Take Three: Tommy Lee Jones
Tuesday, August 14, 2012 at 8:01AM Craig here with Take Three. Today: Tommy Lee Jones who is currently working it out with Streep onscreen in Hope Springs.
Take One: No Country for Old Men (2007)
In the Joel & Ethan Coen's No Country for Old Men, the ostensible main character is weary Texas lawman Sheriff Ed Tom Bell played by Tommy Lee Jones, though his co-star Josh Brolin is the film's nominal hero. Jones, though, an ‘old man’ on the verge of retirement and tired of the country he’s patrolled for so long, brings a melancholic meaning to the film’s title. Sheriff Bell had more of a life/backstory in McCarthy’s novel (much of which the Coens left out) wherein he discusses his experiences in WWII, which hint at a desire to shy away from violent combat/confrontation, and his life is generally laid out in more detail. What we do learn of Bell in the film is from the slivers of significant information Jones imparts in his refined characterisation.
The actor is typically, movingly good in the key scene where Bell visits his uncle Ellis (Barry Corbin). We see their playfully wry relationship in an exchange of sarcastic pleasantries over Ellis's ‘outlaws cats’ -- a perfectly daft moment that features one of Jones' very best comically weary glances – but the visit is also rife with understated detail that speaks volumes about Bell as a man. Shot in profile staring out a window at the desolate and godless expanse of the Texan desert, and discreetly withholding his true inner thoughts, Bell enigmatically responds to Ellis about why he’s quitting the law.
I always figured when I got older God would sorta come into my life somehow... and he didn't."