The too-often forgotten story of Charles Burnett
The most important filmmakers tend to be the ones who gain the most visibility, win the most awards and are showered the most acclaim by their peers, contemporaries, critics, and audiences. Charles Burnett was never catapulted to the mainstream in that respect, but his lasting impact on cinema was every bit as transformative as the ones made by his fellow trailblazers and pioneers.
The filmmaker was awarded an honorary Oscar in 2017 “to honour extraordinary distinction in lifetime achievement” at the Governors Awards, where Ava DuVernay, Chadwick Boseman, Tessa Thompson, Sean Baker, and Reginald Hudlin spoke in tribute. As much as it was deserved, it was well overdue, given how Burnett had spent decades as one of the most potent voices in Black cinema.
Not many student thesis films go on to become known as masterpieces, but Burnett’s Killer of Sheep did just that. Rooted deeply in not only his own upbringing in the Watts neighbourhood of Los Angeles but the Black experience shared by many in similar situations, it was as thought-provoking as it was visually accomplished.
Focusing on the socio-economic difficulties, the cultural anxieties, and the sense of neglect shared by many living in the area, Henry Gayle Sanders’ Stan anchors the narrative as the slaughterhouse employee struggles under the personal, professional, societal, and emotional pressure of everyday life.
Using his limited resources as an advantage, Killer of Sheep echoed the great neorealist films of decades past by touching on many of the same themes and motifs that helped define the movement, all viewed through a lens that Burnett didn’t just identify and resonate with, but had lived through.
Deploying a loose, documentarian, and naturalistic style that complemented its unvarnished aesthetic with immaculate shot composition, the symbiotic merging of music and imagery, and bringing professional performances out of untrained actors, Burnett was being spoken of in the same breath as everyone from Stanley Kubrick and Roberto Rossellini to Robert Altman and John Cassavetes.
Those are some lofty comparisons to be made for a first-time filmmaker, never mind somebody making what was ostensibly a student film. And yet, it was richly deserved, with Killer of Sheep now widely recognised as a genuine masterpiece of American cinema and a milestone for both reflecting and relaying the trials and tribulations inherent to Black life that were rarely given a moment in the spotlight in the 1970s.
A potential downside in inadvertently ushering in a movement is that there may not be a target audience in place eager to see what comes next. While Burnett would go on to repeatedly prove that he was a million miles away from being a flash in the pan, his movies rarely reaped the commercial benefits to accompany the unwavering praise that tended to greet them.
My Brother’s Wedding continued in the vein established in Killer of Sheep by exploring the interconnected interpersonal dynamics of the dividing loyalties between friends, family, status, and standing, instigated by the wedge formed between a man and his high-flying lawyer brother on the cusp of the latter’s wedding when an old friend fresh out prison complicates an already tenuous sibling bond.
Bless Their Little Hearts continued Burnett’s explorations of Los Angeles’ overlooked subset as an unemployed and depressed father is burdened with the responsibilities of a life in which he struggles to find meaning. In addition, To Sleep with Anger maintained the South Central setting and fractious familial discord and even gave him a major star to play with after Danny Glover played the lead.
The Glass Shield furthered that mainstream encroachment by drafting in Ice Cube as a murder suspect placed in the middle of a rookie cop – the first Black officer in his squad – trying to reconcile the differences between doing the right thing and trying to keep his head above water in a corrupt and bigoted system, but once again the engrossing morality play failed to take off amongst the ticket-buying public.
Burnett has been making excellent films for decades, even diversifying into period pieces, literary adaptations, and documentaries. However, nowhere near enough people have seen his extensive and expansive back catalogue, which in turn prevented him from reaching the heights such a consistently top-tier back catalogue deserved.
He’s undoubtedly a generational talent, and yet one of the most apt monikers ever bestowed upon him remains being called “the nation’s least-known great filmmaker”.
