Year: 1978
Director: Charles Burnett
Country: US
Language: English
Written, directed, produced, and shot by Charles Burnett, Killer of Sheep was shot in Watts, Los Angeles on a budget of less than $10,000 USD (about $38,000 adjusted for inflation) and filmed over a year. He submitted this picture as his Masters of Fine Arts thesis at the University of California. Winning awards at the Berlin International Film Festival, it unfortunately never saw a large release due to the director unable to pay for its music rights.
Set in the Watts area of Los Angeles, a slaughterhouse worker (Henry G. Sanders) must suspend his emotions to continue working at a job he finds repugnant, and then he finds he has little sensitivity for the family he works so hard to support.
In 1990, Killer of Sheep was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress. For many it will be a difficult film to watch as its narrative isn't structured in a straightforward manner. One scene follows another with no apparent pattern, reflecting how the lives of its family combine endless routine with the interruptions of random events. Popular African American music (Paul Robeson, Dinah Washington) floods our ears, as we view absolute poverty through the cinematic lens.
Shooting in 16 millimeter and operating it himself, Burnett's camera observes everything, and is seemingly everywhere. It's raw and effective in showing the drudgery of life in poverty. The lives of unhappy adults, one who slaughters sheep for a living, are inter-cut with shots of the children at play. Perhaps making a connection and suggesting that the children's lives will become as meaningless and dead-end as the sheep.
Killer of Sheep is not the easiest film to digest, but it's hard to deny the fact that it's one of cinema's masterpieces. Film critics have compared Burnett's work to Yaijuro Ozu, Satyajit Ray, Stanley Kubrick, and many Italian Neo-Realists. They don't make pictures like this anymore.
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