Killer of Sheep.

Review #1975: Killer of Sheep.

Cast: 

Henry G. Sanders (Stan), Kaycee Moore (Stan's wife), Charles Bracy (Bracy), Angela Burnett (Stan's daughter), Eugene Cherry (Eugene), and Jack Drummond (Stan's son) Directed, Written, and Produced by Charles Burnett.

Review: 

"What people are really struggling for is to endure, to survive, to become adults and maintain some sort of moral compass."

The story of Charles Burnett when it comes to looking at filmmakers beyond the usual names comes with finding how one got themselves to become a director. Burnett was born in Vicksburg, Mississippi in the early 1940s, but the family (a nurse's aide and a military father) moved to Watts, a neighborhood in the southern region of Los Angeles, California; his experiences in Watts, which included transplants from the South just like him, influenced him deeply. He first studied electrical engineering at Los Angeles City College before taking a class in writing that convinced him to explore ambitions in that field. He went off to study at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1967, where he studied writing and languages before moving onto the university's film school. One of his instructors and a key influence on him was documentarian Basil Wright, who lent "a certain humanism to my way of seeing things." Burnett first shot films in 1969 with his Super 8 graduation film for UCLA in "Several Friends". The movie was shot in 1972 and 1973 that Burnett shot as his Master of Fine Arts thesis, although the film was not screened for the public until 1978. In addition to serving as director, writer, and producer, he also shot and edited the film, which was shot with friends and colleagues for a cast with a handheld camera. It premiered at the Whitney Museum of American Art in late 1978, and while the movie did ride the festival circuit for a time, there was no general release of the film until 2007 due to Burnett not being able to secure rights to the music (which included music from famous names such as Dinah Washington) that was present in the film. Hell, the Library of Congress preserved the film in their United States National Film Registry over a decade before anyone could see it on home video. Finally, in 2007, the music rights were purchased to help clear the way for the film, which had a limited release and DVD release that year thanks to the help of people such as Ross Lipman (preservationist at UCLA Film & Television Archive) and Steven Soderbergh, who made a considerable donation with the effort to turn 16mm prints into 35mm restored prints that could be on DVD. A fierce independent filmmaker, he has completed over a half-century of filmmaking with varying levels of attention, which has included films such as To Sleep with Anger (1990) and Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation (2007).

In a way, the details of what the film is in a nutshell is both a blessing and curse. If one is here for escapism in their film, one should look elsewhere, because the plot of the film is best described as "nothing happens if you only look on the most basic levels". But, if one really is into films that remind them of their times spent in the neighborhood or are connoisseurs of movies that remind them of Italian neorealism, this may very well be the movie right up your alley. To look further into a movie filmed and set in Watts, California with little vignettes that are loosely connected with one other is to find life in the most cut-and-dry sense. That could be haunting in bleakness or joyful depending on what one sees in the film, which never seems ultra-cheap or exploitative, because you are too busy focusing on the seams that tie these people together rather than cheap seams. It is a movie about a man who is trying to keep his dignity while his sensitivity is slowly slipping away from him, which reflects upon the family around him (since Burnett got his sense that the most important thing was to survive from his experiences in the community). You see this through the eyes of Sanders, an Army veteran-turned-actor (in his first major role in a career filled with character roles) that we see the movie from when it comes to the depiction of life. His anguish (such as his degrading sense of self from the long hours as, well, a "killer of sheep") is our anguish and his attempts to see joy in the small things is our joy, which works out to generally interesting moments in the human condition. Moore is no slouch of course, because she braces him and the withering sense of self that comes from trying to maintain order is not a one-way street, which results in dutiful timing. The movie wanders wherever it feels the need to go, whether that involves kids being kids (read: unpredictable in cruelty or other emotions) or vignettes such as trying to carry a heavy part to a location that goes about how one expects it to go. The movie begins and ends essentially at the same place: adrift without easy resolutions or ideas but always ready with questions. As a whole, it isn't the easiest sit at 80 minutes, but it is a worthwhile film that manages to hit most of the marks it wants to accomplish in telling a story with Black Americans that should merit at least one conversation about why it still means so much to those who saw it or lived through what the film wants to show.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Next Time: She's Gotta Have It.

Daughters of the Dust.

Review #1658: Daughters of the Dust.

Cast: 

Cora Lee Day (Nana Peazant), Adisa Anderson (Eli Peazant), Alva Rogers (Eula Peazant), Kay-Lynn Warren (Unborn Child / Narrator), Kaycee Moore (Haagar Peazant), Cheryl Lynn Bruce (Viola Peazant), Tommy Hicks (Mr. Snead), Bahni Turpin (Iona Peazant), M. Cochise Anderson (St. Julien Lastchild), Barbara-O (Yellow Mary), Trula Hoosier (Trula), Umar Abdurrahman (Bilal Muhammad), and Cornell Royal ("Daddy Mac" Peazant) Written and Directed by Julie Dash.

