In a weird case of art imitating life, the reluctant family gathered for movie night and, much to this analyst's concern, the consensus was to watch a Jack Black (and Shirley MacLaine and Matthew McConaughy) film, Bernie. Oh, boy, I thought, two hours of watching a buffoon clown around. I pulled out some papers that I needed to grade and settled in for what I thought would be torture. Of course, as you must realize by now, I was pleasantly surprised - and not just that the movie was good but that it spoke directly to the dilemma that we had been discussing in a psychoanalytic class earlier in the day.
In class, we have been reading Jane Hall's book Deepening the Treatment. This book is intended to help therapists help their clients talk more fully about their psychological lives - to engage with their own material, with the goal of working towards deepening the psychotherapy treatment, one where patient and therapist meet once or twice a week, into an analysis, where the meetings are more frequent and the patient frequently lies on a couch to more deeply immerse themselves in their inner world.
Traditionally, psychoanalysts have worked with patients who are reasonably psychologically healthy. Part of the rationale for that was that such deep immersion could be disruptive to those who, for instance, didn't trust that the out-of-sight analyst had their best interests in mind. However, in the 1950s, psychoanalysts started working with what they termed wider scope patients. Psychoanalysis can and actually should stir powerful emotions in all patients; however, as those patients who are less emotionally stable engage more deeply with their inner lives, a great deal of upsetting material gets stirred both in themselves and in their analysts.
The Class debated the role of setting limits in such a treatment. On the one hand, it felt potentially harmful to, in the context of a caring relationship, set limits. It was feared that our patients might experience us as being too much like the harsh and critical others who may have contributed to their difficulties in the first place. On the other hand, it felt dangerous not to end sessions on time and not to encourage patients to talk about their experience rather than to act on them. I didn't frame it exactly this way, but Glenn Gabbard has talked about the analytic process involving both love; actively listening carefully to our patients, and hate; the act of charging fees and starting and stopping the session on time. Bernie, it turns out, is about the very question of whether love alone can overcome hate.
Bernie is a delightful individual who truly enjoys being with and, indeed, serving others. He works as an assistant funeral director in Carthage, Texas and makes certain that the services that the funeral home offers are as lovely as they can be. He is the choirmaster in the local Methodist Church and is an exemplary church member. He starts a local theater group and stars in their musical productions. Bernie is a 39-year-old man who is likely gay and living in the middle of the Bible Belt so, if he is gay, he certainly does not feel comfortable expressing that publicly and, in Jack Black's wonderful characterization, he may be quite conflicted about his own sexuality and may even feel ashamed of being gay. In fact, it is reasonable to conjecture that he needs to repress his sexuality and deny that he has sexual feelings. Instead of seeking the love he desires (perhaps), Bernie dotes on the widows that he serves through the funeral home. They are generally quite appreciative of his concern.
Bernie attempts to dote on the widow of the richest man in town - Marjorie Nugent (played by Shirley MacLaine), who turns out to be the meanest as well as the richest person in town. She initially rejects his concern, but then something about his demeanor warms her to him. Initially, his presence in her life appears to transform her. She, at least in his presence, smiles. They go on trips together, which she pays for, but which they both clearly enjoy. These are not trips around the corner, but to the corners of the globe. Further, Bernie learns to fly her airplane and enjoys recreational flying. They also end up eating out together a lot, usually in the best restaurants in town, when Bernie isn't cooking her delicious meals in her home.
At this point we might begin to wonder if Bernie is really a Golddigger. He has demonstrated both charm, but also some ability to convince people to buy shinier caskets than they initially want to buy. Is he really wolf in sheep's clothing, that is, to use a diagnostic term, a sociopath? Or, is he someone who is very insecure and trying hard to get people to love him? This is further complicated by the fact that this is not just a story, but an artistic enactment of an actual set of events. The real-life Bernie is currently living in the Texas State penitentiary.
Marjorie becomes more and more possessive of Bernie. She also begins to become abusive towards him - yelling at him and then locking him into her property when he threatens to leave. His response is to work harder and harder to be the lovely person who will meet all of her needs and thus keep her from going ballistic. He sands the calluses on the bottoms of her feet. He makes sure that her medication is ready for her on a regular basis. And he gives up more and more of his own life, having to drop out of many of his beloved activities.
Not surprisingly he becomes angrier and angrier. His sexuality may or may not be bottled up, but his anger clearly is. We see it play across Jack Black's face for an instant and then disappear to be replaced by a loving, though slightly bitter, smile. We empathize with his sense of feeling imprisoned; trapped; caught in the snare of a mean bitter woman. And we are not surprised when he picks up a 22 caliber rifle that Marjorie has taunted him for being unable to use to kill an armadillo, and shoots her in the back. Nor are we surprised that he feels tremendously guilty about having done this thing. We're not surprised for two reasons. First, because of our empathic understanding of the character that is being portrayed. Second, because there is a Greek chorus of townspeople who in, in this mocumentary style movie, have been commenting on their perceptions of what took place between them. We have seen the murder coming from miles away and we are sympathetic to the circumstances that bring it about.
The local DA, Danny Buck (Matthew McConaughey), is not so sympathetic. He firmly believes that Bernie is a coldhearted murderer, and/or he is hot to be reelected and wants to get into the headlines of the local paper. In any case, it is his intent to prosecute Bernie for premeditated murder. He quickly realizes that he can't win the case in this town where Bernie is widely loved and Marjorie reviled. So he moves the trial venue to a town 50 miles away where the inhabitants are significantly less well-off, know neither Bernie nor Marjory, and will much more quickly see Bernie as interested solely in financial gain.
The townspeople, who are memorably referred to as having "more tattoos than teeth", not surprisingly quickly judge Bernie guilty of first-degree murder. But we, the jury that has been assembled by the director, Art Linklater, are not convinced. We see a very different Bernie, one who was highly conflicted. He has learned to sit on powerful emotions, but they come pouring out of him, against his will. This seems not heinous, but human.
It is also a cautionary tale to analysts, therapists, nurses, indeed helping professionals of every stripe, and perhaps those who would love in any context - that selfless love is not truly possible. If the other, whom we love selflessly, does not have our interests in mind, and we don't either, it will end badly. As a corollary, if we don't access and use our emotions, including unpleasant ones that we may have been trained by society or believe by the nature of our role in a relationship (caregiver, lover, parent) not to acknowledge, this, too, will end badly.
Bernie, classified as a dark comedy is, then, actually a tragedy. He is imprisoned, not because of pre-meditation but because of failure to meditate, or, more precisely, because of a failure to repress. Or, psychoanalytically, because he is afraid of acknowledging aspects of himself - aspects that we believe would have been helpful to him. That his anger was not something that could not co-exist with his love, but that it is something that may even have been essential to it, especially when he loved a complicated person. Figuring out how to express that anger while still loving? Aye, there's a rub. Books have been written about that...
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