Charles Burnett

Mr. Burnett is an African-American filmmaker whose body of work may simultaneously be the most acclaimed and the least seen in America. He was born in 1944 in the Deep South, in Vicksburg, Mississippi. Even though his family moved to the Watts area of Los Angeles, Burnett has said that he felt as if he grew up in a community with the ethos of the South, as most of the other blacks in LA were transplants from the South as well. He originally studied electronics at the Los Angeles Community College with the plan of becoming an engineer. However, he ended up in the UCLA graduate film program, studying with other future black cinematic luminaries Larry Clark, Julie Dash, Haile Gerima, and Billy Woodberry. And it was there that he found his artistic and spiritual mentor in Basil Wright, a British documentary filmmaker, whose documentary film “Song of Ceylon” is still considered one of the finest works of the genre. In a 2003 interview with Senses of Cinema, Burnett spoke very lovingly of Wright: “He was a quiet gentleman, a very intellectual filmmaker but never pretended to be more than a common man. He was very committed, and genuinely so—life wasn't an abstract thing with him, he saw poverty, he saw what was going on, and it shows in his films.” Ironically, the exact same thing could be said of Burnett, a soft-spoken, self-effacing man who has devoted his career to exalting the virtues of the common man, even though he himself possesses what is clearly one of the most fiercely intellectual minds in the history of American cinema.
Many have connected Burnett’s works to those of Italian neorealists, and Burnett himself has mentioned Federico Fellini as a major influence. Burnett has also cited the works of the French auteur Jean Renoir as having shaped his cinematic vision, especially “The Southerner”, Renoir’s 1945 English language film about a struggling white Southern family. The film was sharply criticized in the States, with many saying that the characters simply did not speak or act like Southerners, even though William Faulkner--the literary voice of the South--had assisted with the screenplay. Renoir’s film may not have achieved a sense of verisimilitude, but it did create a poetic milieu of barren desolation and moral turpitude he equated with the American South. In addition, what really moved Burnett was that for the first time in film, and a European film at that, black characters were portrayed as equals of white characters. They were not mere two-dimensional stereotyped cardboard cutouts as seen through the eyes of a scornful white society. Another filmmaker who had a profound impact on Burnett was Ousmane Sembene, the legendary Senegalese director and author known as the “father of African film” who sadly passed away in June, 2007. In Sembene’s films, Burnett recognized fully developed, nuanced black characters.

All of these influences would find their way into Burnett’s master's thesis which doubled as his first feature film, “Killer of Sheep”, made for less than ten thousand dollars. The year was 1977, and even though the film received much critical acclaim, and even won the Critic’s Award at the Berlin Film Festival, it never saw the light of day in American commercial theaters because of issues with rights to the music used in the film. For 30 years, the film would only surface in the occasional film festival or university retrospective. Thus, “Killer of Sheep” became the most acclaimed movie that hardly anybody had seen.
No discussion of Charles Burnett, or that of African-American cinema, and for that matter American cinema, can be complete without mentioning “Killer of Sheep.” To watch it is to experience something transcendent--an indelible work of art so affecting, so powerful, that one wants to discuss it and ruminate it with anyone willing to listen. Many viewers have likened its emotional impact to that of Vittorio DeSica’s neorealist masterpiece, “The Bicycle Thief.” And much in the vein of the neorealist tradition, Burnett used a mostly non-professional cast. As the screenwriter Michael Tolkin has stated, “if it were an Italian film from 1953, we would have every scene memorized.” The film drops the conventional linear narrative in favor of episodic vignettes accompanied by pieces of notable African-American music, performed by the likes of Paul Robeson, Etta James, and Earth, Wind, and Fire. In fact, Burnett has said that he envisioned the film as “an aural history of African-American music.“ It is this very glorious music that led to the film being essentially vanished for three decades. Yet anyone who watches “Killer of Sheep” understand that without the music, the film would not be the same. In one particularly memorable scene that uplifts and breaks one's heart all at once, the protagonist slow dances with his wife to the tune of Dinah Washington’s “This Bitter Earth.”

The film relates a tale of the African-American working class, as seen through the eyes of its protagonist Stan, who works in a slaughterhouse butchering sheep. He has two children and a wife, whose emotional and physical needs he can no longer satisfy due to the daily grind of his brutal job. The film may sound hopelessly bleak, but it is not. There are moments of tenderness, such as when Stan holds up a tea cup to his forehead as he tells his buddy that its warmth reminds him of making love with his wife. And there are moments of sweet humor. Stan’s wife eagerly anticipates his return, primping herself up and cooking up a meal, as the camera holds its rapturous gaze on the pot with a mismatching lid. With a tidy running time of 80 minutes, there is not a single superfluous scene or shot. In one extraordinary scene, the camera captures the neighborhood children as they jump from one apartment rooftop to another, making them appear as if they are flying. But of course, the audience understands the irony of how difficult it will be for these children to fly away from this oppressive poverty. In a way, the film itself is a great piece of African-American music--Burnett’s own love song to members of the African-American working class who hold steadfastly to their humanity and dignity even in the onslaught of the ennui and the hopelessness that overwhelm their lives. This is no tired retelling of the American pipe dream in which all that a homeless black dude has to do to become a millionaire is learn about stocks and bonds, or that of the magic negros who can channel their supernatural power to do extraordinary shit for white people while they themselves mop the floors. The film may feature African-Americans, but it is a universal existentialist tale with which anyone who has been poor or empathized with the plight of the poor can relate.
"Hollywood has this psychology—there's this whole plantation mentality where it's all about power and someone trying to impose their values on you. It's nuts, they'll tell you how to tell stories about people they never really came into contact with. Executives, story readers, development executives don't interact with people other than their kind so how would they know what's acceptable to people of color? It is not about and never has been about supplying a diverse look at life. It is all from and for a white audience. And because of that fact this group of people who determines what the world sees have no idea, not a clue as to reality. It is a product of arrogance and power. Input from you is viewed as a personal attack. If you try to go beyond stereotypes and reflect real people who share the same concerns as everyone else, you're told that your characters aren't “black” enough, or to use more curse words because the language isn't “real” enough. You have to have drugs and gangsters. Some person who saw To Sleep With Anger said, “I didn't know that black people had washing machines!” Where did they get that notion? Well, it was an honest observation in a way because Hollywood shows us poor and grimy without any means of support except if you are a rapper or prostitute or selling drugs. They have this notion of what films should be, and what the realities of your environment are, and if you come up with what is real, that becomes unreal to them, in a sense. It's important to tell your own story, and when you see other people telling your story, and [when] someone denies you your reality, and is telling you what your family and your grandmother are like—how outrageous can it get? You have to be able to tell your stories and share them with the rest of the world. How else are things supposed to change?"
-- Charles Burnett, in an interview with Senses of Cinema
"I ain't poor. I give away things to Salvation Army. You can't give away nothing to Salvation Army if you're poor."
-- Stan, the main character, "Killer of Sheep"

"There may be no better contemporary American filmmaker who has so richly evoked the infinite varieties and textures of life, black or otherwise."
-- LA Weekly

"Charles Burnett is the most gifted and important black filmmaker this country has ever had."
-- Chicago Reader

"It would be shocking if a finer film than Killer of Sheep—American or otherwise—is released in 2007."
-- Filmmaker Magazine

"Killer of Sheep is one of the masterpieces of American cinema!"
-- NPR

"Killer of Sheep is an American masterpiece, independent to the bone."
-- New York Times
www.killerofsheep.com