Charles Burnett (director)

Many critics have compared the films of the Black Independent Movement to Italian neorealist films of the 1940s, Third World Cinema films of the late 1960s and 1970s, and the 1990s Iranian New Wave.

At the time the movement flourished, many countries in the Third World were involved in a struggle for revolution, inspiring them to create films expressing their own indigenous views of their history and culture.

In addition to staying true to history, many Black Independent Movement films have been considered a response to Hollywood and Blaxploitation films that were popular at the time.

Charles Burnett (born April 13, 1944) is an American film director, film producer, writer, editor, actor, photographer, and cinematographer.

Burnett was born on April 13, 1944, in Vicksburg, Mississippi, to a nurse's aide and a military father.

According to a DNA analysis, he is mainly descended from people from Sierra Leone.

In 1947, Charles's family moved to Watts, a largely black neighborhood in South Los Angeles.

Burnett was interested in expressing himself through art from a young age, but the economic pressure to maintain a stable job kept him from pursuing film or art in college.

Watts had a significant effect on Burnett's life and work.

The community, which gained notoriety in 1965 when violent riots in the area caused the deaths of 34 people and injured more than 1,000, again made the news in 1992 when protestors turned to looting and arson following the acquittal of police officers tried for the beating of Rodney King.

Burnett has said that the neighborhood had a strong Southern influence due to the large number of Southerners living in the area.

Watts strongly influences his movies' subject matter, which often revolves around southern folklore mixed with modern themes.

His film Killer of Sheep was set in Watts.

Burnett first enrolled at Los Angeles City College to study electronics in preparation for a career as an electrician.

Dissatisfied, he took a writing class and decided that his earlier artistic ambitions needed to be explored and tested.

He went on to earn a BA in writing and languages at the University of California, Los Angeles.

In an interview for Cahiers du Cinéma, Burnett speculated that "a serious speech impediment" may have led him to become a filmmaker: "I always felt like an outside--an observer--who wasn't able to participate because I couldn't speak very well. So this inability to communicate must have led me...to find some other means to express myself...I really liked a lot of the kids I grew up with. I felt an obligation to write something about them, to explain what went wrong with them. I think that's the reason I started to make these movies."

Burnett continued his education at the UCLA film school, earning a Master of Fine Arts degree in theater arts and film.

His experiences at UCLA had a profound influence on his work, and the students and faculty he worked with became his mentors and friends.

Some fellow students include filmmaking greats like Larry Clark, Julie Dash, Haile Gerima, and Billy Woodberry.

The turbulent social events of 1967 and 1968 were vital in establishing the UCLA filmmaking movement known as the "Black Independent Movement”, in which Burnett was highly involved. The films of this group of African and African American filmmakers had strong relevance to the politics and culture of the 1960s, yet stayed true to the history of their people. Their characters shifted from the middle class to the working class to highlight the tension caused by class conflict within African American families. The independent writers and directors strayed away from the mainstream and won critical approval for remaining faithful to African American history. Another accomplishment of the Black Independent Movement and Burnett was the creation of the Third World Film Club. The club joined with other organizations in a successful campaign to break the American boycott banning all forms of cultural exchange with Cuba.

Burnett's earliest works include his UCLA student films made with friends, Several Friends (1969) and The Horse (1973), in which he was the director, producer, and editor.

Burnett's first full-length feature film, Killer of Sheep, was his UCLA master's thesis.

His most popular films include Killer of Sheep (1978), My Brother's Wedding (1983), To Sleep with Anger (1990), The Glass Shield (1994), and Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation (2007).

He has been involved in other types of motion pictures including shorts, documentaries, and a TV series.

Called "one of America's very best filmmakers" by the Chicago Tribune and "the nation's least-known great filmmaker and most gifted black director" by The New York Times, Burnett has had a long, diverse career.

It took Burnett five years to finish, apparently due to the imprisonment of one of the film's actors, and was released to the public in 1978.

The cast consisted mainly of his friends and film colleagues and it was filmed primarily with a handheld camera, seemingly in documentary style.

The main character was played by Henry G. Sanders, a Vietnam veteran who had studied cinema at Los Angeles City College and was enrolled in several classes at UCLA.

Sanders went on to a career in films and TV, including roles in Rocky Balboa, ER, Miami Vice, and The West Wing.

The lead female character in Killer of Sheep was played by Kaycee Moore, who went on to act in former UCLA classmate Julie Dash's film Daughters of the Dust.

The story follows the protagonist Stan, a slaughterhouse worker, who struggles to make enough money to support his family.

According to the film's website, the movie “offers no solutions; it merely presents life”.

Killer of Sheep revolves around rituals, in the family, childhood, oppression, and resistance to oppression.

The soundtrack of ballads, jazz, and blues includes artists Faye Adams, Dinah Washington, Gershwin, Rachmaninov, Paul Robeson, and Earth Wind & Fire.

The film was only screened occasionally because of its poor 16mm print quality and failed to find widespread distribution due to the cost and complexity of securing music rights.

It was restored by the UCLA Film & Television archive in a new 35mm print of much higher quality.

The students' involvement in each other's films is highlighted by Burnett's work as a cinematographer for Haile Gerima's 1979 movie Bush Mama, as a crew member for Julie Dash's 1982 Illusions, and as a writer and cameraman for Billy Woodberry's Bless Their Little Hearts.

His professors Elyseo Taylor, who created the department of Ethno-Communications, and Basil Wright, a British documentarian, also had a significant influence on his work.

The re-released film won an array of awards including the critics' award at the Berlin International Film Festival, first place at the Sundance Film Festival in the 1980s, then called the USA Film Festival, and a Special Critics' Award from the 2007 New York Film Critics Circle.