Montag, 24. Februar 2020


Charles Burnett - Killer Of Sheep




Nothing is more difficult than the depiction of normal life in a movie. Especially because we are used to "storytelling" from so many other works: ...patterns of narration and certain actions that come up again and again. Or do film characters behave like real people? Charles Burnett, however, shows the normal everyday routine. He demonstrates a life in poverty that leaves people no freedom of choice. He shows the life of a family from Watts, which is bound by strong values but without opportunities. The life of this family ends in nowhere. Just like the movie. Stan (Henry Gayle Sanders) works in the slaughterhouse. He works to the point of exhaustion. In the evening, at home, he repairs the sink and the like. His wife (Kaycee Moore) is beautiful but tired. When Stan comes home, she freshens up her make-up for him (which he doesn't even notice). In a casual sequence of episodes we get to know her children, her neighbours, her life. We see nothing and everything at the same time. Filmed in black and white, which gives us a feeling of resignation. This is how Killer Of Sheep became a classic - which hardly anyone knows. Take a test and enter it on Netflix. Of course no hit. Our colleague Thomas Groh, however, created the DVD version in a cardboard cover for our video store. As a USA import with a regional code 1, which you can see with a code free player (for example a very cheap DVD player) or by getting instructions on DVD-sucht.de. Burnett's movie was made as a graduation film. For no money. That's why you could hardly see it already in 1978. You can find the whole story of its creation on www.killerofsheep.com. Now when you watch our DVD, you should be prepared. Relaxed. One scene follows the other with no apparent pattern. In addition, the music of the great Dinah Washington is played, because on a deeper level Killer Of Sheep also wants to be a film about African-American music. Music by and about Afro-Americans. Again and again the life of the adults is interrupted by the playing children. But they are playing in a wasteland full of garbage! A child is beaten and bleeds. Stan's work is also bloody, because he kills sheep in the slaughterhouse. A terrible job. Stan slits their throats and watches the blood flow out. Then two strangers come and try to implicate Stan in a crime. They are sent away. Charles Burnett himself grew up in Watts. He's one of America's greatest filmmakers, but not one who ever made a hit. Like no other, he is able to capture the empty hot summer days in Mississippi. When the windows are open and the dust settles in. A life in the ghetto, but not the ghetto with guns and drugs that we know from other films. The ghetto is a place for good, hard-working people who try to make ends meet, raise their children and get some sleep.

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