Bernie

When talking about true crime movies, several high profile ones come to mind, some of which are gruesome, such as American gangsters, Goodfellas, but most of them have almost fascinating portrayal of the criminals, who are usually charismatic and have somewhat larger than life stories worth telling, like Public enemies, Midnight in the garden of good and evil, Catch me if you can. I stumbled upon Bernie over the weekend, and what a small jem it is! I am very glad that I did not miss it!

The movie was based on an article by Skip Hollandsworth, 「Midnight in the Garden of East 德州」, which appeared on 德州 Monthly on January 1998. (http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/midnight-garden-east-texas).

The story happened in Carthage, a small town in eastern 德州. 「MARJORIE NUGENT WAS THE RICHEST WIDOW IN AN ECCENTRIC TOWN FULL OF RICH WIDOWS. BERNIE TIEDE WAS AN ASSISTANT FUNERAL HOME DIRECTOR WHO BECAME HER COMPANION. WHEN SHE DISAPPEARED, NOBODY SEEMED ALARMED. WHEN HE CONFESSED TO KILLING HER, NOBODY SEEMED OUTRAGED.」

The opening scenes involved the lesson that Bernie gave to a group of students on the process of caring for the deceased as a funeral home professional. The attention to detail was superb, and we were instantly absorbed, and I knew right then that this is going to be a great movie. Jack Black WAS Bernie Tiede in this movie, with the right touch of the character and a brilliant performance. Matthew McConaughey plays the local district attorney, Danny Buck Davidson, and he is this handsome southern boy type of figure as usual. I loved the narratives given by the various town folks, and the beginning one with the description of different parts of Taxas was so poignantly funny that I can not stop laughing. The director is Richard Linklater, whose most notable films include before sunrise, before sunset, and before midnight. And as I suspected, he was born and raised in 德州.

If one has not seen the movie, just given the description of the basic facts- a 38 year old assistant funeral home director killed his companion, an 81 year old rich widow, then it looked like just another gold digger story. But this is much more complicated than that. It is about who people are and why they do certain things, and how the community will react. Bernie was so loved by his locals that the DA had to move the case so that he could get convicted by the jury. The contrast between a nice young man and a mean old lady was dramatic, at the end part of you feel that he should be punished for what he did, but as his attorney said in court, he was just not the monster that he was supposed to be.

It is a very weird movie, but in a good way. It was so Texan in its heart and soul, and very proudly being so. The message was not quite clear, but again, as real life goes, it never was. And just as I was googling online, turned out that Bernie Tiede asked the court a month ago to give him lighter penalty.

Another article citing the views from Mrs. Nugent’s nephew, writer Joe Rhodes, was also very telling. 「Bernie’s not the first who thought about killing her, he’s just the first one who went through with it.」 「There are little things in Bernie that aren』t exactly true, bits of dialogue, a changed name here and there,」 Mr Rhodes said.」But the big things, the weirdest things, the things you』d assume would have to be made up, happened exactly as the movie says they did.」 「Many thought Mrs. Nugent was the meanest woman in East 德州, 」 he said, 「and her killer was one of the nicest folks around.

「There was something about Aunt Marge’s ending up in a freezer that seemed appropriate」, wrote Mr Rhodes, 「She』d always been kind of cold hearted」. Well, if these chilling words came from a nephew of the old lady, it really said something about her.