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
Politics and human rights Moving relationship stories Humanity and the world around us drugs, violence, crime, gritty or cops dancing, choreography, songs, tune or musical racism, african american, powerful, hatred or slavery family, emotional, emotion, touching or kids emotional, emotion, family, moving or feelings Show All…
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…
the power is in the images, not the movement. there is no set story or plot. this is a piece about a community and a mindset and a family just trying to survive. the weary, slumped shoulders of the slaughterhouse worker is contrasted with children leaping from roof to roof. a motor that could have brought prosperity breaks and sheep are led to slaughter. the images are discordant but related- they stare into your soul as the (outstanding) soundtrack plays in the background.
brutally neo-realistic, it's spare enough to become harsh poetry. burnett does not editorialize. he does not explain so much as he lets you feel. the camera meanders around and strings day to day life together, letting the…
watched this for class and when the movie was done, the prof asked, "so who is the sheep, really, and who is the killer?"
burnett is so great with quotidian textures. i was especially moved by the warmth of a tea cup to a cheek, the sunlight making halos behind children’s afros, light peeking through between two bodies embraced in a slow dance and then a scene carrying on past a romantic needledrop...
16mm. MoMA.
"The film’s saddest moment is a moving single take of Stan and his wife dancing—well, more like softly swaying while embracing—in their bedroom to the sound of Dinah Washington singing 'This Bitter Earth.' The song, like the movie, is a plaintive piece of romantic realism that itself recognizes how life can often feel like a dead end."
Full review here.
Set in the Watts neighbourhood of Los Angeles twelve years after the notorious race riots that occurred between 11th and 16th August 1965, Killer of Sheep is among a small number of films which genuinely contemplates what residing in a low-income, high-crime area represents. Written, produced and directed by Charles Burnett who illustrates the impoverished slums to appear thoroughly post-apocalyptic, and together with it's overlooked inhabitants they make for a compelling vision.
It elevates its provocative imagery to spawn a film with an unusual dream-like narrative, incorporating Italian neorealism with the social and moral sense of right and wrong. Burnett initially submitted it to the UCLA School of Film as his Master of Fine Arts thesis, and its ceremony of tonal portrayals which although brief on plot noticeably apprehends the sensibilities of regular working-class African Americans and conveys more than a traditionally constructed story could.
throughout the film i felt like i'm looking at a painting, he perfectly portrayed the life of the common people in the fields and cities. the portrait did not seem ugly, even considering the extreme poverty, because the family nucleus was preserved. the fact that it doesn't feel like you're watching professional actors is refreshing and a large part of why this film works on me so well. none of the characters seem to know that every activity they engage in is the equivalent of skydiving into an unlit cave. death, or worse, a life-altering disability, appears to be waiting around every corner.
metaphors don't cost much, nor do an eye and an ear. thus we crosscut from children playing…
The fact that this was a $10,000 film by UCLA student Charles Burnett and acted by amateurs that has thrived in viewership decades later, has made it a legendary indie. Made in the dumps of Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, there is a mundaneness of life for the adults which they occasionally try to break out of, with schemes that mostly backfire or dissipate. The protagonist is a slaughterhouse worker, and while Burnett takes us to the job site it is only skimpily graphic -- the last shots there show us the frustrations of a bored worker wrangling animals to their doom, that's good and why couldn't we have gotten more of that? Stan (Henry G. Sanders) is a sullen…
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.
