Screening Log: France Was Right Edition

            Small note of fun this week. As part of my Masters program, I’ll be digging through a lot of archival materials, and one of the best parts of Columbia is their Oral History archives, which are not available online. Here’s a quote I pulled from Fritz Lang, that I think explains a lot of the nihilism in his noir films: “Today, I’m convinced that mythical fate doesn’t exist. That you never make fate for yourself.” I wish I had more time with it, because Lang also talks a lot of who slept with who stuff.

-Hollywood or Bust, 1956. Directed by Frank Tashlain. 35mm projection at Brooklyn Academy of Music.

-Artists and Models, 1955. Directed by Frank Tashalin. 35mm projection at Brooklyn Academy of Music.

-/Barry Lyndon/, 1975. Directed by Stanley Kubrick. DVD.

-New Guy, 2003. Directed by Bilge Ebiri, Streaming via Fandor. 

Bernie: Good Standing Citizen With A Little Blemish

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.