VANCOUVER PREMIERE // VANCITY THEATRE EXCLUSIVE
For many the film event of 2007 is the restoration and release of Charles Burnett's legendary debut feature, a brilliant, impressionistic look at the daily life of an average man.
Killer of Sheep examines the black Los Angeles ghetto of Watts in the mid-1970s through the eyes of Stan, a sensitive dreamer who is growing detached and numb from the psychic toll of working at a slaughterhouse.
Frustrated by money problems, he finds respite in moments of simple beauty: the warmth of a coffee cup against his cheek, slow dancing with his wife in the living room, holding his daughter. The film offers no solutions; it merely presents life - sometimes hauntingly bleak, sometimes filled with transcendent joy and gentle humor.
Killer of Sheep was shot on location in Watts in a series of weekends on a budget of less than $10,000, most of which was grant money. Finished in 1977 and shown sporadically, its reputation grew and grew until it won a prize at the 1981 Berlin International Film Festival.
In 1981, Killer of Sheep received the Critic's Award at the Berlin International Film Festival. In 1990, the Library of Congress declared it a national treasure and placed it among the first 50 films entered in the National Film Registry for its historical significance. In 2002, the National Society of Film Critics selected the film as one of the 100 Essential Films of all time.
Despite these accolades, the film never saw popular distribution due to the expense and complication of the music rights (including songs by Etta James, Dinah Washington, Gershwin, Rachmaninov, Paul Robeson and Earth, Wind & Fire on the soundtrack) and in its rare viewings at festivals and museums it was shown on ragged 16mm prints. Now, thirty years later, the new 35mm print, restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive, is ready for its long-awaited theatrical release.
Milestone's premiere of the restored Killer of Sheep was at the 2007 Berlinale Film Festival and the theatrical release began in Spring of this year.
"An American masterpiece, independent to the bone... This may be Mr. Burnett's most radical truth-telling." - MANOHLA DARGIS, NEW YORK TIMES
"A masterpiece. One of the most insightful and authentic dramas about African-American life on film. One of the finest American films, period." - DAVE KEHR, INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
"There may be no better contemporary American filmmaker who has so richly evoked the infinite varieties and textures of life, black or otherwise." - Scott Foundas, LA WEEKLY
"Made while Burnett was a 33-year-old grad student at UCLA, Killer of Sheep is a study of social paralysis in South Central Los Angeles a dozen years after the Watts insurrection. The subject matter harks back to the heyday of Italian neorealism but Burnett uses the film language of experimental documentaries like In the Street, Blood of the Beasts, and Kenneth Anger's Scorpio Rising....Sui generis, Killer of Sheep is an urban pastoral-an episodic series of scenes that are sweet, sardonic, deeply sad, and very funny. It's a movie of enigmatic antics, odd juxtapositions, disorienting close-ups, and visual gags...[with] an improvised feel and a studied look-as if Burnett decided on his often unconventional camera angles and then set his mainly nonprofessional actors loose. Songs of innocence and experience collide...In retrospect, it can be seen that the two great independent features of the late '70s were Killer of Sheep and Eraserhead. As fresh and observational as it was 30 years ago, Killer of Sheep seems even more universal now."-J. Hoberman, VILLAGE VOICE.
Screeners available
Beta tape available from Bonne Smith at starpr@sympatico.ca
For photos go to: http://www.killerofsheep.com/publicity.html
For more information on the restoration of the film go to:
http://www.killerofsheep.com/about.html
For an extended bio on Charles Burnett go to:
http://www.killerofsheep.com/filmmaker.html
View Trailer: KILLER OF SHEEP |
