Charles Burnett (Director)

Charles Burnett (2008)

Charles Burnett (born April 13, 1944 in Vicksburg , Mississippi ) is an American film director , screenwriter , cameraman , film producer , actor and photographer .

His best-known films are Sheep Kill (1979), To My Brother's Wedding (1983), Angry Sleep (1990), On Honor and Conscience (1994) and Namibia - The Struggle for Freedom (2007). The latter won awards at the 2007 Kuala Lumpur International Film Festival . Angry Sleep won the National Society of Film Critics Best Screenplay Award in 1991 . In 2017 he was awarded the Oscar of Honor .

biography

Charles Burnett was born in Vicksburg on April 13, 1944, to a nurse and soldier. When Charles Burnett was three years old, the family moved to Watts . There the parents divorced. After that, he and his brother were raised by their grandmother.

After graduating from high school , Charles Burnett enrolled at Los Angeles City College , majoring in electronics . He broke off his studies and switched to UCLA . There he studied writing and language as main subjects from 1966, among others with Elyseo Taylor and Basil Wright , and graduated in 1971 with a bachelor's degree in fine arts . In 1977 he earned his Master of Fine Arts with the film Schafe Killing (original title: Killer of Sheep).

He is married to Gaye Shannon-Burnett and the couple have two sons.

Filmmaking

Killing sheep (Original title: Killer of Sheep)

The film is set in the 1970s in Los Angeles -Stadtteil Watts , in which Charles Burnett was growing up. The protagonist Stan, a sensitive dreamer and keen on righteousness, lives there with his family. To feed them, Stan works in a slaughterhouse and grazes sheep there. The longer he works there, the more he isolates himself from his family. His wife, who is also overworked, notices this, but cannot do anything about it.

reception

His thesis at UCLA Killing Sheep is now considered a milestone in Afro-American film .

The film was shown for the first time at the Berlinale 1981. In 2007 a version restored by Milestone Films was shown. On the occasion of this publication wrote in 2007 of The New York Times - film critic Dave Kehr

“But today“ Killer of Sheep ”is widely acknowledged as one of the most insightful and authentic dramas about African-American life on film, as well as one of the earliest examples of the politically aware black independent cinema that was taking shape in the 1970s . ”

- Dave Kehr

For the author Chuck Kleinhans , too , the neo-realistic film Killing Sheep is a milestone in Afro-American film because of its sensitive documentary qualities.

In 1990 the film was entered into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress along with 49 others . The unresolved music rights prevented the film from being distributed for thirty years .

To the wedding of my brother (Original title: My Brother's Wedding)

After showing Schafe Killing at the Berlinale in 1981, the Second German Television agreed to co-finance the next Charles Burnett film. It was broadcast on television in 1983 under the title My Brother's Wedding . Then the film "disappeared" from the public. After the film rights were sold, Charles Burnett produced an editing version that was cut from 113 to 88 minutes and premiered at the 2008 Berlinale.

More movies

The film The end of the night was on the documenta X demonstrated. Shortly before the end of documenta X, which ran from June 21 to September 28, 1997, Charles Burnett released the film Documenta X - The Films on September 27, 1997 .

Filmography

Charles Burnett directed 26 films by 2013 and is slated to direct two more projects. Charles Burnett wrote the script for 15 films . He took on the role of cameraman in eleven films and acted as an actor in three films.

Director

• Several Friends (short film, 1969)
• The Horse (short film, 1973)
• Killing Sheep (1979)
• For my brother's wedding (1983)
• Angry Sleep (1990)
• America Becoming (documentary, 1991)
• On Honor and Conscience (1994)
• When It Rains (short film, 1995)
• The End of the Night (1996) | The End of the Night (Movie made for TV, 1996)
• Documenta X - The Films (1997)
• The Wedding (Movie made for TV, 1998)
• Dr. Endesha Ida Mae Holland (short documentary film, 1998)
• Selma, Alabama (Movie made for TV, 1999)
• The Annihilation of Fish (1999)
• Olivia's Story (short film, 2000)
• Buck McHenry - Baseball is His Life (Movie made for TV, 2000)
• American Family (TV series, 2002)
• Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property (documentary, 2003)
• For Reel? (TV documentary, 2003)
• The Blues (TV series, 2003, episode: Warming by the Devil's Fire)
• Independent Lens (TV series, 2004, episode: Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property)
• Quiet As Kept (short film, 2007)
• Namibia - The Struggle for Freedom (2007)
• Relative Strangers (Movie made for TV, 2009)
• Mulatto Saga (short film, 2012)
• Juliette Fairley's Mulatto's Dilemma (short film, 2012)
• The Emir Abd El-Kader (pre-production, 2014)

