Abattoir Blues

Killer of Sheep
(Charles Burnett, 1977, US, 35mm, 80 mins.)

That's the way nature is; an animal has his teeth and a man has his fists.
-- Killer of Sheep (1977)

*****

While neo-realism is associated with Italy and the kitchen sink is associated with England, Killer of Sheep transfers that same kind of cinéma vérité look at lower-class life to 1970s America. Except for the salty language and afro picks, Charles Burnett's black and white debut feels like it was made decades before. (The use of Paul Robeson songs on the soundtrack, including "The House I Live In," also provides a link with the silent films of Oscar Micheaux.) At the time, African Americans weren't usually depicted in arthouse terms. There were low-budget crime pictures and social-issue dramas, but Killer of Sheep was something new...and old. At the same time.

Bicycle Thieves (1948)

Burnett captures a world where boys throw rocks at trains, young men rob houses
in broad daylight, and middle-aged fellows sit around playing dominoes. Suburban kids of all races may have been rollerskating and playing video games, but folks in post-riot Watts were just trying to get by with what they had. Wide-eyed title character Stan (Henry Gayle Sanders) is a romantic who was born at the wrong place and time (the Harlem Renaissance might've been more welcoming to his kind).

Worse yet, Stan works in an abattoir—the kind of job that makes "garbageman" seem appealing. The slaughterhouse scenes are expectedly, um, icky, but no
actual ovine-killing is shown. Stan and his stylish wife (Kaycee Moore) have
two kids. Their son (Jack Drummond) is a teen troublemaker and their dreamy daughter (Angela Burnett) likes to wander around wearing a dog mask that covers her entire head. (This strange bit of business lends the movie a surrealistic air.)

Shadows (1959)

Stan may be depressed, but he insists he isn't poor. He has a point. After all, he does live in a house rather than an apartment, but he isn't rich, and he never will be. Not if things stay the same, and the film argues that they will. Nothing will ever change. Not for people like Stan. That doesn't make Killer of Sheep depressing, but nor does it make it uplifting. J. Hoberman compares it to John Cassavetes' Shadows, which makes sense, since that music-steeped first feature also focuses on a person of color. Like Shadows, Killer of Sheep features a cast of non-professionals.

But it hasn't turned out to be as influential. Unlike Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It (1986), Killer of Sheep has been seen too rarely to influence as many filmmakers. John Singleton's Boyz n the Hood (1991), for example, also takes place in South Central, but that's where the comparisons end. David Gordon Green's George Washington (2000), however, was clearly influenced by it—too clearly for my taste.

What seems surrealistic in Killer of Sheep (the girl in the mask) seems willfully eccentric in George Washington (the boy in the superhero outfit). Fortunately,
Green found his own voice in time for All the Real Girls (2003), which drew from personal experience. Ironically, Hoberman describes both Killer of Sheep and George Washington as "sui generis," adding that the latter is "at once brilliant and inept."

[Long produced by Terrence Malick, Green produced two films at this year's
SIFF: Great World of Sound and the Grand Jury Prize-winning Shotgun Stories.]

As for the plot of the former, it lacks one. Burnett follows Stan, his family, and
his neighbors around as they live their lives. Like a jazz musician, he finds the notes as he goes along—sometimes harmonious, sometimes discordant—rather than building up to the sort of orchestral flourish that would cheapen the entire enterprise.

As with Stan, Killer of Sheep has had a hard-knock life, but to keep the musical analogy going, the grace notes have been accumulating since the 1980s. Burnett shot the film over the course of a year—some reports indicate two—while attending grad school at UCLA (the IMDb cites a budget of $5,000, but $10,000 seems
more likely). It was completed as early as 1973, but not screened until 1977.

Due to copyright issues, it virtually disappeared after that. Then, when the time
came for a DVD release, it took six years and cost a whopping $150,000 to clear
all the music rights (Milestone Film & Video will be doing the digital honors).

In 1990, it was among the first 50 titles added to the Library of Congress by the National Film Registry. And it was never forgotten by Burnett's alma mater. The
UCLA Film & Television Archive not only restored the disintegrating print, but blew
it up from 16mm to 35mm (although it retains the ramshackle look of its origins).
In other words, like last year's launch of Army of Shadows (1969), Killer of Sheep
has never received a proper US theatrical release—until now. Don't miss it.

"The protagonist has a job: he is the killer of sheep.
But a job can break your heart, too."
-- Thom Anderson, Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003)

*****

Killer of Sheep plays the Northwest Film Forum 6/22 - 28, Fri. - Thurs. at 7 and 9:15pm (Sat. and Sun. at 3 and 5pm). The 7pm screening on Sat. includes a panel discussion with Dr. Angela Gilliam (anthropologist, author, and professor at Evergreen State College), Eddie Hill (filmmaker and producer), and Sandra D. Jackson-Dumont (Deputy Director of Education and Public Programs, Seattle Art Museum). The NWFF
is located at 1515 12th Ave. For more information, please click here. You can also call 206-329-2629 for general info and 206-267-5380 for show times.