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Candace took some time out of her hectic schedule to watch "Killer of Sheep," the 1977 film by Charles Burnett (http://www.killerofsheep.com/).
Described by their website as "Killer of Sheep examines the black Los Angeles ghetto of Watts in the mid-1970s through the eyes of Stan, a sensitive dreamer who is growing detached and numb from the psychic toll of working at a slaughterhouse." For the first time this film is shown on the big screen, at the I.F.C. in New York City. Here is Candace's review:
“Killer of Sheep”
Candace L.
Every now and then, it pays to be Black. It usually happens right around the time the police shoot another black guy armed with a banana, an iconic TV personality gets caught in an embarrassing sex scandal or another study is released showing that the ‘Dollar Menu’ is the number one killer of Blacks. Just as the negativity reaches an all-time high and you start wishing for vitiligo, you’re sent a purple pill of deliverance in the form of an unanticipated smile from a stranger, a young guy in a hoodie who holds the backdoor open for you on the bus or in my case, a seat in a sold-out movie theatre. This phenomenon has occurred exactly twice in similar settings. During the opening weekend of “Batman Begins,” there were two seats surrounding a group of Latino kids. With a theatre packed elbow-to-elbow, I watched couple after couple file past, ask them if the seats were available and walk away disappointed or pissed. Ever the optimist, at least when it comes to the chance to see a 50-foot projection of Christian Bale, I figured I’d ask anyway. The Puerto Rican delegates conferred and after a brief powwow, decided to hold their sweaters on their laps so I could sit down. They made some comment about letting me in because I seemed nice, but what I seemed was not White, unlike all the other people they rejected. That’s solidarity in action as far as I’m concerned, and until my reparations check comes in the mail, a little reverse racism will have to suffice.
Fast forward to a sold-out IFC Theater during the “Killer of Sheep” opening weekend and lo and behold, a row of roughly ten white people jump at the opportunity to have me step on their feet as I climb to one of few empty seats against the wall. I thought nothing of it until the end of the film, when my Indian friend, who sat in the same seat one row behind me, related that the people she climbed over hated her. I told her of my red carpet treatment to which she said, “I guess because it was a black movie.” You guess right my not-quite-brown-enough friend. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all those White people and their misplaced sense of duty. For your compassion, I will ignore the fact that you did not know which parts of the movie were okay to laugh at.
With such a wonderful welcome, I was ready to enjoy Charles Burnett’s 1977 graduate film, “Killer of Sheep,” already labeled a masterpiece by The New York Times. But let’s not get too romantic. “Killer of Sheep” is quite possibly one of the best movies I’ve ever seen, but “Dog Day Afternoon” it is not. There’s a certain frame of mind you have to be in to understand what makes this movie so dope and I’m not sure what that is. Maybe after sitting through so many Wayans comedies that felt like one long fart joke, I was refreshed to see jokes that came from genuine everyday humor. “Killer of Sheep” is the rare ghetto movie where no promising young athlete gets tragically shot at the end. “Killer of Sheep” is such a departure from the norm that the rush of excitement and hopefulness that floods you after viewing it is quickly met with a wave of depression because you know no one is making movies like this right now.
Even after seeing it twice, I can’t think of one American film featuring a predominately black cast that compares to it. In the Italian Neorealist tradition, but by no means exclusively patterned after it, the film features a cast of non-professional actors and a non-traditional plot, in that there is none. The story consists of moments shared by Stan, an insomniac worker at the local slaughterhouse, and his family and friends. It feels like a home video, except everybody is funny and there are no five-minute shots of the cameraman’s feet. Throughout, you can’t help but see Burnett’s influence on Spike Lee, particularly in his grad thesis film “Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads.” “Sheep” and “Joe’s” are watershed moments in what could have been called the Black New Wave, uncompromising films documenting, not sensationalizing, Black urban life. But where Mr. Lee wears his politics on his sleeve, Burnett has no such designs.
“Sheep” takes place in an impoverished Watts neighborhood, filled with Southern-sounding residents constantly admonishing each other ‘to stop acting country.’ Stan’s family includes his beautiful sexually frustrated wife, his precocious young daughter and coming-of-age son, who spends more time throwing debris at his friends by the train tracks than sitting at home. Stan is not much of a homebody himself, keeping busy by listening to the criminal plans of his friends and on occasion, helping out with their bad ideas. Really, anytime you buy a car engine out of someone’s living room, you have to expect something to go wrong... like Ben Stiller wrong.
The beauty in “Killer of Sheep” is its uncanny ability to unite its audience. As someone born several years after the film’s initial release, I did not completely catch why Schlitz beer on the hood of a car was so funny to the fifty-somethings watching the film alongside me. But seconds later, as we all observed how the Schlitz beer gets into the car, that was all that mattered, as the entire room erupted into laughter.
After this initial viewing, I concluded that “Killer of Sheep” was amazing because it held no stereotypes. That was a premature assessment. More accurately, Burnett takes the Black film trifecta: liquor, sex and church, and manipulates these familiar motifs in a way that sets “Killer of Sheep” apart from your stereotypical ‘in the hood’ flick. Gone are the traditional pimps and hos, addicts and criminals, students and corner store intellectuals. Rather Burnett blends all aspects of Black people, the charm and charity, the fly and the barely functioning, into something so simple, it’s too brilliant to be true. But isn’t that the life most Black people are living? I remember attending college with bright Black law students who wanted nothing more than to become the next Damon Dash. Smart yet dumb, overweight yet athletic, cute yet bipolar – Burnett takes the dichotomies we all represent on a daily basis and throws them up on celluloid, saying, ‘This is average.’ Abnormal are representations that depict all Black men and women as useless fathers, sex-hungry animals, heartless gold diggers and naïve romantics. Burnett shows that at any given moment, you could seamlessly weave your way between several of these categories and still get to work on time the next morning. No special effects, no melodramatic soliloquies about the state of things and thankfully, no overwrought feel-good climaxes. Stan’s family is just as poor at the end of the movie, with no upward mobility in sight, as they were at the beginning.
Usually I think it’s a cop-out to call something great based on what it’s not. “Killer of Sheep” originally came out in limited release at the bottom half of the decade that spawned “The Mack,” “Black Caesar” and “Superfly.” One could conclude, it’s not blaxploitation, so it must be good and righteous. But there are some questionable depictions, such as the car engine scheme that fails, two men who casually steal a television set in broad daylight and Stan’s overall sourness, another nod to the ever-popular notion of the (financially or emotionally) downtrodden Black male. Are they real? Definitely. Are they common? Yes, and that might be part of the problem.
Yet, what Black film needs is balance. Burnett gives you lush visuals of ghetto life and some hard-to-love depictions of Black folks as well. Love it or hate it, “Killer of Sheep” makes you think long after you have left the theatre. I was dragged to see “Daddy’s Little Girls” a month ago and until I wrote this sentence, hadn’t the need to think about it since. Well I guess that’s not true. I initially wondered why Idris Elba doesn’t work more and how Mr. Perry keeps getting funding. But other than that, no thoughts whatsoever. Ultimately, in today’s film climate, “Killer of Sheep” does not have top box office potential. It’s too smart to pander and not violent enough to show the ghetto we are used to seeing on screen. On the bright side, it does have Blacks drinking alcohol, having children and holding jobs. Almost like real people.
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