script

• Several friends
• The Horse
• Kill sheep
• For my brother's wedding
• Bless Their Little Hearts (1984)
• Angry sleep
• America Becoming
• On honor and conscience
• When It Rains
• Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property
• For Reel?
• The Blues - Warming by the Devil's Fire
• Independent Lens - Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property
• Quiet as Kept (short film, 2008)
• Namibia - The struggle for freedom

camera operator

• Bush Mama (1979)
• Kill sheep
• Your Children Come Back to You (short, 1979)
• The Pocketbook (short film, 1980)
• A Different Image (1982)
• For my brother's wedding
• Bless their little hearts
• Crocodile Conspiracy (short film, 1986)
• Trumpetistically, Clora Bryant (Short Video, 1989)
• Guests of Hotel Astoria (1989)
• Quiet as Kept

actor

• Olivia's Story (Umpire)
• Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property (Lucinda)
• My Heart Turns Into a Grenade / But Aches for Sun (Electrician)

Awards

• 1981: Berlin International Film Festival Award for Killing Sheep
• 1988: MacArthur Fellowship for Sheep Killing
• 1990: Library of Congress listing sheep kill in the National Film Registry for its historical importance
• 1991: Award for the best screenplay for Angry Sleep
• 2002: National Society of Film Critics inclusion of Sheep Kill as one of the hundred most important films
• 2017: Honorary Oscar

literature

• Chuck Kleinhans : Fifty Contemporary Film Directors . Ed .: Yvonne Tasker . 2nd Edition. Routledge, London, New York 2011, ISBN 978-0-415-49766-4 , Charles Burnett, pp. 60-69 (English).

Web links

• Charles Burnett in theInternet Movie Database(English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ sheep killed in the Internet Movie Database (English)
2. ↑ On my brother's wedding in the Lexicon of International Films
3. ↑ Angry sleeping in the Internet Movie Database (English)
4. ↑ On Honor and Conscience in the Lexicon of International Films
5. ^ 1st Kuala Lumpur International Film Festival. (No longer available online.) In: Kuala Lumpur International Film Festival . Archived from the original on January 2, 2014 ; accessed on November 25, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
6. ↑ ^{a b} Past Awards. 1990. (No longer available online.) In: National Society of Film Critics Award . National Society of Film Critics , archived from the original on March 23, 2015 ; accessed on November 25, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
7. ^ ^{A b} The Academy to honor Charles Burnett, Owen Roizman, Donald Sutherland and Agnès Varda with Oscars at 2017 Govenors Award. In: Oscars.org. Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences , accessed September 7, 2017 . 
8. ^ ^{A b} Charles Burnett. In: answers.com . Answers Corporation , accessed November 25, 2013 . 
9. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Killer of Sheep (official site). The Writer / Director Charles Burnett. Milestone Films , 2007, accessed November 25, 2013 . 
10. ↑ Charles Burnett . In: The New York Times . (American English, HTML [accessed November 26, 2013]).
11. ↑ ^{a b c} Dave Kehr : Shadows of Watts, in the Light . In: The New York Times . March 25, 2007 (American English, HTML [accessed November 26, 2013]).
12. ↑ Kill sheep. (No longer available online.) In: Arte . ARTE GEIE , archived from the original on December 2, 2013 ; Retrieved November 27, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
13. ↑ ^{a b} Killer of Sheep. Berlinale , 2007, accessed on November 28, 2013 . 
14. ↑ Chuck Kleinhans : Fifty Contemporary Film Directors . Ed .: Yvonne Tasker . 2nd Edition. Routledge, London, New York 2011, ISBN 978-0-415-49766-4 , Charles Burnett, pp. 60-69 .
15. ↑ South Central is not only home to gangsters . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . tape 32 , February 7, 2008, p. B10 .
16. ↑ News & Program. (No longer available online.) Documenta , August 27, 1997, archived from the original on December 3, 2013 ; Retrieved November 25, 2013 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
17. ↑ Documenta X - The films in the Internet Movie Database (English)
18. ↑ Charles Burnett in the Internet Movie Database (English)