Killer of Film, Charles Burnett

I would like to begin this blog by simply stating one fact; if it were not by force of an assignment, I would never on my own write about Charles Burnett’s film Killer of Sheep. The only time I could even fathom having the film creep into my writing is if I was to rant about another horrible film like Two Lane Blacktop and reference it in comparison. With that now being said, let my criticism begin.
When I viewed the film, about half way through I began to question if there was a developed plot yet. The film starts out with a young man being yelled at to grow up and be a man. This behavior did not shock me because of the time period in which the film was made. Many children of the baby boom era were raised that way; not to cry, not to cop out on your personal responsibility, and to just be a man. After this scene, the film then begins to progress and introduce different sets of characters. In all honesty, these characters were not memorable and did not in my opinion have any connection to one another. A handful of scenes in the film just showed children playing around the run down neighborhood, which the film takes place in. To me, these scenes added nothing. From discussions that I have had, some argue that the scenes of the children bring a comparison of behavior of the adults to the children and how their behavior is not much different, but to me, it was just a waste of time because the children did not play specific roles, they were just there, playing. Even the child in the beginning who was slapped and told to be more of a man did not develop into much of a character. To me, a film is not a random collection of scenes that do not relate to each other.
Although I just said that there was nothing memorable about Killer of Sheep, there are three scenes, which I would like to examine a little closer because two of them do attempt to make the film have a purpose. The first scene, which I would like to point out, is the one where Stan’s wife (I honestly cant remember her name, helping to prove my point that these characters aren’t memorable) throws herself at Stan, showing her sexual desire for him. The second memorable scene is when Stan is in the liquor store and the white man and woman running the shop offer Stan a job as if it were a charity case. The third memorable scene to me is just when the motor is loaded into the back of the truck and they agree about whether or not it is secure, but immediately falls out of the truck bed and breaks when they begin to drive away.
The first scene, which I pointed out between Stan and his wife, speaks to the lack of desire and passion present in the entirety of the film. Stan’s impotence helps to create the main metaphor of the film; the people present in Killer of Sheep are part of this small, black, urban community and have no desire to get ahead in life and are just sitting around as they wait to die. The people of this town do not seek out much of anything and even when they do (as Stan’s wife does when she throws herself at him...if only every man could be so lucky), they are not met with encouragement.
As the people of this town sit around and wait, carrying on daily life, they are met with different opportunities and are even denied certain privileges most others may have. In the scene when Stan enters the liquor store, just before he enters a man tries to cash a check. The female shopkeeper denies this man the ability to cash his check because she does not believe it to be a real check. This white woman holds a position of power to the people in this town, as a Shepard does over a herd of sheep. She is portrayed as controlling the flow of cash in the town. The people who try to get ahead, for example the man who wanted to cash the check, is denied. She did not actually know if the check was real, but denied him simply because she is not trustworthy of others and keeps him from obtaining the money which she does not know the purpose of. For all we know, the money was intended to be saved so that the man could move up and get ahead in life. After the man exits the store, Stan is then offered a job working in the back with the woman. Stan declines the offer. Once again, the woman is trying to keep power and control over her sheep.
This film speaks volumes to race relations and truth about the way life was for many black communities. The liquor store reminds me of the pizza shop owners in Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing. The whites in the black community try to hold the little bit of socioeconomic power over their peers and neighbors. This one plot point in the liquor store does not really for me do anything besides social commentary. This commentary though helps to document the reality of life, making Killer of Sheep in a way, a documentary, one of most commonly boring types of film, although it is pretty much guaranteed that a documentary will have a plot. The way in which the camera is positioned most of the time though, it only offers an inside point of view at certain moments. There are many scenes where the camera seems to be stationary just observing what is happening in the town, i.e. when the children are playing outside. The camera never really dares to enter any of their points of view, and just documents them from a distance. Even when Burnett has scenes with his main man Stan, the camera does not really enter into his point of view. With so much going on in the film, and what seems to be no real substantial plot, it would be hard for any director (including the “genius” Charles Burnett) to use a lot of point of view shots because that would take away time from useless scenes and add more depth to a few characters.
The third scene, which I had previously mentioned but have neglected until now, where the motor falls out of the back of the truck bed, I only mentioned because it was the only point in the film that I was amused by. It was predictable, but the reactions were funny. I just wanted to share that.
Killer of Sheep as you can see is not on my list of greatest films ever made. The lack of plot and development of characters, kept me from connecting with the film. Although the film may have some deeper meaning, I did not feel that deeper meaning in my experience. My last words on Killer of Sheep are this: if you want to sit around, analyze and assume things about Charles Burnett’s film, go right ahead, but for me, I will not be joining the conversation because I did not see the value in the characters or feel that they had any real true meaning.