I got in touch with my roots yesterday afternoon by going to the movie Bernie, which is set in deep east Texas in a town named Carthage close to the Louisiana border. It’s actually a documentary describing completely real events although it feels like an utterly surreal, very black comedy (in the sense of noir, there being only one black person in the movie and he having a very minor role).
A wonderfully strange movie with some moments of hilarity. Unfortunately, i’d read too much about the movie and thus lost the element of surprise, so i’ll say nothing about the plot here.
The movie was made in Carthage, and many of the actors playing townspeople are actual residents whose confidence was won by the director and who simply told their side of the story, which was plenty.
I was born about thirty miles from Carthage, entered public school about forty miles from Carthage, and buried Mother about fifty miles from Carthage. So i know Carthage, and yet this movie, showing a town largely composed of decent people, gave me better feelings for them than i ever expected to have.
Who needs fiction when we’ve got Texas?
Meanwhile, in case of showers, we’re prepared on 17th Street in San Francisco. And yes, it pivots nicely in the wind.