Not only does Three Burials explode such stereotypes – it explodes the whole notion of a “border” through its presentation of various characters and their relationships, all of which cross “borders” of one kind or another: marital, lawful, political, social, economic, cultural, or racial.ĢThis article offers a close textual analysis of Three Burials, exploring some of the different narrative strategies employed by the film’s director and star, Tommy Lee Jones, in his realisation of Arriaga’s script. In part, it deals with the various ethnic groups – Hispanic, Chicano, Mestizo, and Mexican – that the “official” history of the borderlands so often neglects, and that, so the charge goes, the frontier mythology and the Western genre often reduce to Orientalist, unflattering, or outright insulting stereotypes. It can also be considered transnational in its presentation of cultural identity. The same is true of the chapter headings that announce the sections of the film. and Mexican personnel on the film’s production – the screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga, a number of the actors, creative contributors, and technicians are Hispanics – there is a stylistic acknowledgement of transnationality in the fact that the film’s dialogue is in both English and Spanish. 1This article regards the contemporary “border” Western, The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada (2005), as a transnational film.
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