Rhetorical Analysis Essay: Bernie (2011)

Bernie (2011) is a film that challenges traditional approaches to black comedy and crime dramas. The movie features actual townspeople who were present during the story’s unfolding. In the film, Bernie, a loving man who even sings in the church, is entangled in a scandal that leads to his downfall. Therefore, to tell the enigmatic, jaw-dropping tale of Bernie Tiede, a real-life East Texas Assistant funeral director who confessed to murdering his aging benefactress, Bernie employs narration, and utilizes a sense of realism as well as interviews in the film.

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To explain the story and provide a profound exposition of Bernie’s character, the movie Bernie (2011) employs narration. Although narration is a common feature in comedy, Bernie carries more than the usual descriptive heft. Through narration, the viewer understands that Bernie, a titular character, is an effeminate assistant funeral director whose charm, empathy, refinement, kindness, and generosity have captivated the entire Texan town. In their narration, they employ past tense early, implying that Bernie is dead or something sinister has happened to him; likewise, their statements are relatively eulogic. From their accounts, instances of Bernie’s benevolence are brought to the limelight. On the other hand, in their narration, the townsfolk describe and portray Danny Buck as a lascivious person. Their description is rooted in utter negativity. Through narration, therefore, the viewer encounters a sharp contrast between Bernie and Buck.

Bernie also appropriates a sense of realism that heightens the significance of Bernie Tiede’s story and augments the town’s genuine response to the series of events that unfold. This realism is evident when the comedy uses unrecognizable townspeople, making the viewer regard them as characters and not performers. These ordinary townsfolk present useful public opinion and information regarding Bernie Tiede’s contributions, upbringing, and role in this Texan community. Additionally, it adds an air of prejudice that infects the viewer’s judgments of Bernie as a person. Every townsperson shares the narrative that Bernie was a loving, caring man of the cloth, and this is a generalized notion that adulterates and blurs the audience’s own judgment.

Finally, Bernie uses interviews that lift the veil and expose how the townsfolk regarded Bernie and Marjorie Nugent. One local confesses that “Bernie became her property,” with a tight-lipped nod, as though striving to suppress more passionate revelations. Other more chatty interviews are liberally sprinkled throughout the movie and remitted straight to the camera by a gaggle of the townsfolk. The interviews are enriched with numerous folksy reports that effortlessly ground the film in pretty specific small-town responsiveness. It is through a series of interviews with townsfolk, interwoven with flashbacks, the audience follows Bernie. Through these interviews, the viewer sees him arrive in Carthage, where old ladies cherish him. he then befriends an affluent, mean-spirited widow, Marjorie Nugent. The two become partners in both expensive vacations and daily routines. Notably, of all the interviewees, only the local district attorney, Danny Buck, is apathetic towards the jovial Bernie. Even Marjorie transforms under Bernie’s friendship from changes from a bitter woman to a happy old lady.

If anything, Bernie is a movie about the judicious application of moral judgment based on personal biases. Even when the movie comes to a culmination, the audience is unsure if the story is about an entire community that basks in deceit or a tale of a remarkable individual who ultimately pays profoundly for his kindness through a single deadly, momentary lapse in reason.