The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada: Notes on Cinematography

1. First reference to Mel’s death is in scene 2, when we see Pete in the autopsy room with the coroner. Then to scene 4, when Pete leaves the hospital and reacts.
   • First flashback is Pete’s remembering the time he met Mel.
   • First uninflected shot from past shows the first burial by Norton.
2. Norton’s flashbacks:
   • Scene 27, when he drops Lou Ann at the mall, suddenly he has a terrible flashback on sitting over the dead man’s body
3. Blue scenes:
• Scene 2, autopsy room in the hospital, dead body on the table
• Scene 7, medical examiner sums up his autopsy results
• Scene 11, local diner—introducing Rachel, Bob, and then Pete confronts the sheriff with the rifle shells
• Scene 13, Lou Ann and Rachel talk for the first time in the diner
• Scene 16, Pete walks into café and asks Border Patrol what they use for rifles
• Scene 24, when Rachel is mopping in the café and Lou Ann is watching her talk to Bob
• Scene 30, Norton’s supervisor sees the sheriff in the café and goes outside to tell him that Norton shot Mel
• Scene 51, Rachel and Lou Ann talk—she’s going to leave
• Scene 56, Rachel on the phone with Pete
4. Green scenes:
• Scene 15, Sheriff and Rachel—he can’t get an erection
• Scene 47, same subject
5. Orange scenes:
• Scene 10, Pete has been sitting in his cabin for two days—a friend comes by to look in on him—and shows him the two rifle shells
• Scene 25, when Lou Ann and Mel are dancing in the motel room
• Scene 28, when the two couples return from their motel rendezvous
• Scene 31—Pete sitting in his cabin at sunset, and Rachel comes to tell him the news
• Scene 37, day scene with Mel showing Pete picture of his family
• Scene 44, campfire scene, Norton and Pete
• Scene 56, Bodega in Mexico—Pete calls Rachel
• Scene 56, ORANGE CHANGES TO BLUE as Pete walks away from Bodega into the dusk and then enters the shed where Mel’s body is laying—and that is dim light, bluish gray
6. Overexposed light
• Scene 33, Pete’s stakeout of Norton’s place
7. Night scene
• Scene 34, Pete’s abduction of Norton
• Scene 35, Norton digs up Mel from his second grave
• Scene 66, at end, with Norton asleep and Pete standing above the fire
8. Darkly lit scenes
• Scene 36, Pete shows Norton where Mel lived, where his bed was, his clothes, his cu
• Scene 38, Pete takes Norton’s shoes and they set out
9. Red-lit scene (mixed with green)
   • Scene 54, Mariana’s house
   • Scene 57, when Norton wakes up in Mariana’s house

Note timing of when we see scene 29—and see Mel killed, but from his POV. Why then? It comes just after the scene of the two couples at the motel rendezvous

Slow pace of the film—like The Straight Story (pace of a walking horse vs. pace of a lawn mower)

Shucking corn scene is KEY

“You found it, Pete!” Norton says in scene 64. As if that was the purpose of this elderquest—to find Jimenez, to find a Garden of Eden, a perfect spot to be buried.

Film resource written by Robert E. Yahnke
Copyright, Robert E. Yahnke, © 2009
Professor, Univ. of Minnesota
Request permission from the author to reprint this resource--for educational use only

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