Long held as a classic of independent cinema, and one of the most difficult to actually watch, Charles Burnett's Killer Of Sheep chronicles a day in the life of a hopelessly frustrated slaughterhouse laborer, Stan (Henry G. Sanders), and his family. Stan spends his working day feeling as helpless and resigned as the animals he processes. He buys a car engine to resell, but it falls out of a friend’s pickup and is smashed. His wife (Kaycee Moore) tries to seduce him, but to no avail. The kids are mostly left on their own to pick through the debris in their working-class Watts neighborhood. It sounds like a complete downer, but Killer Of Sheep is one of those few, exhilarating movies that captures a life from every possible angle while creating a visual poetry all its own. The scene with Stan’s young daughter playing among the rubble in a Droopy Dog mask is one of the weirdest, most heartbreaking things you will ever see.

Burnett shot and edited the film on 16mm film for his MFA thesis; since it was never meant for commercial release, he included several pop and jazz tunes on the soundtrack, the rights to which have kept the film in legal limbo for the past three decades. Finally, though, Killer of Sheep is seeing a nationwide theatrical release (kudos to New York City’s Milestone Film and Video for restoring and blowing up the print to 35mm), with a DVD to come in the fall. We strongly recommend checking this out: if you still don’t believe us, know that this film was inducted into the National Film Registry in 1990, and is actually protected by the federal government. So it’s at least as good as Fast Times At Ridgemont High.

Killer Of Sheep
Monday, May 21st and Wednesday May 23rd
Alamo Drafthouse Downtown
7pm, $7 / $5.50 student, senior, AFS
[Tickets]