Kellie Lynn Bruce: “Killer of Sheep”

The film “Killer of Sheep” is a grim, yet beautiful look into the lives of a black low-income family and the daily decisions they make. The most striking element that stood out in the film to me was the director’s, Charles Burnett, uses of space between both the characters and the viewing audience. We the audience find ourselves playing multiply roles. We play an active participant in the kitchen as Stan goes into his monologue of how his life has changed, to playing a skeptic observer waiting for the mayhem of the long awaited car engine. This close relationship between the characters and audience is deliberate in bringing the audience into Stan’s reality. We are brought into his world by camera editing choices, framing choices, angles choices, and the decision when to uses a close up or wide shot. However, much of this close or personal relationship between us the audience and the actors would not have been so effective if Charles had not decided to film the personal, awkward, or intimate moments. We the audience find ourselves jumping around in different characters perspective. We are in Stan’s wife’s POV, when he and his friend are at the table playing dominoes, before being introduced to her as a character, and only through Stan’s reaction of seeing his wife there are we able to see whose POV we are in. Moreover after understanding and viewing Charles set up of the relationship between the audience and characters we can see his point that we are either active participants in this grim reality or just observers? After knowing or seeing the role we play what will our decision be? Will we continue like most characters just living and tolerating, will we just watch from afar, or will we make a change? Even if the change we make is small, it is still yet a change. “Killer of Sheep,” does an incredible job capturing and creating a meaningful story about ordinary people in a common yet, not so ordinary situation.