Charles Burnett (1978)

This now celebrated film was made by Charles Burnett as his MFA thesis at the UCLA School of Film in 1977 but wasn’t released until thirty years later, when the rights to the music used had finally been purchased.  (The performers of the twenty-two songs on the soundtrack include, among others, Paul Robeson, Louis Armstrong, Dinah Washington and Earth, Wind and Fire.)   Killer of Sheep depicts the life of an African-American community in the Watts district of Los Angeles.   It’s more a series of vignettes than any kind of conventional narrative.   The austerity and vibrancy of the characters’ lives are realised in a way that commands respect (even if it makes you feel occasionally as if you’re in church).  One of the film’s most remarkable qualities is that, although you’re often conscious that some of the performers are not trained actors, this actually enhances their power on screen.  Because they can seem detached from the lines they speak they seem more substantial as images – and as individuals outside the roles they’re playing.  Yet they also seem, because they’re interpreting a dramatic situation, more than people in a documentary.  The cast includes Henry G. Sanders, Kaycee Moore, Charles Bracy, Angela Burnett, Eugene Cherry and Jack Drummond.

23 June 2008