Charles Burnett's 1977 film,Killer of Sheep is one of the towering classics of African American cinema. As a deliberate counterpoint to popular blaxploitation films of the period, it combines harsh images of the banality of everyday oppression with scenes of lyrical beauty, and depictions of stark realism with flights of comic fancy.From Street to Screen: Charles Burnett'sKiller of Sheep is the first book-length collection dedicated to the film and designed to introduce viewers to this still relatively unknown masterpiece. Beginning life as Burnett's master's thesis project in 1973, and shot on a budget of $10,000,Killer of Sheep immediately became a cornerstone of the burgeoning movement in African American film that came to be known variously as the LA School or LA Rebellion. By bringing together a wide variety of material, this volume covers both the politics and aesthetics of the film as well as its deeper social and contextual histories. This expansive and incisive critical companion will serve equally as the perfect starting point and standard reference for all viewers, whether they are already familiar with the film or coming to it for the first time.

Michael T. Martin is Professor of Cinema and Media Studies in the Media School at Indiana University Bloomington. He is editor or coeditor of seven anthologies, and (with David C. Wall)The Politics and Poetics of Black Film:Nothing But a Man andRace and the Revolutionary Impulse inThe Spook Who Sat by the Door. He also directed and coproduced the award-winning feature documentary on NicaraguaIn the Absence of Peace, distributed by Third World Newsreel.

David C. Wall is Assistant Professor of Visual and Media Studies at Utah State University. He edited (with Michael T. Martin)The Politics and Poetics of Black Film:Nothing But a Man andRace and the Revolutionary Impulse inThe Spook Who Sat by the Door. Other recent work can be found inNineteenth-Century Studies andA Companion to the Historical Film.

Acknowledgements

Killer of Sheep: Charles Burnett and the Poetry of Oppression
David C. Wall and Michael T. Martin

PART ONE: SituatingKiller of Sheep: Time/Place/Circumstance
Cinema and Black Liberation (David E. James)
Struggles for theSign in the Black Atlantic: Los Angeles Collective of Black Filmmakers (Michael T. Martin)
Charles Burnett: A Reconsideration of Third Cinema (Amy Ongiri)
Charles BurnettConsummate Cineaste (Michael T. Martin)

PART TWO: Reading Killer of Sheep
Toward a Geo-Cinematic Hermeneutics: Representations of Los Angeles in Non-Industrial Cinema [Charles Burnett's]Killer of Sheep (David E. James)
An Aesthetic Appropriate to Conditions:Killer of Sheep, (Neo) Realism, and the Documentary
Impulse (Paula J. Massood)
Neo-Realism Meets the Blues in Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep (Keith Mehlinger)
Killer of Sheep (James Naremore)
Killer of Sheep (Jeffrey Skoller)
Nous revenons à nos moutons: Regarding Animals in Charles Burnett'sKiller of Sheep (Sarah O'Brien)

PART THREE
Screenplay
Biography and Filmography

Index