Because critical and personal opinions about small films like Charles Burnett's "Killer of Sheep" tend to be vehement and sharply divided, the less you know about such films going in, the more you may appreciate them.
Production cost figures I've seen vary from $10,000 to $20,000. Whatever its price tag, it was far below minimal. But if you are of the right disposition, you may find "Killer of Sheep" to be more powerful and affecting than many studio films with big name stars and multi-million dollar budgets.
With "Killer of Sheep," Charles Burnett manages to create a very good movie even though it has no real beginning, middle or end and an anonymous cast. Nothing happens and everything happens. He documents Stan (the slaughterhouse worker of the title), his family and their friends in Watts over a period that could be a day, a week or a month. Yes, the film is a "slice of life," but that phrase has been applied so often to films critics didn't know how to categorize that it's become almost meaningless.
Shooting in black and white wasn't an artistic conceit, it was an economic necessity. Casting friends and family members wasn't Charles Burnett's attempt -- I'm quite sure -- to say "I can make an actor out of anybody." There's only one scene I can recall where the camera cuts from one character to another, and many setpieces are filmed with a static camera. In this way the film does remind me of 1960s French and Italian movies. But in the early films of Michelangelo Antonioni, for example, the characters seem to merely feign boredom. Burnett's characters often live it.
Stan, his wife and their two children live in a rented house which needs constant repairs. The always exhausted Stan has to make these himself, as well as worry about their son who is about 13 and inclined to follow the lessons of his father's friends, who believe any problem can be solved with the smash of a fist. Stan is not like this; he is pragmatic, thoughtful and quiet, and above all, decent. Stan's wife is more restive. She's a housewife with a fierce beauty who has never stopped freshening up for her husband before he comes home. Her sexual frustration is a quiet undercurrent. The one day when she and Stan are on the same wavelength, they dance in silhouette to Dinah Washington's "This Bitter Earth." Even viewers unfamiliar with this song will almost certainly be moved, maybe to tears. Exquisite, tender and understated. Like all the music on the eclectic soundtrack, the use of this song at this time is exactly right.
Stan's wife has given up trying to rein in her unruly son. She doesn't pay a tremendous of attention to her daughter, either. But the five-year-old girl is good as gold and never causes her mother any worry. In one of the most effective scenes in the entire film, the little girl (Burnett's daughter) sits on the floor playing with her dolls and singing along -- loudly and with abandon -- to Earth Wind and Fire's "Reasons."
The only real story thread running throughout the film involves the rebuilding of a car engine, dropping it into an old Dodge sedan and taking it out on a joyride into the country. This provides a little comic relief, and part of this sequence brings to mind the Laurel and Hardy film "The Music Box." But it's ultimately sad, too. Without any money, putting together a working car from "pieces parts" is an exhausting and time consuming ordeal. And once the car, packed with neighbors, is ready for a test drive, it soon develops a flat tire. Of course there is no spare. This calamity is greeted with the weary laughter of despair.
Surprisingly, perhaps, it's a lack of bitterness and frustration and anger that permeates "Killer of Sheep," although some characters are embittered and some prone to violence. Charles Burnett could just as easily have adopted another tone, one just as realistic but far darker. He tones nothing down; Stan and his friends live tough lives, no question. There is little rest for the weary. Some of their neighbors are going hungry. No sooner is one thing fixed than another broken. And through it all, the children -- and there are always many of them around -- amuse themselves with precious few toys.
The scenes of sheep being led to the slaughter could serve as symbols for Stan and his family and friends. But they don't. Everyone in the large cast becomes an individual, and they still retain some control over their fates. Charles Burnett could easily have made his film a social commentary or a polemic, layering pity with sentiment. But he didn't. In the vernacular of the mid-70s, he "tells it like it is." And few American filmmakers have ever documented ordinary lives with such objectivity and compassion.
Production cost figures I've seen vary from $10,000 to $20,000. Whatever its price tag, it was far below minimal. But if you are of the right disposition, you may find "Killer of Sheep" to be more powerful and affecting than many studio films with big name stars and multi-million dollar budgets.
With "Killer of Sheep," Charles Burnett manages to create a very good movie even though it has no real beginning, middle or end and an anonymous cast. Nothing happens and everything happens. He documents Stan (the slaughterhouse worker of the title), his family and their friends in Watts over a period that could be a day, a week or a month. Yes, the film is a "slice of life," but that phrase has been applied so often to films critics didn't know how to categorize that it's become almost meaningless.
Shooting in black and white wasn't an artistic conceit, it was an economic necessity. Casting friends and family members wasn't Charles Burnett's attempt -- I'm quite sure -- to say "I can make an actor out of anybody." There's only one scene I can recall where the camera cuts from one character to another, and many setpieces are filmed with a static camera. In this way the film does remind me of 1960s French and Italian movies. But in the early films of Michelangelo Antonioni, for example, the characters seem to merely feign boredom. Burnett's characters often live it.
Stan, his wife and their two children live in a rented house which needs constant repairs. The always exhausted Stan has to make these himself, as well as worry about their son who is about 13 and inclined to follow the lessons of his father's friends, who believe any problem can be solved with the smash of a fist. Stan is not like this; he is pragmatic, thoughtful and quiet, and above all, decent. Stan's wife is more restive. She's a housewife with a fierce beauty who has never stopped freshening up for her husband before he comes home. Her sexual frustration is a quiet undercurrent. The one day when she and Stan are on the same wavelength, they dance in silhouette to Dinah Washington's "This Bitter Earth." Even viewers unfamiliar with this song will almost certainly be moved, maybe to tears. Exquisite, tender and understated. Like all the music on the eclectic soundtrack, the use of this song at this time is exactly right.
Stan's wife has given up trying to rein in her unruly son. She doesn't pay a tremendous of attention to her daughter, either. But the five-year-old girl is good as gold and never causes her mother any worry. In one of the most effective scenes in the entire film, the little girl (Burnett's daughter) sits on the floor playing with her dolls and singing along -- loudly and with abandon -- to Earth Wind and Fire's "Reasons."
The only real story thread running throughout the film involves the rebuilding of a car engine, dropping it into an old Dodge sedan and taking it out on a joyride into the country. This provides a little comic relief, and part of this sequence brings to mind the Laurel and Hardy film "The Music Box." But it's ultimately sad, too. Without any money, putting together a working car from "pieces parts" is an exhausting and time consuming ordeal. And once the car, packed with neighbors, is ready for a test drive, it soon develops a flat tire. Of course there is no spare. This calamity is greeted with the weary laughter of despair.
Surprisingly, perhaps, it's a lack of bitterness and frustration and anger that permeates "Killer of Sheep," although some characters are embittered and some prone to violence. Charles Burnett could just as easily have adopted another tone, one just as realistic but far darker. He tones nothing down; Stan and his friends live tough lives, no question. There is little rest for the weary. Some of their neighbors are going hungry. No sooner is one thing fixed than another broken. And through it all, the children -- and there are always many of them around -- amuse themselves with precious few toys.
The scenes of sheep being led to the slaughter could serve as symbols for Stan and his family and friends. But they don't. Everyone in the large cast becomes an individual, and they still retain some control over their fates. Charles Burnett could easily have made his film a social commentary or a polemic, layering pity with sentiment. But he didn't. In the vernacular of the mid-70s, he "tells it like it is." And few American filmmakers have ever documented ordinary lives with such objectivity and compassion.