February 5, 2006
The first time I read the synopsis of Tommy Lee Jones' The Three Burials Of Melquiades Estrada, back when it was in production down in South Texas, I couldn't help but note that it sounded similar to McCarthy's The Crossing. When my mom and I saw the trailer in front of The New World a few weeks ago, she made the same comment. Manohla Dargis makes the specific comparison in her review; Roger Ebert doesn't mention that particular title, but he does reference Blood Meridian in his his piece (and goes on to note that the film has a tone similar to that other great piece of literature about transporting a corpse, Faulkner's As I Lay Dying).
The reason I so quickly connected The Three Burials to The Crossing (and not to McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, the wonderful adaptation of which also featured Tommy Lee Jones and a friend's body making a trek across the plains) is partially because I'm obsessed with McCarthy, but also because I knew Jones had been attached to direct an adaptation of Blood Meridian a few years ago, and that, more than likely, he was a fan. Sure enough, this new film of his plays like a spiritual adaptation of McCarthy's work; there are the specific details, such as the affair with the body and the refuge provided by a blind hermit, but those are fairly classical narrative devices. The prevailing kinship here is a thematic one; the film, like The Border Trilogy and Blood Meridian, pits the conflicts of men against the myth of the West; it digs up the raw truths buried within archetypes.
And because I love looking for this sort of substantiating connective tissue, I was of course thrilled when last week came the news that Jones is in talks to star in the Coens' adaptation of No Country For Old Men, which Scott Rudin (who would have overseen the Blood Meridian adaptation) is producing.
Jonathan Rosenbaum's review of the film has a line I like. After comparing the film's politics to Haneke's Cache, he writes that "Jones appears to trust narrative as a way to enlightenment, and Haneke doesn't."
Moving on to the Coen Brothers - if you didn't hear their Theater Of The New Ear radio play when it was broadcast last summer, you can download it in two parts here and here. It's their best work in years.
Posted by David Lowery at February 5, 2006 10:24 PM
Comments
nice comments..nice links to those reviews. i'm dying to see this one, have been ever since i read about it at cannes last summer.
Posted by: brad at February 6, 2006 9:25 PM
David, Thank you for your comments on "Three Burials" and especially for what you term the "substantiating connective tissue" between book and film adaptation. I like that term and will be keen to it in the future.
Posted by: Michael Guillen at February 14, 2006 1:34 PM