Review: 

“I decided to let the story unravel itself in a way in which an African griot would tell the story, since that’s part of our tradition. So the story kind of unfolds throughout this day and a half, in various vignettes. It unfolds, comes back, it unfolds and it comes back.”

The first and easiest thing to say is that Daughters of the Dust was the first theatrical film by an African American woman to gain a wide release. The director for the film is Julie Dash, a native New Yorker that had a father with a Gullah background (having immigrated from the Sea Islands of Georgia, which she referred to as "our Ellis Island"). She entered the world of study with the Studio Museum of Harlem (where she discovered her love of cinema with films such as Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin) before going on to the City College of New York. She studied psychology for a time before being accepted into the college's film school. She would graduated with a degree in Film Production in 1974 and move on to Los Angeles for further work, which included UCLA Film School (owing to her and other fellow directors who studied there at the time, she is generally referred to being part of the "L.A. Rebellion" film movement, although she has described it as merely "a cute little name"). She was influenced by numerous genres in cinema that ranged from the avant-garde to Russian cinema that wanted to push the envelope of visual storytelling; discovering authors like Alice Walker influenced her away from documentaries and into making narrative films. Her first short came with the experimental piece Four Women (1975), which explored stereotypes alongside a "choreopoem" dance performance. Dash continued with shorts such as Illusions (1982), which dealt with racial discrimination with the workplace in Hollywood in the 1940s for color and gender. She would also spend time directing for music videos, but the dream of a feature film with her at the helm would only come around before she would turn 40 (after she and Arthur Jafa helped make a short film to drum up interest). Daughters of the Dust, released 30 years ago this year, has proven to be the only theatrical film that Dash has directed, as she once stated that "Hollywood and mainstream television are still not quite open to what I have to offer", with one calling her film a fluke despite it attracting crowds. In any case, she has continued work in shorts alongside television to this very day, a career of nearly a half-century that includes a novel that serves as a sequel to this film and a "making-of" book of the film while also serving as a teacher for film at Morehouse College and Howard University. It has endured in the three decades that has followed its release, ranging from preservation with the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress to having an influence on visual albums like Lemonade.

The film was inspired by her father's background that she had initially thought of to do for a film in 1975. Thirteen years later, she received financing to make a feature film with the help of PBS' American Playhouse, and the feature would ultimately be made on a budget of $800,000. Considerable time would be spent in making it a worthy period piece fitting 1902 within furniture and fabrics alongside teaching the actors about the Gullah's Creole language (such as bringing in culinary anthropologist Vertamae Grosvenor with her background in the language). The main sticking point is one that will either attract you or turn you away: it is a dream-like film that runs at 112 minutes but feels like 18, complete with usage of the Gullah language (also referred to as Gullah-English, Sea Island Creole English, and Geechee, which has an estimated usage by over 5,000 people in the island regions of South Carolina and Georgia) at times that fits the story that Dash wanted to tell for nearly two decades. You either will connect with its resonating feelings involving separation or you won't - in that case, I thought it was fine. If it had been told by a different filmmaker, one who wasn't absorbed in the material involving migration and the divide between spirituality and beyond, it most certainly would have been a devastating bore. It only makes sense to try to make a distinct movie about the culture of the Gullah, one who had their own distinct African American culture. For those who desire what it yearns to show about the way of life without compromise - in other words, those who buy into what it yearns to say in the visual sense without an easy narrative will fit right at home here. I can't necessarily say it is a great film, mostly because it works to a point in terms of meaningful payoff and also because it really is just fine - distinct, but fine is a good word to go with when talking about something that has its distinct place within independent and women's cinema. The actors do their part in playing to the immersion factor of a time long ago that start with Day and her gripping presence, one that carries the spirit of the past with nothing wasted. Anderson and Rogers play the struggle in family life fairly alright while Warren narrates the film as one would expect from a narrative that jumps around from time to time being told by a youth (whose character isn't born...yet). The rest are fine, and no one really blends too much into the background when it comes to those little moments that jump at you, such as the final moments spent on the island with the family as one whole. One thing that certainly shines as well is the look of the film, one that is quite striking in crispness that invites the viewer in to an interesting moment with Arthur Jafa (who also served as a producer) deserving the credit in his cinematography. At any rate, while the film is certainly a different kind of experience in terms of period piece family drama, it has a welcome place for those who seek perspective on a culture and the folks that lived (and in spirit still live) in those days of yesteryear that will work for those who have the patience and appreciation for what it yearns to say from a director that deserved better.

Next Time: Clueless.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.