On July 26, 2019 I attended a screening of Killer of Sheep at the University of Chicago, sponsored by several film student groups. I've never seen the movie, but knew of its reputation as a landmark independent film about African American life in the 1970s inner city, and knew that it's a movie that is often shown to college students.
It was a really good film; I really enjoyed it. It's very simple, no traditional plot structure. But I love the scenes of ordinary life, centered around one family living in South Central Los Angeles. The father (Stan) works in a slaughterhouse. There are some great scenes with his wife, kids, and friends, as well as some other characters we meet for only a scene or two, but they're memorable (including some people Stan meets in a liquor store). More often than not, characters plan to do something promising, only to have their dreams shatter, which of course happens in real-life.
The director, Charles Burnett, appeared in person afterwards and talked about the making of the film; it was a college project for him that took several years to finish because of licensing rights to songs (there are alot of good songs in it). He also talked about how almost everyone in the film was one of his friends. He lived in Watts, Los Angeles in the '60s, so he was very familiar the community.
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| Q&A with Burnett at the University of Chicago |
There was also a time of Q&A which was really interesting, too; about a dozen people had questions. One person commented that the film was reminiscent of Italian neo-realism, and asked Burnett if any films of that era influenced him. He said, yes, and mentioned that he had numerous opportunities to see a lot of international films on the college campus and elsewhere in LA. He remembered going to all of the latest film from well-known international directors, and said some of them came to his campus to speak occasionally; one was Satyajit Ray. Burnett talked more about his college days, and said that he often had discussions with his friends and classmates about what constitutes "a black film". With Black Sheep, he said he intended for it to be a film about the community for the community to see, and only expected it to be shown locally. Someone else asked him about what he thought about being part of the "New Rebellion" of black filmmakers; he said that he doesn't like labels, but he praised other filmmakers part of the movement.
Now I really want to see his follow-up movie, My Brother's Wedding. I have seen To Sleep With Anger and The Glass Shield many years ago and want to watch them again as well.
Also, I found an interesting review from the New York Times from 1978, below.
'Killer of Sheep' Is Shown at the Whitney: Nonprofessional Cast
By Janet Maslin | November 14, 1978
"Killer of Sheep," which opens today at the Whitney Museum, is a film to make one mindful of the difference between genuinely abstract art and iciness for its own sake.
The program notes say that Charles Burnett, the director, thinks the idea of the film "is to try to recreate a situation without reducing life to a simple plot," but his film has just enough of a story to make it taxing.
The action, which of course is hardly supposed to be action at all, revolves around a black man whose only measure of prosperity is the fact that he's well enough off to give things to the Salvation Army. He is remote and depressed. His wife is bored and sexually frustrated, and she's depressed, too.
He has two children, whom we see eating breakfast and scratching and walking around the neighborhood. He has a lot of young and reasonably attractive male friends who live with grotesquely bloated women; sometimes the men get together and fix cars, or worry.
The central character works in a slaughterhouse, hence the none-too-apt title.
To all this monotony and alienation Mr. Burnett brings an estrangement of his own.
The film consists of loosely linked glimpses of the characters' lives, punctuated by occasional cuts to the slaughterhouse. It is acted by non-professionals, who call attention to the falseness of many of the situations.
It is beautifully photographed in black and white, and very spare.
The dialogue, which is read with either insufficient or excessive emphasis by the nonactors, is often buried under a soundtrack of vintage blues, making it doubly hard to follow.
Even the slaughter of the sheep is numbingly uneventful.That may be Mr. Burnett's very point, but he makes it so studiedly that the character's estrangement from his surroundings overlaps too conveniently with the director's arty detachment from his material.
And for all its air of starkness, "Killer of Sheep" is more often arid than it is genuinely economical. Mr. Burnett obviously has a keen eye for tiny moments — the way a child pulls up a sock, the way a man's hands move on machinery — but he doesn't demonstrate the kind of coherence that might give them larger meaning.
Nonprofessional Cast
KILLER OF SHEEP, by Charles Burnett, Principal performers are Henry G. Sanders, Kaycee Moore, Charles Bracy, and Angela Burnett. At the Whitney Museum of American Art, 945 Madison Avenue. Running time: 87 minutes.
