SXSW 2012: Linklater’s ‘Bernie’ is a Texas Story About Texas People

In 1996, Bernie Tiede, a funeral director in Carthage, Texas, shot and killed 81-year-old Marjorie Nugent. He confessed, and a first degree murder trial began, one many locals in Carthage believed was too harsh. You see, people liked Bernie, a pleasant man who contributed so much to that community and who would seemingly never harm a fly. They didn’t feel he was the calculating murderer the prosecution made him out to be but a man who was pushed to tragic extremes by Nugent, essentially a woman no one liked and for good reason. Now, Texan-native filmmaker Richard Linklater has turned his story into a film, Bernie. The titular character is played by Jack Black, who plays Bernie with suitable Southern Christian charm, sauntering instead of walking, stretching his broad cheeks out in a simper to everyone he meets. Black and Linklater’s Bernie is not a murderer in the classical sense. He’s …