The film begins with a lullaby being recited to the audience, and
right away Charles Burnett has us enter a world and terrain that we are not accustomed to. Or have we been there before, but simply blocked it from our memory? Killer of Sheep has the audience enter a terrain of listless unawareness, where the audience is as unsure of where they stand as the characters in the film are. Watching the film is a frustrating experience.
Why is there no plot? Where’s the tempo and rhythm in the movie? Burnett does not give the audience that satisfaction. Instead, he wants us to experience what the characters in the film are experiencing, which is a lack of a context for existence. They, like us in life, are simply too distracted (or tired) to really study their own lives. Life is not like a movie; it usually is much less exciting and lacks dramatic context.
Burnett’s film is interested in the root of malaise. As a filmmaker, he questions where this phenomenon stems from. The first scene shows the moment where malaise and dispiritedness enters a young boy’s life. The boy is being berated by his father. The father thinks he’s giving his son sound advice about life, when really he’s just making his son more like him. He says to his son that he’s got no sense. The irony of this moment upon second viewing is that none of the grown-ups in this film make any sense. They’re just like the kids in Killer of Sheep, except they lack the energy that the children have. As soon as the child is slapped by his mother, he realizes that life is not a comforting existence. The audience can see this change of state in the child’s expression; he resembles in great detail the main character of the film by the name of Stan (Henry Gale Sanders). As soon as the film begins, it’s immediately apparent that this film has a revolving pattern, where characters resemble other characters, and actual moments and comments are repeated verbatim as if life were forever revolving and not changing in anyway. We all experience this; we just don’t care to admit it. (That’s why the shot of Stan and his wife (Kaycee Moore) dancing to that sad tune is so potent; it’s a representation of what we’ve been watching; these characters are simply going through the motions in an ever revolving pattern of non-intimacy.)
The film is comprised of very static shots. These shots are what make the movie frustrating to sit through because an audience is generally accustomed to quicker forms of editing in movies. Burnett feels that most films are mere escapism; that they are sensationalistic experiences that don’t really reflect how life actually is (like Black exploitation films that were coming out around this time.)
Even though it may not be particularly “enjoyable” to see characters who are basically just going through the motions, its important for audiences to see that other people are going through what they go through. (I’d be interested in seeing an upper class audiences reactions to the film.) It’s also important that middle and lower class people not delude themselves about how happy they are, simply for the fact that they may never want to attain greater financial goals. Stan doesn’t realize that there are better outcomes out there. All he has to do is try to attain a better job, but he doesn’t realize that there are better options out there in life. He lives in neighborhood content in their being, or at least it appears that way. Maybe everyone in that suburban area are going through what he’s going through but are simply better at hiding their emotions. We don’t see what their life is like behind doors. At one point, he tells his friend that he’s not poor, and the indication of that is that he gives to the Salvation Army. He a’int poor but he a’int rich either, and Burnett’s comment on this middle class state of being is that it’s a limbo state emotionally. You’re neither here nor there; you’re simply going through the motions. The importance of the film is that it acts as a mirror for the middle class audiences watching the film; its an indication of the trajectory that they have in life, in hope that they will try to attain a greater financial position.
Burnett’s study of just how this sort of malaise sets in stems mainly from the intercutting in the film. The film constantly intercuts between the children and the adults in the neighborhood. The children are always idle and playing games to relieve their boredom. Yet, there’s not that much of a difference between them and the adults in the film. The adults are merely getting paid to be idle—it’s idleness as occupation. (When the children play their games, the sound design implemented is not as harsh and metallic as when the adults work at their jobs. The hammering away that some of these adults do is a very disquieting sound; almost as if they were hammering away at their lives. Stan doesn’t realize this predicament that he’s in, because he feels there’s nothing better in life. He doesn’t realize that that’s the reason for why he can’t sleep. Maybe if he saw a similar film like Killer of Sheep (or Killer of the Spirit) he would change the trajectory in his life instead of merely counting sheep. Stan lives a deceptively safe life, free of any dramatic conflict. Yet, that’s the problem; it’s a waking-sleep inducing existence. One’s not aware that they are killing their own spirit, and that’s because their environment is so quiet and comforting. One’s not aware that they are completely emotionally detached from even their loved ones because they are half awake. This is represented by the shots of Stan at his job. When’s he’s shoving the sheep around, he’s not aware that those sheep are a representation of his own existence. Clifford Thompson writes about this when he states that, “The sheep in the slaughterhouse, of course, have no clue about who is responsible for their condition and little perspective on the condition itself. They’re just in it. The same is true of Stan’s peers, who give no thought to the forces dictating the way they live—only to the occasional, doomed efforts to change it” (Thompson, 32-33). Stan is basically the hunter of his own demise, and he doesn’t realize this because he’s not used to contextualizing his life and environment in anyway (just as we’re not used to a movie that doesn’t contextualize.) Like I stated before, the film is a mirror on our own state of existence. It’s showing us that we are not aware of the hole that we are digging for ourselves, because we always use escapism to comfort ourselves and make us forget. No wonder it’s such an unpleasant experience; who would want to see themselves on the screen? The men who approach Stan, and try to get him to work with them in an illicit operation, are living out their own fantasies. Stan’s not like them. He’s in the limbo state of being middle class. He’s aware and yet not aware. He’s basically living a dream like existence like a child. Burnett’s comment on this is that that state of being never ends; it merely becomes more dispirited. The problem has to do with escapism; these characters are not completely conscious that they delude themselves like children do. Children do not lack intimacy and this is apparent when Stan’s child comforts him. Yet Stan’s wife is crying at this moment because she can never be intimate with him. If one continues acting like a child as an adult, they begin to lose their intimate hold on life. An image that has that metaphor implicit in it is when the children are on the roof while the adults are situated below them, grounded in their own “reality”. Even though the emotional states are different between the two groups, they both are living out a fantasy.
The only intimate emotion that Stan experiences is his obsession with his unhappy state of existence. He tells everyone that he can’t get any sleep, and this relating of existence is his only connection with people. (It actually ironically enough makes people not want anything to do with him.) This obsession is a fantasy that makes Stan unaware of the fact that he’s leaving behind his connection to life or the life-force, just like he leaves behind that car engine. Stan’s literally not getting that car started is a metaphor for how he’s completely non-aware of the reason for why he’s impotent both physically and emotionally.
A major moment of awareness in the film is when one of Stan’s daughters stares at her parents not being able to connect in anyway. The expression on her face indicates that she’s aware of the hopelessness of her situation-of her future. Escapism simply leads to a lack of awareness of that bitter pill of reality; yet, it’s important to experience those moments because the realization of where you are in life makes you realize what you can do to amend that problem.
Works Cited
1. Thompson, Clifford. Good Moments in a Tough World-The Films of Charles Burnett. Cineaste, Vol. XXXIII, No.2, 2008.
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