Charles Burnett‘s legacy is being restored — staring with the literal restoration with his most iconic film.
The acclaimed writer/director/producer/editor, who recently turned 90, has seen a lot — including his lost comedy “The Annihilation of Fish” earn a 4K restoration and theatrical release for the first time in the almost 30 years since its 1999 debut. And now, Burnett’s acclaimed feature “Killer of Sheep” is also landing a 4K re-release, plus a Criterion premiere.
“Killer of Sheep” was deemed one of the 50 greatest films of all time by the Sight and Sound critics’ poll in 2022. The 1977 indie was additionally among the first 50 films named to Library of Congress National Film Registry in 1990.
“Killer of Sheep” centers on Stan (Henry Gayle Sanders), a slaughterhouse worker who becomes disconnected from his wife, his children, and himself due to his grueling work.
The official synopsis reads: “Stan and his neighbors struggle just to get by, let alone get ahead. Only the kids, leaping from roof to roof, seem to achieve a mobility that eludes their elders. Burnett’s film focuses on everyday life in Black communities in a manner rarely seen in American cinema — combining lyrical elements with a starkly neorealist, documentary-style approach that combines deep nuance with riveting simplicity.”
Kaycee Moore, Carles Bracy, and Charles Burnett’s daughter Angela Burnett also star.
Charles Burnett shot the film in roughly a year of weekends on a budget less than $10,000. He was a UCLA graduate student at the time; “Killer of Sheep” helped usher in the L.A. Rebellion Black indie-filmmaking movement.
“Killer of Sheep” went on to receive the Critics’ Award at the Berlin International Film Festival in 1981.
Burnett said in a press statement that the origin for the feature was based on his own background.
“I come from a working class environment and I wanted to express what the realities were,” Burnett said. “People were trying to get jobs, and once they found jobs, they were fully concerned with keeping them. And they were confronted with other problems, with serious problems, at home, for example, which made things much more difficult.”
“Killer of Sheep” has been digitally restored to 4K and remastered by UCLA Film & Television Archive, Milestone Films, and the Criterion Collection. The restoration was supervised by Ross Lipman and Jillian Borders, in consultation with Burnett.
The 4K restoration also restores the original closing song for the film, Dinah Washington’s performance of “Unforgettable.”
An earlier photochemical restoration was funded by Ahmanson Foundation in association with Sundance Institute. The film was preserved from the original 16mm B&W negative A and B rolls, the original 35mm three-track master sound mix, and the original 16mm master mix. The UCLA Film & Television Archive gives special thanks to Charles Burnett, the Stanford Theatre Foundation Film Preservation Center, and YCM Laboratories.
“Killer of Sheep” premieres April 18 at the Film Forum. Check out the trailer below.
