Charles Burnett finds humour and tenderness in a Watts family’s exhausting daily routine. The episodic storytelling and some hesitant acting take adjustment, but this is a deeply affecting film we would readily recommend.
Killer of Sheep is an unusually moving film about earning a living and having little energy left for the people at home. Charles Burnett gives Stan, a slaughterhouse worker in Watts, no grand adventure to make his life seem worth our attention. There is work, there are children, and there is a wife who wants something from the man beyond his continued presence. We recommend it warmly, with a warning that its loose collection of episodes requires some patience.
Henry G. Sanders makes Stan’s withdrawal difficult to dismiss as simple coldness. There is enough tiredness in the performance to make affection seem like another demand on someone who has already given what he has. Kaycee Moore, as his wife, keeps her own need for affection clear; the film never treats it as an unreasonable request. Neither performance forces a confrontation to tell us what is wrong, and their scenes can be uncomfortable precisely because so little is being said.
Burnett’s black-and-white photography gives the children’s play as much attention as the adults’ work. We have time to watch them as children rather than search each image for an illustration of poverty. The camera’s freedom suits that unruly activity, and the carefully arranged compositions never make the neighbourhood seem like a display laid on for our benefit. These passages are funny, too, which matters in a film where the adults often appear to have little strength left for amusement.
Burnett also edits, and his arrangement of the episodes takes some getting used to. The film moves among labour, domestic unease and children’s games without arranging them into a steadily mounting crisis. That can initially feel shapeless: an incident ends, another begins, and the expected consequences do not always arrive. Gradually, the repetition makes Stan’s exhaustion comprehensible, although a few passages linger after we have understood what they contribute.
We were more upset by the slow dance than we expected to be. Dinah Washington’s ‘This Bitter Earth’ accompanies the couple, and the closeness of the dance makes Stan’s emotional distance harder to bear. Burnett allows the music to express longing without making the couple explain themselves, trusting the song and their physical closeness. It is the clearest example of how carefully he uses recorded music: the feeling is strong, but nobody on screen has to announce it.
There is roughness in the acting, and it is worth admitting. Some supporting performances are hesitant in ways that briefly make us conscious of people performing rather than talking. Sanders and Moore keep the central relationship convincing, however, and Burnett gives us unusually little encouragement to choose a side between husband and wife. For a domestic drama about poverty, its willingness to let both people be tired, frustrated and deserving of affection feels particularly generous.
Do not mistake the lack of a driving plot for an invitation to drift away. Much of what matters here is in the time spent watching Stan and his wife, and distraction would make the film seem slighter than it is. The slaughterhouse scenes also make this a harder watch than the domestic setting might suggest. Set aside the 80 minutes, and watch with someone who will let a quiet scene stay quiet.
