Killer of Sheep and the Black Side of American Cinema

June 16th

Perhaps the weakest link in this years exemplary program of Sydney Film Festival was the retrospective section. John Huston? I must be missing something... Not only had I seen everything in this program but I think I have most of the films (Maltese Falcon, Asphalt Jungle etc...) on DVD. What's the point if you can probably catch most of these films on cable or simply get them on DVD? Sorry, I must remind myself that I'm not the center of the universe. Apparently the screenings were full...

But there was something truly special in the form of Charles Burnett's student feature film - 'Killer of Sheep' shot over weekends in the summer of 1976. This black and white feature has the rare privilege of being listed among the few films that are being preserved by the Library of Congress. Burnett's film is widely considered to be not just one of the greatest cinematic renditions of African-American experience, but also one of the most important independent American features ever made.

I came to the film with absolutely no expectations. Accolades might make me want to see a film but never make my mind up for it. I was, however, partial to the fact that it was made for only 10 000$ - I'm a sucker for triumphing under-dog stories.

The film is essentially plotless. It describes a couple of days in the life of a black neighbourhood in LA. The epicentre of the film is Stan, a 30-something man who has difficulty in getting his life together. He's worn from his work at the slaughterhouse, the lack of money, the constant demands his friends make on his time and even the emotional needs of his wife. And that's it. There are hardly any dramatic developments (by most standards) and even no climaxes. It's as if Burnett is simply content to luxuriate in the dreary banality of everyday life, constantly teasing us by turning away from the "story" just as we think something "dramatic" is going to happen. At one point Stan is approached by two hoodlums who try to coerce him into a robbery. Stan is confused and is almost tempted, his moral dilemma painfully etched on his face. But once the wife puts the hoodlums in their place, this potentially tense story 'hook' becomes just another 'moment' strung together with other seemingly prosaic bits and pieces.

In another scene, the camera follows a child for quite a while. The child has been seen in the beginning and we think that he could potentially be one of the protagonists. We only get a long scene where this boy walks around, wearing a funny dog mask and then disappears altogether. It is this exquisite bravery in handling of screen time and the confidence with which Burnett snatches a "tune" only to abandon it for something else, that made me stare at the screen in awe. It takes extreme confidence or maybe recklessness to not try and involve your audience in a clear-cut narrative arc that would carry them through the experience just on the basis of 'what happens next?' logic. That's also to director's exceptional cast of non-professional actors who are more or less portraying themselves. That sounds almost facile and an easy way out, but from a personal experience of having worked with non-actors, I know that getting them to be as natural, relaxed and supremely confident in front of camera as Burnett's actors are - requires great talent, skill and above all, vision. And what a sad, lethargic and moving vision this is... It's the kind that is almost never seen on American screens - a vision of profound simplicity and dignified micro-realism that we've come to identify with Czech filmmakers (Forman's 'Black Peter' especially comes to mind) and the Italian cinema of 1940s.

Jazz is perhaps the best simile that can be applied to the improvisational ebb and flow of this film. And you hear plenty of it in the film. Languid, sensual, wistful and poetic. It slowly dawns on you that the film is as much a visual as an aural experience which is caucused with impeccable taste. The music translates the lives of these people into a language that is universal in its emotional reach - like poetry. In fact, the music (or its copyright to be more precise) was responsible for holding the film back from proper distribution until all the rights were cleared very recently. But without it, the lyrical aspect of Burnett's film, its obvious "poeticisim" would not be possible and is one of the key reasons that it seems still so fresh and immediate today - like a Hafiz poem celebrating the bittersweet torments and pleasures of our daily slog through life.