Customer Reviews

Killer of Sheep: The Charles Burnett Collection

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Emerging from the shadows a sort of film urban legend is Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep, made in 1977 as his UCLA graduate thesis and finally given wide release thanks to film preservationists and Steven Soderbergh. For years I've had to listen to how great this film was without actually experiencing it for myself and now... let's just say I've only had the occasion three or four times to see a movie and realize that the director was put on earth specifically to make that film. An ethnographic study of life in the Watts ghetto of Los Angeles, Burnett's movie takes the best element of Renoir's romantic abstractions, Rossellini's neorealist cityscapes, Satyajit Ray's family dramas, Kenneth Anger's thematically and musically-linked visuals and Cassavetes' naked 16mm textures and mixes them into a sad and funny visual essay. Artistic camerawork and lighting, disorienting editing, the employment of nonprofessional but striking actors and virtuoso use of pop music confine Burnett's approach to no one recognizable style: instead, they form an audacious and wholly original aesthetic. Made up largely of a collection of entropic events from the neighborhood with supporting characters who comes and go, the film is sparse on dialogue, but Burnett speaks through the mise en scene in unique moments of narrative spontaneity. While the tone moves ambiguously between tender and bittersweet, social and isolated, frivolous and crushing, the overall feel of the film is simply vitalizing. Even through the grimness of its shots of tiny lambs moving to the voice of Dinah Washington, oblivious to their impending slaughter, Burnett discovers a transcendent beauty. Everyone owes it to himself to see it.

I saw this film a few months ago when it was shown for a weekend here in St. Louis. It is a masterpiece and truly unforgettable. No wonder the Library of Congress picked it as one of the top 25 movies in all of American film history. The scene with the couple dancing to Dinah Washington's, "This Bitter Earth", will haunt you for days after seeing the film.

This is a review of the poorly-designed packaging of the great film "Killer of Sheep" only. Other reviewers have discussed the merits of this brilliant film and the unfortunately-neglected accompanying feature, "My Brother's Wedding".

Like the poor recent edition of "I Am Cuba", Milestone has released good-quality transfers of these significant and previously-unavailable films but shown them no respect by packaging in a way which compromise the DVD's themselves.

The DVD's are stuck into, truly, the tightest pouches(!) of a cardboard DVD case. Not only were the DVD's slid in once by the manufacturer--scratching the playing surfaces--but you must pull them out with some effort from the too-tight pouches to view them, thus scratching them again. For the price of this product, a standard plastic (double) snapcase would be reasonable to expect and much more secure storage.

Unfortunately, this is the only way to purchase "Killer of Sheep". I suggest pulling out the DVD's carefully and then placing them in another DVD case to prevent further desecration with subsequent viewings.

Perhaps the most striking, or is it subtly impactful, things about Killer of Sheep are the children; children that climb and fight and laugh and sing and kick and crawl out from under things, and leave bikes behind as if property meant nothing when they're brought up in a world where nothing is not only a given, but practically a birthright. These are kids that are like kids, not hollywood creations, beautifully represented with the logic of children. the film opens with a stern reprimand to take some responsibility by a father to a boy of about 13, and as soon as that wake-up call is administered, it is punctuated with a slap in the face by the mother, and from that moment on the film is plunged into a lethargy so profound that you can feel the stifling heat of a neighborhood that's got nothing but scraps to kick around. Killer of Sheep is a masterpiece of American black poverty, accompanied by a rich and mournful soundtrack, from the bent-but-not broken dignity of Paul Robeson, to the deep blue sensuality of dinah washington, to the sweet voices of 70s soul, to 1950's roadhouse blues. Here, in stark black and white, are a people that barely dare to speak of the middle class, whose motion takes them sideways, sometimes downward, but forward in only the smallest of increments. And even those steps are dashed by what at first glance would be the fates, but, in reality, is the state of the conditions -- the car ride without a spare tire, the unsecured engine falling out of the bed of a pickup. The juxtaposition of the poor blacks and the sheep going to slaughter should be heavy-handed, but miraculously is, instead, a sad poetry. And even more miraculous are the myriad tiny beauties, the smallest touches the director Burnett illuminates again and again: the warm coffee mug rubbed against a man's cheek and compared to the body of a woman, the little girl in a rubber mask, another young girl singing along with the radio to a doll, a son hiding from his mother on the roof of the house . . . The sheep at the slaughterhouse where the father works are herded and their fear is palpable. They intuit their fate, yet where can they run when boxed in a pen? The adults are of two kinds in the film: those seeking small pleasures, and those too tired or beat up to do anything but sit. It's not a slaughterhouse, but there is no escape. Still, in the end, there are those children, and they flow like fresh water in a fetid pond. Their exuberence is nearly chaos in a void of structure and purpose. Yet when three women gather in the final images of the film to share the joy of one's new pregnancy, you can't help but feel lifted by the promise of hope children somehow always bring into the well of human despair.

