buff? You know, I did. I really liked them both.
01:07:57
Speaker
So it sucks that I can only pick one. I mean, no hard rule, but like you pushed me a couple of episodes back or whenever it was. Maybe it was just last episode. You wanted to abstain from voting. I wanted to abstain from voting on Forrest Gump. This is right. Yes, yes, yes, yes. It's all coming back to me. I honestly think I'm a movie buff on this one.
01:08:17
Speaker
Not because there was anything wrong with the story, but after reading the story, I didn't think I'd like the movie. And then the movie actually really did grab me. And like, you know, it made me homesick and everything. And it also made me want to like road trip to Wyoming.
01:08:30
Speaker
and see all that beautiful landscape. So because the story, the narrative is so sparse, we don't get as much of that landscape, I feel like. Whereas in the movie, they were able to show that, but without adding any more dialogue or, you know, any more words. What about you? Are you a book slash story nerd or a movie buff? I think that i am short story nerd this go around. And specifically because i do...
01:09:00
Speaker
find it fascinating how she was able to edit it down the way that she did. and and that if you are moving too quickly over just like a line or two, you might miss something. And i really appreciate that. And that is something that, ay that's a skill that I wish that I had. So I think I'm gonna go with short story nerd.
01:09:24
Speaker
I needed to read it again so I can learn more. Yeah, that's a great point. That's a great point about her control of the language. For sure.
01:09:37
Speaker
Hey, Em, what are we reading next month? I don't know. i heard Sally Field is in a new Netflix movie soon. We could do that one. It's something about an octopus. I love Sally Field. Me Let's do it.
Podcast Conclusion
01:09:50
Speaker
Awesome. Make sure to listen on May 21st when we discuss Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt.
01:10:03
Speaker
Thank you for listening to Book Club, the movie, the podcast. Watch for new episodes out the third Thursday of each month. You can find us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.
01:10:14
Speaker
Follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Book Club, the movie. You can also find us on Patreon, Facebook, or on our website, bookclubthemovie.com. This podcast was created and produced by Jen Moyer and M. Lord.
01:10:28
Speaker
Our music and mixing is by Jason Lord of Studio Topaz. Voice acted by Ethan Gallardo. And we just want to give a big thank you to our friends and family for your love and support.
01:10:39
Speaker
And thank you, dear listener, for joining our book club. See you next time, nerds. And buffs. Bye.
01:10:51
Speaker
She's still alive. We could just reach out to her and ask her how she would have done it. Yeah, I heard she lives in Port Townsend now. i don't know exactly where that is. She moved away from Wyoming. Her 640-acre ranch in Wyoming probably got to be too much. How far away from you is that? Uh, Port Townsend, you gotta to take a ferry or drive all the way down around the Sound. So with the ferry, it's a few hours, like a couple hours, if you can get on the right one. sounds like you don't have any excuses my friend brandon he's from port townsend maybe he knows her his mom lives in port townsend still be like hey does your mom know annie prue send brandon to go ask her oh my gosh have him call his mother and ask ask her to ask we're just gonna phone tree this let's go pop in check out her library what's annie just to find out oh my gosh