CHARLES BURNETT, “KILLER OF SHEEP”

By James Ponsoldt

Originally published in the Spring 2007 issue of Filmmaker. Killer of Sheep plays this week as part of the Milestone Films 20th Anniversary series at the IFC Center.

“When I stumbled across a 16mm print of Killer of Sheep at film school in North Carolina, it was like finding gold. I had never seen an American film quite like it…raw, honest simplicity that left me sitting there in an excited silence. It echoed throughout George Washington, the first film that David Gordon Green and I made together.”
— Tim Orr, cinematographer (All the Real Girls, Raising Victor Vargas)

What sort of anxiety exists in the influence of a visionary masterpiece that is virtually unknown by a majority of the mainstream audience?

According to music apocrypha, Brian Eno said, “Only about 1,000 people ever bought a Velvet Underground album, but every one of them formed a rock ‘n roll band.”

Now consider Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep, shot for less than $10,000 in the Watts community of southern Los Angeles during the ’70s and considered a seminal film in the canon of independent cinema.

Have you seen it?

If the answer is no, there’s a good reason.

While radically divergent in content, Killer of Sheep is a kindred spirit to Todd Haynes’s first film, Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, and Cocksucker Blues (photographer Robert Frank’s anarchic, drug-fueled 1972 Rolling Stones tour documentary) in that it’s been legally prevented for decades from having a commercial release. But unlike those two mythically “unseen” films, Killer of Sheep has finally overcome its legal hurdles — a stellar soundtrack by luminaries like Paul Robeson, Dinah Washington, Louis Armstrong, Scott Joplin and Earth, Wind & Fire, among others, was largely uncleared — and is now, on its 30th anniversary, in theatrical release from Milestone Films with a restored 35mm print by the UCLA Film and Television Archive.

Killer of Sheep, Charles Burnett’s thesis film for UCLA, which he wrote, directed, shot, edited and produced, won prizes at the Berlin Film Festival and Sundance (then called the USA Film Festival) … Read the rest

BRANDON HARRIS’S SEMINAL INDIES

By Brandon Harris

Yesterday on the blog we asked what films inspired young viewers (in their 20s or below) to identify with the independent film movement. Here are responses from filmmaker, critic and Filmmaker Contributing Editor Brandon Harris.

Short Cuts (1993) – Saw it on cable TV sometime in 1994. I was too young to understand its significance at the time, but I believe it was the first American Independent film I ever saw. The fact that I watched it all at that age probably explains alot about me.

Clerks (1994) & Chasing Amy (1997) – Saw both of these during winter break, 1997. My older cousin David can still quote Clerks essentially line for line. My first prolonged exposure with American Independent cinema, the first time I can remember noticing a film’s low budget style. Probably introduced the concept of irony to me.

The Funeral (1996) – If only because one Saturday afternoon while I was watching it (certainly sometime in the summer of 98′) I decided I wanted to be a filmmaker.

Lone Star (1996) – To this day I can’t help but watch all of it whenever it’s on television. It was the first time I saw an American Independent narrative that seemed to deal with the ways in which different communities, even ones right on top of each other, see history in vastly divergent ways. Given how my home life was so different from the places I went to school, how the cultural disposition of my family and my school friends might as well have been worlds apart despite being contained within the same city and being essentially within the same class, I completely identified with its themes.

The Limey (1998) – Very similar to Pi in its importance to me (see below) – seeing it, theatrically, on a weekday, with perhaps two other people in an art house theater, one I would start working five years later, it spoke to me in a way few films (even ones which are much better) are capable of doing. Seeing it now is like visiting an old friend.

Pi (1998) – … Read the rest

REVISITING THE TOPIC OF INDIE MOVIES AND YOUTH

By Scott Macaulay

This is perhaps the longest gestating blog post in Filmmaker Blog history.

Back in December, Ted Hope commented on the graying of the arthouse audience in a post entitled “Can Truly Free Film Appeal to Younger Audiences?” He asked:

What is it that new audiences want? What must the indie community do to engage them? It is really surprising how few true indie films speak to a youth audience. In this country we’ve had Kevin Smith and NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, but nothing that was youth and also truly on the art spectrum like RUN LOLA RUN or the French New Wave (PARANORMAL ACTIVITY not withstanding…). Are we incapable of making the spirited yet formal work that defines a lot of alternative rock and roll? And if so, why is that?

The post inspired a long comments thread, much of which focuses on the issue of marketing, and whether today’s independent films are marketed to youth correctly, or whether today’s indies are giving young audiences the experiences they want. Amongst these comments is one by producer Cotty Chubb, who tackles the issue of young content. An excerpt:

If there’s no reason to go to the theater to have an emotional (comedic, dramatic, it doesn’t matter) experience that answers questions you have — about being a child of divorce, about how to figure out how to live or love, or about what happens you become intimate and it’s all too much — whatever it is that you’re living — if you lose the habit of seeing movies because the people that make them don’t give two shits about you except for your ability to spend money — you stop going, except for the thrill rides or the exceptional rude boys.

That’s why I thought Judd Apatow was going to matter when I saw Knocked Up. That’s why I think 500 Days of Summer is important. It was honest and funny and smart and generous and Joe Gordon Levitt is uniquely transparent in his emotion. And it grossed 32+MM$.

I think Ted and Cotty combine to make a great point here having to … Read the rest

OUT OF AFRICA

By Scott Macaulay

Ever since he made the independent classic Killer of Sheep Charles Burnett has had more than his share of tough times finding financing for his films. But this news story in Variety may detail his strangest career moment yet: the crew shut-down of his latest feature, Where Others Wavered due to lack of payment by the government of Namibia, where the film is shooting.

From the article:

“Principal photography started April 25 in the capital of Windhoek on the movie about former freedom fighter Sam Nujoma ( played by “Alias” thesp Carl Lumbly), who helped Namibia gain independence from South Africa in 1989 and who stood down as president last year. The Namibian government is backing the feature, which also stars Danny Glover.

However, filming ground to a halt Tuesday — the day after Nujoma and Prime Minister Nahas Angula visited the set to officially launch production on the N$50 million ($8.5 million) movie.

The government allocated $2.5 million initially and had expected the Pan-African Center of Namibia (Pacon), which is overseeing production, to supply the balance.

However, Pacon announced in April that the government — not Pacon — would provide a further $6 million.

Producer Abius Akwaake blamed the cash-flow problems on public holidays and the difficulty in tracking down government officials to authorize payments. He hoped difficulties would be resolved by the weekend.

The coin has been a sore point for some Namibians concerned about the amount of money the government of this poor country is spending on a film promoting itself, and about possible misuse of funds.”
.… Read the rest