Critically Acclaimed Killer of Sheep must not be missed

For the past two weeks, the Orpheum Theater downtown has been screening the debut film of a celebrated, and until recently, little-known Black independent filmmaker.

Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep is a slow-burning saga that takes place in the Watts district of Los Angeles a decade after the infamous ‘60s riots. The film chronicles the routines of a brooding family man named Stan (played by Henry Gayle Sanders), who struggles with his frustrations of his slaughterhouse job and the distance growing between himself and his wife (Kaycee Moore) and two children. Rather than concentrate on a single, traditional plot, Killer of Sheep features a series of episodic, slice-of-life moments in the life of Stan and his family as experienced from each individual’s perspective.

The director, Burnett, is a gradate of the University of California-Los Angeles film school and is a contemporary of a generation of Black filmmakers such as Julie Dash (Daughters of the Dust) and Haile Gerima (Sankofa) whose films aimed to counter Hollywood and Blaxploitation’s narrow representation of African American life. In this manner, the film is a brilliantly crafted document of urban, working-class Black life in 1977 that neither demeans nor romanticizes its subjects. Withholding a moralizing tone even when painful moments are portrayed, Killer of Sheep offers an unfailing and rare respect for the characters and their stories.

“We needed the spectrum,” said Burnett in a statement, “of the full range of the Black experience.”

After three decades of obscurity, Killer of Sheep is now being applauded as a modern classic in the tradition of Italian neo-realist cinema because of the director’s choices to shoot on location in Watts, use hand-held camerawork, and cast the film with local talent and amateur actors, such as his niece in the role of Stan’s daughter.

Burnett draws out poignant and raw performances from his cast, and his imagery of Los Angeles’ post-industrial landscape of bungalows and blue-collar apartments is beautiful, but haunting. Burnett gives the film a vaguely rustic feel that best illustrates his picture of a city having lost its manufacturing sector and the generation of workers feeling the effects. Still, the film maintains a quiet, honest core within the turmoil and distance churning around the principle character. Stan’s interactions with his wife and children look as realistic as any such depiction in any film I have seen, which is one of the film’s greatest strengths, especially given that most of the actors were unknown.

Killer of Sheep also serves as a tribute to Black music history. The soundtrack, which features songs from Etta James, Dinah Washington, Louis Armstrong, Paul Robeson, and Earth, Wind, and Fire, contributes heavily to the film’s atmospheric blues sensibility with its characters acting out various changes, comforts, strivings, and sorrows alike. Given that the ‘70s is often considered a touchstone era for African American music, with hip-hop artists sampling the period’s hit records, it is interesting to see how a Black filmmaker and music-buff in the ‘70s would arrange his soundtrack. Ironically, Killer of Sheep wide theatrical release was delayed for three decades because Burnett could not obtain the rights to use the music.

Killer of Sheep made its local debut at the Madison Film Festival, where it quickly sold out, perhaps due to its recent accolades as a national treasure. The National Society of Film Critics chose Killer of Sheep as one of “100 most Essential Films of All Time,” and it also holds the distinction as one of the first 50 films placed in the National Library of Congress Film Registry.

Unfortunately, some of the film’s dialogue was either difficult to hear or outright incomprehensible because of the Orpheum’s sound system. However, the film must not be missed in its brief theatrical release in Madison or when it is finally available on DVD later this year. The film is now in its second week at the Orpheum Theater. Killer of Sheep will be showing exclusively at the Orpheum through next week. For more information about show times, call 255-8755.