Bernie
Directed by: Richard Linklater
USA | 104 minutes | Rated PG-13
Screening | Friday, August 31, 2012, 7pm - 9pm |
Screening | Saturday, September 1, 2012, 7pm - 9pm |
Berne Tiedie, played by Jack Black, is a well respected assistant funeral director of a small Texas town. After a widow Bernie befriended is found dead, Bernie is charged with her murder. The film is based on the true story of Bernie Tiede.
"At first blush, Bernie looks like the kind of mock-documentary perfected by Christopher Guest. But stay awhile, and Bernie turns into something quite different - more gentle, ambiguous, troubling and wistful. Based on the real-life story of Carthage, Texas, funeral director Bernie Tiede, and his co-dependent friendship with wealthy widow Marjorie Nugent, Bernie unfolds into many rich narrative strands: love story, southern Gothic, and finally tragedy and legal thriller, when Mrs. Nugent's body turns up one day in her own freezer chest. Interspersing 'real' people with actors, Linklater creates a vivid, gossipy Greek chorus - an altogether appropriate stance given the moral gray zone the sweetly confounding Bernie inhabits." - Ann Hornaday,
Washington Post
Louis Black Lone Star Award, SXSW, 2012