Some of the most powerful images in all of black cinema are to be found in a black and white movie Charles Burnett completed nearly 40 years ago: (1) Boys battling with rocks, concrete, and cardboard shields; (2) a girl with a dog mask on her head; (3) boys standing upside down with their legs against the wall of a house;
(4) a car engine falling out of the back of a âskoroskoroâ (a beat-up car); and, my favorite, (5) a young couple dancing to Dinah Washingtonâs âThis Bitter Earth.â
Killer of Sheep shows us the twilight of the black worker, the man who labored too hard and too long for the small cuts of bacon he brought home. To obtain an adequate understanding of the filmâwhich is about a sad man in a black Los Angeles neighborhood who kills sheep for a livingâyou must watch it much more than once, which is why we recommend it every time it screens in Seattle.
See Movie Times for more information about Killer of Sheep.