Killer of Sheep (1977) is one of those movies all the film nerds say is terrific, and I’m sort of a film nerd but I’d never seen it. It’s playing all week at the Uptown here in Seattle, so I went to the Monday discount show — all seats, all shows, $6. Any other day of the week it’s $18, or $15 for a matinee, substantially more than a ticket at any of the theaters I usually go to.
The movie was written and directed by Charles Burnett, and reading his IMDB page I’m pretty sure I’ve seen To Sleep with Anger, but it’s been 35 years and all the specifics have been forgotten. Saw and loved Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property, when it aired on PBS, but Relative Stranger was literally a Hallmark movie, and didn’t much impress me. Then again, I saw it in a hospital room, with nurses coming in and out and machinery beeping, which is not the primo cinema experience.
Neither was Killer of Sheep, but that’s the theater’s fault, not the movie’s. The movie’s the masterpiece film nerds say, completely.
Stan is a black man who’s blue. He doesn’t like his job at a slaughterhouse, and his life in Watts, an iffy poor neighborhood in Los Angeles, but he bristles when someone describes him as poor. Says something like, “No, man, I give stuff to the Salvation Army. You can’t be poor if you’re giving stuff there, not buying stuff there.”
The job is mostly what triggers his depression, but he’s sick of the shit that comes from living where he lives, too. Not lots of hope in Watts. We see car trouble and people trouble and an invitation to crime, and Stan’s frustration when his son, maybe 8 or 10 years old, doesn’t stick up for his brother in a fight.
He’s not overtly mean to his wife, but he’s disinterested, probably impotent. That’s the only explanation, as he nixes every opportunity to be close with her.
The movie also follows Stan’s kids, and the neighborhood kids, as they do what kids anywhere do — ride bikes, throw dirt bombs, run and jump and tussle and insult each other.
There’s no storyline, and damned near nothing happens in the movie. If not for actors’ names in the credits at the end, you’d believe this was a documentary. It’s that authentic, and the effect is like poetry, in the best sense — words and images that drip and mist, and leave you inside someone else’s heart and life.
Never been black but I’ve been poor, and Killer of Sheep nails poor better than any film I can think of. Stan’s life is bleak and black and white, and when the movie’s over you know it goes on, and ain’t going to change.
The Uptown booked a very recent restoration, with the (originally unauthorized) soundtrack of Dinah Washington, Earth Wind & Fire, Louis Armstrong, etc, now paid for and restored. The music is great and the visuals are perfect, with blemishes on the actors’ faces but never on the print itself. They did a shitty job, though, restoring the non-musical soundtrack — incidental sounds that should be in the background, like a squeaky hinge or someone plopping something onto a table, come across like thunderclaps.
Other than that, holy heck it’s excellent, highly recommended by this film nerd.
Can’t say the same for the Uptown Cinema, or as it’s now called, the SIFF Uptown. SIFF stands for Seattle International Film Festival, an annual event I attended and enjoyed every year when I lived in Seattle up to the 1990s. During my 30 years out of town, SIFF also became a chain of local art-house theaters. This was my first time seeing a flick in a SIFF-branded house, and it was blah.
The Uptown is an old place, three screens, and it used to be warm and inviting. Now the interior has been blandified to look and feel like any multiplex anywhere. Same carpet, LED lights, plain walls and numbered auditoriums as at the AMC 16. No soul.
There was not a word and not a smile during the two minutes it took to ring up my one ticket. My intent was to buy popcorn, but both workers at the concession stand were talking about Judy’s new tattoo, and I didn’t want to interrupt them. Asking a worker which way to my movie, she only pointed, didn’t speak.
When I found my auditorium, the slideshow of ads was already underway. Unlike most theaters, the ads weren’t for new cars and Coca-Cola, and thankfully they were only slides, not 99-decibel TV commercials. But the ads were mostly promos for the upcoming Film Festival, each film given a wordy description that could only be half-read in the 5½ seconds allotted before the next slide.
This slideshow lasted at least 15 minutes, a new slide every 5½ seconds, and included at least twenty pleadings for donations. SIFF is a non-profit, and non-profits gotta beg, so won’t you please give generously to save the magical experience of seeing films in theaters?
Well, no, because for me, part of the magic is not seeing ads in a movie theater. Ads, ads, more ads, and when I thought and hoped the ads were over, the next slide said, “Now, it’s time to thank our sponsors.”
Most frustrating, it was 55° on the street, and also 55° in theater #3. I wrapped myself around myself, zipped my jacket all the way, wore my outside skullcap, and topped it with my rain bonnet, hoping it might add a degree to my body warmth. The chill was a constant distraction from the movie.
If ever I return to the SIFF Uptown, it’ll definitely and only be on a $6 Monday, and a blanket will be packed in my backpack.
4/24/2025
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