January 18, 2008

 

Director Charles Burnett will appear for a Q&A at a screening of his seldom-seen 1977 film, Killer of Sheep, at the Michigan Theater on Monday, January 28 at 7 pm. His appearance and the screening are sponsored by the University of Michigan Black Humanities Collective.

The film is a landmark of American independent and African-American films. Since its initial release, the Library of Congress has declared it a national treasure as one of the first 50 on the National Film Registry. The National Society of Film Critics selected it as one of the "100 Essential Films" of all time. Difficulties in securing music rights for the soundtrack kept the film from being seen for many years.

Burnett shot the film on weekends on a $10,000 budget while a student at UCLA. It has been shown only at film festivals and the like since then. It depicts life in 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.

"Killer of Sheep is a wonder any number of ways, from how it was originally made to its reappearance now in handsomely restored form to its getting its first-ever theatrical release a full 30 years after it was completed.

… One of the strengths of Killer of Sheep, one of the reasons it has not dated, is that the naturalness and simplicity with which it unfolds give it the texture of a story told from the inside." – Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times

For this showing only, admission is $5, available at the door only. Please visit the Michigan Theater web site for more information and a complete schedule with show times: http://michtheater.org