Killer of Sheep

One of Milestone Films’ best-promoted restorations comes to the 4K format — Killer of Sheep, which was among the first fifty films chosen in 1989 by the U.S. Library of Congress for its National Film Registry. Previous to that, Charles Burnett’s film always ‘made lists’ but saw relatively few showings. Burnett is cited in countless scholarly footnotes, yet few critics knew that he made other films as well. Back in the early 2000’s, Milestone Film and Video re-premiered Burnett’s films on museum and repertory screens across the country.

Killer of Sheep plays out in Los Angeles’ Watts ghetto. It is loosely centered on Stan (Henry Gayle Sanders), a family man with a job slaughtering livestock in a meat packing company. Stan loves his wife and children but is becoming emotionally numb; when he isn’t sitting silent at the dinner table, he lectures his nervous young son about becoming a man. Stan’s wife (Kaycee Moore) can’t get him to open up about his problems, which are all too obvious. They’re stuck in poverty, the neighborhood is depressing and options are non-existent. Stan’s friends are mostly unemployed; during the week they drink in the alleys and frighten the small children. Stan’s only other visitors are a pair of criminals looking for a third partner. Stan is unresponsive to their challenge to join them in a robbery. His wife ends up chasing them away.

Burnett’s camera observes life in Watts in fine detail, making dramatic speeches unnecessary. Watts is not a healthy place to grow up. Stan’s small daughter makes her mother smile when singing along with the radio, but any kid over the age of five must learn to deal with a hostile world. Stan’s son has fallen into the habit of crying for attention whenever he thinks things are unfair. As if acknowledging how little their lives are worth, groups of little boys throw rocks at passing trains and play dangerous games in junk-strewn vacant lots. Smaller kids watch as their older brothers show how tough they are. At one point Stan sees some boys leaping across a rooftop gap between two second-story apartments, pretty much asking for a fatal accident. Stan doesn’t intervene.

A measured pace lets us contemplate Stan’s situation and his sense of self-worth. He’s too mature to openly despair over things that are nobody’s fault. At one point he buys a car engine from a man in an apartment, in an attempt to get his buddy’s car running. They pay the money and haul the engine block down several flights of stairs, only to ruin it through a careless mistake. Must everything be so hopeless?  Of course he’ll waste his money. Of course the effort will end in useless humiliation.

Stan’s wife cannot inspire him to relax or to get out in the sunlight, but she understands him too well to lose her temper. When she’s alone in the house, she feels like a prisoner as well. In one scene they dance slowly to music from the radio, just taking quiet pleasure in being together. The moment is sublime.

In the 1970s almost all feature films with African-Americans in major roles were in the blaxploitation genre. Killer of Sheep distinguishes itself by ignoring commercial trends and showing black lives up close. It’s also not an idealized family film, like the popular Sounder. A critical comparison of Burnett’s approach to the Italian neorealist films of De Sica and Zavattini only goes so far. Burnett does not impose irony or sentiment on the fitful, day-by-day lives of his characters. The acting is good where it counts, with Henry Gayle Sanders particularly good; the experience of two tours of duty in Vietnam shows in his eyes.

The film excels in its simple observation of people. Burnett filmed with friends and acquaintances, actors that make up in authenticity what they sometimes lack in naturalness. The camera catches great moments with the children as they mirror the self-destructive behavior of their parents. Some boys throw dirt at the freshly wash hung on a clothesline, laughing at the young girl whose day they’ve just ruined. Her reaction is a proud stare of contempt, refusing to give them the pleasure of seeing her upset.

Charles Burnett is among the most acclaimed filmmakers to come from UCLA in the 1970s. UCLA had its share of pretenders and hustlers and fiery politicos, but Burnett is an accomplished cinematographer with serious artistic ambitions. His Killer of Sheep is an intimate social document and a moving emotional experience.