1978 Directed by Charles Burnett
Stan works in drudgery at a slaughterhouse. His personal life is drab. Dissatisfaction and ennui keep him unresponsive to the needs of his adoring wife, and he must struggle against influences which would dishonor and endanger him and his family.
Matador de ovejas, Schafe töten, 양 도살자
I grew up in a South Central L.A. ghetto neighborhood--the corner of 59th Street and Slauson Avenue, to be specific. Every new day was as trivial as the last, and yet as a kid I was never aware of the constant danger surrounding me. I didn't even have an inkling of my family's own poverty, though I had my sneaky suspicions that because we crammed 3 to a room (in a cold apartment that only had two bedrooms and one bathroom for 6 people) we weren't exactly middle-class. Even though my parents could tell I was going places (and even though they forged through thick and thin to get me where I am today), it was all behind-the-scenes for ten-year-old…
Nothing happens. It's perfect.
I think everyone, at some time, has fantasised about making a film like Killer of Sheep. Not necessarily when they were in a creative mood, just when they were hanging out with friends or walking through their neighbourhood and just observing life, and thinking "Why does no-one make a film that's like this?" The thing is, it's almost impossible to make - unless you're Charles Burnett.
Burnett opens with a sterling example of Derek Cianfrance's rule about a great opening shot teaching you how to watch the movie. A young man, in close-up, shot in lustrous high-contrast black and white, with what seems to be an angry inner voice berating him. Then Burnett pulls out a…
Pictures from life's other side. Burnett's realism is a lyrical blend of harshly lit exteriors and dimly lit interiors where his characters ask each other for help or money or a job. And like a lot of the man's films it's a family who are at the centre with a father whose honour is often tested in a world where everyday he's suffocated by expectations and the squalor that surrounds him. Burnett cuts from kids playing in the street to sheep hanging upside down in the slaughterhouse - a sickening juxtaposition but not one made without justification. All these guys can do is hope for that better tomorrow.
A devastating study of citizens living right below right below the poverty line, Killer of Sheep is both observational and intensive. Charles Burnett's remarkable fly-on-the-wall aesthetic beautifully observes the life of a slaughterhouse worker who grapples with daily existential concerns that can't be singularly defined. It's a lyrical-sad portrait of life on the margins that ends up saying a lot without saying anything. The film contains so many small, beautiful moments that really need to seen to be believed.
Discussed with NYTimes critic Manohla Dargis on the latest episode of the podcast. Not much to say: it's a masterpiece that I would be shocked if it doesn't cross into the Sight & Sound Top 50 during the next poll.
Fun Fact: The film first played abroad at a Rome film festival in 1980 which had a focus on black cinema. This included: Micheaux's Body & Soul, Richard Maurice's Eleven P.M., two William Greales docs, Dixon's The Spook Who Sat By The Door, Gordon Parks's The Learning Tree, and this little gem.
Despite the fact that it lacks any central conflict this is just such an amazing idk study of life? Youth and violence, suicidal despair and resignation, human and animal... like all of these concepts that are always conflicting yet always touch and exist despite their opposites. Beautiful soundtrack beautiful visuals
very very good for many reasons but also a lil slow for my liking, though i suppose that’s part of what makes it what it is
Killer of sheep is a movie about the ordinary that does its job so well that it serves as just another ordinary movie. While not bad in any way, it might not be worth a watch.
Killer of Sheep doesn’t tell you right away what sort of film this is going to be. Its series of vignettes each contain some kind of truth about living in poverty, especially as a marginalised person of colour living without opportunity. The editing is deliberately restrained, but when it does cut you can tell there is purpose there. Particularly when the scenes of everyday life in a ghetto are contrasted with the brutal slaughter of sheep, a strong image starts to form in our minds of lower classes being stripped of their dignity, rights, and means to survive.
The title itself labels our protagonist Stan as the killer, but he is merely doing what is needed to get by. The…
as a student filmmaker this was cool but the lack of plot just really isn’t what i’m into
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Pessimistic worldviews. For when you want to wallow in despair.
It doesn't matter if we all die.
Suggestions welcome.
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