Killer of Sheep
1977, NR, 83 min. Directed by Charles Burnett. Starring Henry Sanders, Kaycee Moore, James Miles, Charles Bracy, Angela Burnett, Eugene Cherry, Jack Drummond.
REVIEWED By Marjorie Baumgarten, Thu., April 6, 2000
Charles Burnett's work draws on the daily lives of the inhabitants of South Central Los Angeles. Killer of Sheep is a soul-pounding exploration of the life of a black man who works in a slaughterhouse. Shot in a neo-realist style with nonprofessional actors, the film is a blistering assessment of the L.A. ghettos 10 years after the Watts riots. Burnett draws poetic parallels between lambs going to slaughter and the contemporary struggles waged by America's underclasses within the capitalist system. It's a stunning, though sometimes grim, psychological portrait. Recently, it was deemed a "national treasure" and was deservedly included in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress.
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Marjorie Baumgarten, June 23, 1995
Killer of Sheep, Charles Burnett, Henry Sanders, Kaycee Moore, James Miles, Charles Bracy, Angela Burnett, Eugene Cherry, Jack Drummond
