Film Faces

Tommy Lee Jones
By E.C. Gladstone

EG: Well… there are a lot of words used in film that are tricky, words like “smaller” film, “Indie” film or non-Hollywood story. But I think you would agree it’s not what’s called a “commercial” film, it’s not a typical thriller or love story, more reflective of life than standard Hollywood narrative. Does that make sense?

TLJ: Yeah it does, and thank you. Of course we were looking to do something original, that’s the whole point of making a smaller, independent, non-Hollywood, not-necessarily-commercial film. You want to avoid in this case we certainly wanted to make the movie we wanted to and be as original as possible. We were making certain sacrifices in terms of pay, and we were asking other people to make sacrifices in terms of pay. Marco did not get paid what he usually gets paid. And what did we have to offer in return? Originality, and a chance to strive unhindered for beauty. And Marco, thank goodness, and several others, found that appealing.

EG:I would say the same of Barry Pepper, who I’ve spoken to in the past. His career so far has tended towards mainstream films and I can tell he has more to offer than what he’s been able to do so far.

TLJ: “Good kid. That’s right, and we wanted to create an environment where the best anyone had to offer, whether it be an actor, a composer, or a focus-puller, was welcome.

EG: Tell me about the score composer. You became interested in him because he was a student of Ennio Morricone?

TLJ: “I was interested in Marco because he knows how to write a film score. I listened to everything that he had done and I could tell he knew how it works. I was impressed that he was a student of Morricone, but of course I was far more interested in what Marco might do out of his own originality than what he might derive from someone else. I didn’t have a lot of money to offer Marco—I did have a beautiful movie and a serious interest in his originality.

EG: So you left him alone, pretty much, to do what he wanted?

TLJ: “Uh, no [chuckles] I did not leave him alone. I spent a lot of time in his studio looking over his shoulder. That’s what a movie director does.

EG: Well, everyone defines the task a bit differently. Some directors do have separate music supervisors, but you decided to take on that role as well.

TLJ: “That’s the way I work. I’m into everybody’s business, as producer/director/actor, I collaborate with everyone.

EG: So you want “ownership” of the artwork as much as possible.

TLJ: “Ownership is a legal matter. But control is something I want.

EG: What’s your relationship to music as an artist? On this film and in general, do you use it to get into a mood? I know some actors say they’ll put together a compilation of music that reflects their character.

TLJ: “Well you can see what my relation to music is by listening to the score and the soundtrack. I worked very closely with Marco on his score and chose all of those incidental songs very carefully. One of the first things that we did when we were putting the company together, for people to get a flavor of the world they were about to enter was create a sampler of music from the border region, going back to the beginning of recorded music, corridos from the Revolucion, Amalia Mendoza from the ‘40s, and our own contemporaries, Flaco Jimenez, Freddy Fender, and some redneck country music.

Continued at Pt. 3

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-FF-

copyright 2007, ECG