Afternoon:
8°c
Derek Malcolm's rating
The great lost American move
By
Derek Malcolm
19 Jun 2008
Charles Burnett is as important a black American director as Spike Lee but less lucky as far as recognition is concerned. This, his debut from 1977, now regarded as "the least known great modern movie from the States", was never properly released, chiefly because Burnett didn't have the money to pay for a soundtrack which now includes Scott Joplin, Louis Armstrong and Dinah Washington.
It was shot in Watts when Burnett was a 33-year-old student at UCLA. Its central character is Stan, who works in a slaughterhouse and tries to get by. Though socially conscious, the film has no polemic, but its fractured images contain a melancholy poetry that's just as relevant as the blaxploitation films which became more fashionable.
Killer of Sheep is now re-released as part of a retrospective of Burnett's work including To Sleep With Anger, another masterpiece in which Danny Glover gives the performance of his life as a charismatic conman who arrives in LA to disturb the stability of a middle-class black family.
There can be no real appreciation of black American films without seeing these two classics.
Details are correct at the time of publication - please check with venue before booking.
