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As many of you know, it has finally been released in the USA. I'm going to go see it tomorrow night. Yay. I have high hopes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killer_of_SheepKiller of Sheep (B&W, 81 min.) is a 1977 film that depicts the culture of urban African-Americans in Los Angeles' Watts district; the film is considered an alternative to "Blaxploitation" films. It stars Henry G. Sanders, Kaycee Moore, Charles Bracy, Angela Burnett, Eugene Cherry and Jack Drummond.
The film was written and directed by Charles Burnett. Though the film won the Critics' Award at the Berlin Film Festival (a.k.a. the Berlinale), it never saw popular release due to complications in securing the music rights for the soundtrack (which included such big names as Dinah Washington, Paul Robeson, Louis Armstrong and Earth, Wind and Fire, among others). It has remained in obscurity for nearly thirty years, garnering much critical and academic praise and earning a reputation as a lost classic.
Shot in Watts on a shoestring budget of less than $10,000 over roughly a year's worth of weekends in 1972 and 1973 and eventually turned in as Burnett's thesis film at UCLA in 1977, Killer of Sheep has been likened by a number of critics and scholars to the work of Italian neorealist directors, particularly Vittorio De Sica and Roberto Rossellini, for his documentary aesthetic and use of mostly non-professional, on-location actors. Burnett has also been compared to Yasujiro Ozu because of his strong sense of composition, Stanley Kubrick for his sharp ear for juxtaposing popular music with images, John Cassavetes because of his knack for coaxing natural performances from amateur actors, and Robert Altman for his interest in the minutae of human interaction. Burnett's self-professed influences are Jean Renoir, Basil Wright, and Federico Fellini, all of which are high examples of the tender, humane and compassionate qualities for which Burnett has been praised, qualities which are intensely present in Killer of Sheep, which has been called "one of the most striking debuts in movie history" by Terrence Rafferty of GQ magazine.
The film was chosen by the National Society of Film Critics as one of the 100 Essential Films of all time and has been named a national treasure and selected for preservation in the United States Library of Congress' National Film Registry.http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/Content?oid=315935&category=22133The black-and-white film, which follows the daily lives of a small group of African Americans in the '70s, is filled with the music of Earth, Wind & Fire, Little Walter, and the like—but since Burnett never received clearance to use the music, Killer of Sheep was never released theatrically, and has instead been locked away for 30 years. Now—with the music rights finally paid off, and the film restored and released—the astonishing thing is that not only does Killer of Sheep live up to its own mythology, but transcends it as a fascinating, melancholy, and entertaining work of art and social realism.
There is no real plot to summarize here: Burnett's camera acts as a fly on the wall as his characters argue, play, work, and struggle through a series of relatively uneventful days in Los Angeles' Watts neighborhood. In what feels at many times like a documentary, we watch patriarch Stan (Henry Sanders) lay tarpaper flooring in his run-down bungalow and cash checks at the liquor store. A group of nearly feral children have rock fights in the abandoned lot of a demolished building, while a group of friends tries to make a rare daytrip to the racetrack—but get a flat tire and are forced to drive back to the ghetto on the wheel rims.
But in Killer of Sheep, it's not what happens so much as how it happens: Burnett coaxes extraordinary performances out of his non-professional actors, and as director, steps back to let simple actions unfold in place of conventional drama. The result is a fascinating work of art that's full of anger and sadness and defeat (and surprisingly, of playfulness). Nothing in Killer of Sheep ever feels put on, and everything springs from something true and human. Compounded by the unique "time capsule" back story at play here, that tone makes Killer of Sheep one of the most rewarding and enriching film-going experiences in recent memory. |
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