LOS ANGELES – Tommy Lee Jones would prefer to do just about anything imaginable rather than sitting at a table talking about his work with a group of journalists.
Asked why he chose to make his feature directing debut on border drama “The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada,” Jones’ answer is quick, sarcastic and probably just the slightest bit true.
“Essentially it was lust for creative control.”
He pauses, as if wondering how clarification could possibly be necessary.
“I don’t direct movies for living,” Jones continues, eventually. “I don’t have to. So I can be very demanding and it takes a long time to get the demands I make met. I want to be a director and I don’t want to take direction from anybody. I want to control the script and the casting. I want to be in charge of what lens we use and where we put it. And then I want to be in charge of the editing and I want to do the sound mix, too.”
If Jones truly brought autocracy to the set, the results are fairly impressive. Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival, “Three Burials” earned comparisons to the best of Sam Peckinpah. The screenplay, about a Texas ranch hand (Jones) and a troubled border guard (Barry Pepper) journeying into Mexico accompanied by a corpse, won a prize at Cannes for Guillermo Arriaga (“21 Grams”). Jones was celebrated with a best actor win.
“I’m smarter than most of the directors I work for,” he cracks, explaining his affinity for working with himself. “Also, I can read my own mind. So it’s a little bit easier.”
He’s kidding. Somewhat. In his 35-plus years of working in movies and television, Jones has won an Oscar, an Emmy and a Golden Globe.
He’s also worked with the best directors Hollywood has available, from Oliver Stone to Ron Howard to Clint Eastwood to Robert Altman. Which of those veterans was he able to learn from?
“All of them.”
Again, he seems ready to let those words stand alone.
“That’s been a significant part of my education as a director is having worked with 50 others,” he explains. “Whatever they did right, you try to do right. Whatever they did wrong, you try to avoid. That’s pretty good.”
He continues, picking up steam, “You make a study of lenses and art and architecture and the history of film and bear in mind your experience in acting companies, in theaters and around movie sets, pay careful attention to the rehearsal process and the process of shooting, how to manage it logistically and structurally in an efficient way. Those are things you can learn in part from other directors and in part you need to learn on your own.”
After tackling an international shoot and a moderate budget on “Burials,” Jones is back to just acting on his next film, Altman’s “A Prairie Home Companion,” but he sounds like he enjoyed directing enough to do it again.
“I’d like to go to work tomorrow if I could find a job I liked,” he says.
Are there any genres he’d like to work on next?
“I’d like to explore a movie that actually defies the term “genre’ and even obviates the necessity to use it,” he declares.
This time, he speaks no more.
“The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada” is currently in extremely limited release for Oscar consideration. The film will go wider in February.
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