Director · Cinematographer · Screenwriter · Producer · Editor · 1944

Charles Burnett

2: briefs
13:00: average
26 min: in total

On film.briefs2

Killer of Sheep

Charles Burnett · 1977

Shot on weekends in Watts between 1972 and 1975, Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep is a black-and-white drama built from vignettes rather than plot. Starring Henry G. Sanders as Stan, a slaughterhouse worker, it observes domestic routines, childhood play, and quiet exchanges with documentary restraint. Made for under $10,000, it avoids exposition, professional actors, and musical scoring beyond its licensed soundtrack — relying instead on composition, silence, and duration. Restored and re-released in 2007, it was added to the National Film Registry in 1990 for its cultural and aesthetic significance.

13:00

To Sleep with Anger

Charles Burnett · 1990

Charles Burnett’s 1990 film follows a South Central Los Angeles family unsettled by the arrival of Harry, a charismatic old friend from the South. As Harry’s enigmatic presence triggers marital strain, paternal illness, and fraternal conflict, the film unfolds with deliberate slowness, anchoring its folkloric tensions in domestic detail rather than exposition. Shot by Walt Lloyd and scored by Stephen James Taylor, it sustains a mood of quiet unease, where meaning accrues through gesture, setting, and withheld information — not plot mechanics.