Bernie
Directed By:
Richard Linklater
Written By: Skip
Hollandsworth and Richard Linklater
Starring: Jack
Black, Shirley MacLaine, and Matthew McConaughey
Director of Photography: Dick Pope, Editor: Sandra Adair,
Production Designer: Bruce Curtis, Original Music: Graham Reynolds
The
opening scene of Bernie, a not-so-dark
comedy from Richard Linklater about a dark subject, begins with Jack Black as
the titular character giving a lecture. His tone is gentle and warm, his
mannerisms quirky but spirited, and his instructions simple to follow. In fact,
it takes a few seconds before a pull out by the camera reveals Bernie is
standing in front of a dead body, and preparing it for a funeral. Linklater’s
tone is frothy in its lightness; his camera puts the grotesque in close-up, but
often under soft lighting that makes it feel gentle. So what is a gentle man
doing murder for?
And
Bernie is certainly one of the more
heartwarming comedies about a terrible crime, and a true one. Set in the town
of Carthage, Texas (East Texas is quite different from the oil men and weirdos
of the other parts, a local tells us), Linklater spins together documentary and
recreation about one man whose story is too good to not be on film, the type
Hitchcock would have ate up with giddy delight. It’s strange and odd in all the
ways one would never expect, and Black makes us fall in love with his adorable
character, even if he does something very, very wrong.
