Killer of Sheep: Realism Amidst the Rubble

I’m a little late for Black History Month, but it’s never a bad time to watch or write about Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep (1978). I mention Black History Month, because Burnett’s MFA thesis turned first feature is sometimes billed as a neorealistic response to Blaxploitation: Black Americans in the late 70s living as they actually did.

On that front, Burnett’s film succeeds. It presents normal, working-class people trying to survive in rubble-filled LA. Children play amidst clods of dirt, destroyed buildings, and rusty train tracks. Parents recall simpler times in the country before migrating to the city for work opportunities. They fight; they love. They try to get by. There are drug dealers here and gangsters there, but they are not larger-than-life characters. Burnett doesn’t show us Shaft or Youngblood Priest. He’s more interested in the economic conditions that lead to crime, not the showiness sometimes associated with criminal success.

The “plot” is rather loose. We simply follow a family and the community around them. They hang out. They go to work (in dirty, difficult places of employment, of course). They play and fight. They are, after all, just human beings living in a decaying United States.

If you aren’t aware of Burnett, watch this film and check out his others. As I said: it’s never a bad time to watch one of his films (or write about them).