ACADEMY-AWARD winning actor Tommy Lee Jones is not just fluent in Spanish – the San Sabas,Texas,native speaks it like a puro mexicano .
The “man in black ” tested his excellent bilingual skills in his latest project, “The Three Burials of Melquiades
Estrada,” a subtle and superb feature film,which he also directed and produced.
The movie explores the loving friendship between two men,a rancher named Pete Perkins (Jones)and an undocumented Mexican cowboy,Melquiades Estrada,played by Julio César Cedillo.Shot on location against some of the most breathtaking scenery of southwest Texas,the film also takes on racism,immigration and the unique culture of the borderlands.
The poetic screenplay,written by Gustavo Arriaga ( “21 Grams,” “Amores Perros “), was awarded Best Screenplay
at the Cannes Film Festival, and Jones won Best Actor. Your Spanish is outstanding. You speak it better than Benicio del Toro did in “Traffic.”
[He lets out a hearty Texan laugh ] Well,,I am pretty familiar with the northern Chihuahuan accent.
Where did you learn it?
I am a child of West Texas and,whether anybody admitted it in the 1950s or not,it ‘s a bicultural society.
Those words are in the air. In the seventh grade,I began my academic study of Spanish.I studied Spanish every year until I was a junior in college. I travel a great deal in Mexico and Spain,and I work with a lot of people who don ‘t speak English.I employ a lot of cowboys, because we ‘re in the cattle and horse business,and we speak Spanish as much as we do English.
So this movie was inspired by true events?
There was an incident a few years back,but it ‘s not what the movie is about.It reflects some social tensions that were quite informative. It had to do with a kid – a U.S.citizen,pitcher on a baseball team,good student, did his homework,of Hispanic descent – living pretty close to the [Río Grande ] river.And like most people on both sides of the river,and of that culture,who have done so for over 200 years,they keep goats.One of the boys of the family is usually charged with keeping the goats.
They pen them [the goats ] at night so that animals won ‘t get ’em,and turn them out in the afternoon so that they can graze. Sometimes he carried a rifle so that he could keep the coyotes off the goats. One day,he shot at what
he thought was a coyote,and there happened to be three U.S.marines there on stakeout,camouflaged.They ‘d
been there a long time,pretty bored,and they decided they were taking fire from a dangerous drug dealer.
They stalked this kid for 30 minutes,and they shot him and killed him and then they disappeared and nobody was
ever prosecuted.
You take on serious issues but you manage not to be didactic about the way you approach them.
If you really want to talk about racism,the worst thing you can do is talk about racism.You have to be kind of subtle because it ‘s such an insidious,nasty thing.If you preach about it,you somehow lessen the impact.
The film ‘s already won a prestigious award.
Yeah,at Cannes.We got two awards.And they tell me that that film festival is very prestigious.
A lot of famous people go and there are lots of cameras [laughs ].
Still,I get the feeling that you ‘re not doing this kind of work for awards.
We want to make artful movies.I mean,there isn ‘t much money in it.To put it simply,this has been an art deal all along.I hope it works. I am glad to hear that people are saying positive things.But it ‘s a creative venture.You ‘d
be crazy to undertake this project for money or rewards,other than making a true artful film.
It ‘s clear that you love Texas and Mexican culture.
Yeah,they ‘re kinda both the same.I love making movies about my home and its culture.
I understand your composer (Marco Beltrami, “Scream “) researched using indigenous instruments made out of
local cactus plants?
Yeah,Marco built an instrument for himself out of cactus spines.I was very proud of his work and his dedication.He does not get to do original things very often …He did beautiful work.I had to watch him and pound him a little,but it
was only to encourage originality,to make him bolder and more reckless.
Please explain the title.
There are three burials in the movie.And,actually, Arriaga has an old friend,or at least he claims to have an
old friend,who he loves and respects very much,whose name is Melquiades.My wife,too,has an uncle with that name.Also,I thought there was a good chance that there would be very few people in North America that could pronounce Mequiades, and these were sound reasons to go with the name.
The border is sometimes described like a wound that must heal.So many indignities happen on a daily basis.
Yes,the metaphor for the border has become a bleeding wound,which is uncomfortable for me.I have a lot of
friends over there and over here.It makes me uneasy for someone to refer to my backyard as a bleeding wound.
There might be problems here and there,but that is rather dramatic and violent and probably paranoid.
Any suggestions for the problems at the border?
I don ‘t want to stand by my movie and tell people what it means.We ‘ve tried to bring a humanist point of view to
these issues and there are even bigger issues that have to do with the human heart and mind.
“The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada ” opens today in select theaters in New York and LA.
‘Jonesing’ for Mexico
* His third and current wife,Dawn,a photographer and San Antonio native,is about 50 percent Mexican.According to Jones, Dawn ‘s paternal grandma and family were “refugees from the [Mexican ] revolution of the early 20th century.They lived in Monterrey,their land was taken away from them,and they had to run like hell to the North.”
* Owns a ranch in the Argentinian Pampas, in a little city called Lobos.In fact,he spent this past Thanksgiving there with his family. “It ‘s very beautiful country,” he says. “My little girl is very much at home there.”
* Has extensively traveled throughout Mexico and has a number of favorite places:Matamoros,Piedras egras,Ojinagas,Monterrey,DF (Mexico City),Morelia, Michoacán.
* Favorite Mexican dish: “I just love a really good soup they make in Morelia out of a black fungus that grows on corn.I can ‘t remember the name of that damn fungus, but it ‘s damn good soup.”
[We assume he ‘s refering to Huitlacoche,a tasty corn fungus used in tortillas and soups ].
* TLJ is good friends with Flaco Jimenez,a five-time Grammy-winning Texan musician who is the pioneer of Conjunto and Tejano music. “Flaco is a dear friend …and is one of our most distinguished citizens. He gave my son an accordion.”
* When asked for his favorite Spanish word,he says, “Ametralladora (machine gun).Pretty word,isn ‘t it?” Whatever you say,Tommy.
LATINOPHILES
Look for Latinophiles every month in Tempo. It ‘s a new feature where we ‘ll profile non-Latino notables who are lovers and connoisseurs of Latino culture.This installment focuses on the exceptional Oscar winning actor Tommy
Lee Jones.