Charles Burnett

press release: One of America’s most important independent filmmakers, Charles Burnett (Killer of Sheep) has made a wide range of films across different forms, genres and industries that look closely at questions of gender, class and race in the United States. Born in 1944, after having moved from the South, Burnett grew up in the California neighborhood of Watts and would later learn filmmaking at UCLA. He was influenced by filmmakers such as Jean Renoir, Satyajit Ray, and Federico Fellini.

He was part of a movement of largely black filmmakers who distanced themselves from the “Blaxploitation” films of the period and would make a large variety of complex, collaborative, projects. Other filmmakers included Julie Dash (Daughters of the Dust), Haile Gerima (Sankofa), Jamaa Fanaka (Penitentiary), and Billy Woodbury (Bless Their Little Hearts). The latter film Burnett wrote and shot. This movement would later be called the “LA Rebellion” by NYU’s Clyde Taylor.

From 1978 on Burnett would make independent titles like Killer of Sheep (1978), a portrait of a poor family in Watts; Hollywood films like, To Sleep With Anger (1990), the story of a trickster figure (Danny Glover) upsetting the life of a family in LA and The Glass Shield (1994), an unforgettable police procedural about police corruption featuring Lori Petty and Ice Cube; TV films like Selma Lord, Selma (1999), Disney’s telling of the march on Selma; and documentaries like Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property (2003) which look at different versions of the Nat Turner story throughout history (including the documentary itself!).

To Sleep With Anger would win Independent Spirit Awards for actor and screenplay, and Killer of Sheep would go on to be inducted into the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry. Burnett would receive a MacArthur’s genius grant and be granted the Paul Robeson Award for achievement in cinema. His work as inspired major authors and filmmakers like Barry Jenkins, Sherman Alexie, David Gordon Green, and Ava DuVernay.

Of his work Time has said “If Spike Lee’s films are the equivalent of rap music — urgent, explosive, profane, then Burnett’s movie is good, old urban blues”. Speaking of Killer of Sheep bell hooks as said “I thought it was awesome - that your capacity as a filmmaker to give us images that depict the complex emotional universe within a class of people, the black working class and poor”.

Please join WUD Distinguished Lecture Series for An Evening with Charles Burnett on Thursday, September 21st. The doors to Shannon Hall will open at 7:00pm. The one hour lecture is to begin at 7:30pm, followed by a 30-minute Q&A. Beginning at 9:00pm, there will be a reception in the Sunset Lounge (across from the entrance to Shannon Hall). Sign language interpreters will be provided. If you need another accomodation to attend this event, please contact Megan Spletzer at spletzer@wisc.edu. All accomodation requests should be made no less than two weeks before the event. We will attempt to fulfill requests made after this date but cannot guarantee they will be met. 

Additionally, on Friday, September 22nd, Charles will be speaking before UW Cinematheque's free showing of his filmTo Sleep with Anger, beginning at 7:00pm in 4070 Vilas Hall. 

The doors to Memorial Union's Shannon Hall will open at 7:00 PM. Lecture is open, unticketed, and FREE to both students and the public, and will end with a 30 minute Q&A.