Every decade, the eminent film publication Sight & Sound does a massive poll of movie-makers and critics, from which they compile the “100 Greatest Films Ever Made.” The most recent list came out in 2022 (they happen every year that ends in “2”), and I went to work right away watching the films on the list which I had not hitherto seen.
I discovered some amazing movies (Sátántangó) as well as some unwatchable nonsense (Wanda), but two of those 100 films evaded my searches. One of those was Charles Burnett’s 1977 film about African-American life in Los Angeles, Killer of Sheep. (The other, which still remains out of reach, is Jean-Luc Godard’s Histoire(s) du Cinéma…but I tend to dislike Godard.)
The reasons Killer of Sheep has remained so scarce go beyond its extremely independent under-the-radar status. Apparently, the rights for the film’s impressive soundtrack (Paul Robeson and Dinah Washington have multiple outstanding moments) were very complicated. All together, these and other factors have kept the movie unavailable to the general public for decades.
Once again, The Criterion Collection comes to the rescue! They recently released a beautifully restored version on blu-ray and 4K, and I was thrilled to see that the library streaming service Hoopla just added it to their collection! So, after three years, I have now seen 99 of the purported 100 Best Movies.
It's hard to sum up a film like this--all melancholy poeticism and stark reality set to elegant sounds of culture and prosperity (Robeson’s voice drips sophistication)--or to pinpoint exactly what makes it so lovely. The director got pretty close, however, when he said of the film, "You don't necessarily win battles; you survive."
With herds of children always in the background like a silent Greek Chorus or a pack of dogs, wild yet free, the complex adults of Killer of Sheep move through their designated and stationary lives. The screen is continually cut by vertical lines that bring the insatiable frame into narrow and fixed fields. Perhaps the children can leap across and through these restricting lines, but their parents have been taught to neither question nor acknowledge the resulting enclosures and chutes of their lives.
Simple, deeply felt, naturalistic yet with a cast of nonprofessional actors who are always conscious of the camera and themselves, this is a film to be thankful for. And now you can watch it for yourself!
If you’re curious, I put it at #38 on my ranking of Sight & Sound’s picks.