I am so pleased that Charles Burnett's "Killer of Sheep" has been finally released after years of challenges. I was fortunate to see the film many years ago as part of an underground circuit at Tuskegee Institute. I found the style and material contained in the film to be compelling and my first experience with a media which accurately portrays a particular aspect of African American culture. When Spike Lee's "She's Gotta Gave It" was released years later, it was regarded as the first of its kind and revolutionary with respect to African American film making; however, "Killer of Sheep" was not only a predecessor, I am confident that Spike Lee was heavily influenced and inspired by the work of Charles Burnett. "Killer of Sheep" is a MUST SEE!!!

Someone once said that you only truly witness art two or three times in your life... art that changes you completely, art that transforms your world.

So if you've got any left in you, be sure you see this film. I saw it rather accidentally I was on a three day vacation in a mountain cabin. But the damn place had satelite television. I had no intention of sitting in front of a screen, but once this film started I could not turn away.

Unfortunately, too many reviewers give away vital pieces of the film, or cannot construct a coherent sentence.

All you need to know is that this is a vital piece of American culture that should be viewed by everyone. What is most profound about this film is that, while about the poverty-stricken black experience in Los Angeles, it is NOT about race. It is not about injustice in the political system. It is not about socioeconomic conditions.

This film is about humanity, and it's so refreshing to see an artist work at this level; with no axe to grind, no sacred cows to slaughter.

The ending is so profoundly beautiful, that it nearly brings me to tears remembering it.

See it. Now.

Brutus






Echo Detained

Shot in the early 1970s in Watts as Charles Burnett's MFA master's thesis and later hailed by critics as a masterpiece, it has never been released theatrically until now. Lovingly restored, it is a profound visual poem depicting poverty and listlessness among urban African-Americans, both timeless and perfectly expressing its time. Burnett shot the film himself, and dozens of the images he captured caught my breath with their off-kilter candor.

Charles Burnett's rediscovered classic is the quiet story of a family in Watts. Stan (Henry Gayle Sanders) is a good man who has nearly been crushed by poverty. His soul-killing job at a slaughterhouse doesn't earn enough to lift the family out of poverty, and he is unable to sleep or find joy in life. Nevertheless, he fulfills his responsibilities the best he can. His wife (Kaycee Moore) watches what has become of the man she loves with deep concern and love. Disconnected scenes of their lives and the lives of those around them are intercut with scenes of children at play, inviting us to contemplate their constrained futures.

Burnett has a great eye and captures many powerful black and white images. His non-professional crew of actors is sometimes painfully amateur but it all somehow contributes to the verisimilitude of the project. Although we do see some law-breaking in this film, Burnett is more interested in telling the stories of decent people with values than gangstas and thugs, and he succeeds in producing a work of gentle, heart-breaking nobility.

I'm astonished that Killer of Sheep has received a few negative reviews. These perhaps reflect some limitations of the audience rather than flaws in Burnett's rich film.

Killer of Sheep features an unorthodox narrative that it is honest and more compelling than any over-scripted studio drama. The film progresses from scene to scene in the life of an African American man living in the post-riot Watts community of L.A. To call the plot "inane", as one reviewer did, would be akin to calling life "inane". The shot angles and composition are finely arranged throughout. Cinematography is wielded to enhance meaning. Look at the scene when the fake tough guys come to visit and pay attention to the composition for a fine example of Burnett's subtle work. Then place the scene in the context of 1970s black American cinema for a response to the blaxploitation films that were popular in the early middle 1970s. There have been many American movies made, but Killer of Sheep is one of the few that is actually about American life. There is much to appreciate in Killer of Sheep, and its honesty should make it meaningful to viewers from many walks of life.

I recently got this movie and its an amazing film. Its everything that the summary says and more. It captures life as it really is and not the hollywood junk that I'm used to. The beauty of it really touched me (as cliche as that may sound) and now I'm on to my sixth time that I'm watching it. I highly recommend this film to add to your collection or if you just want to watch a great movie.