“I think a strong case can be made that Charles Burnett is the most gifted and important black filmmaker this country has ever had. . . . Given the difficulties he had in the 70s and 80s getting films made, [he] seemed in danger of becoming the Carl Dreyer of the black independent cinema - the consummate master who makes a film a decade, known only to a small band of film lovers.” - Jonathan Rosenbaum
Most assessments of Charles Burnett's career begin with a variation of the above refrain, by staunch Burnett champion and film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, and with each author stressing the galling travesty that a filmmaker of such evident talent should be seemingly destined to languish in obscurity. Burnett's work is often analyzed in relation to mainstream filmmaking practice, and deemed utterly incompatible with it, a prime factor, it is argued, in his continued relegation to the margins of American cinema.
It is difficult to disagree with either point, but it is also important to recognize this fundamental incompatibility as something to be applauded and preserved. Burnett's vision is, in essence, anathema to the dictates of commercial film, and perhaps selfishly, his admirers secretly hope it will remain so.
This is not to say that Burnett has not made varyingly successful forays into popular culture throughout the course of a near forty-year-long, maverick career whose accolades include a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant. His stilted attempt at genre filmmaking in the mid-Nineties, the racially themed police drama GLASS SHIELD, had the political underpinnings of Burnett but none of the formal verve that distinguishes his art. An earlier effort, TO SLEEP WITH ANGER, was rightly hailed by critics far and wide as an extraordinary piece of filmmaking - eliciting comparisons to the likes of Renoir and Ozu in the depth and nuance of its characters and details of its cultural milieu - but failed to find the mass audience it deserved, despite a towering performance by box office draw Danny Glover.
Recently, audiences had the opportunity to rediscover Burnett's seminal Seventies independent film, KILLER OF SHEEP, which was, astoundingly, his thesis film at UCLA,
|
 |
|