8.01.2004

Filmmaker Charles Burnett

       Filmmaker Charles Burnett will visit the University of Georgia Campus as a CHA Visiting Artist from August 30 - September 2, 2004.

Charles Burnett's visit is sponsored by the Center for Humanities and Arts, Department of Drama and Theatre, Office of Institutional Diversity, African-American Cultural Center, George Foster Peabody Awards, and the Walter J. Brown Media Archives & Peabody Awards Collection at the UGA Libraries.

source:http://www.indiana.edu/~bfca/sponsors/burnett.html

Charles Burnett events at UGA
(descriptions of films to be screened follow the calendar)

Monday, August 30 7:00 p.m.
Room 150,Student Learning Center
Film screening:
"Killer of Sheep"

Tuesday, August 31 4:00 p.m.
Room 171, Student Learning Center
CHA Lecture (reception to follow)

Tuesday, August 31 7:00 p.m.
Room 171, Student Learning Center
Film screening:
"To Sleep with Anger"

Wednesday, September 1 12:00 noon
Adinkra Hall (407 Memorial Hall)
Lecture

Wednesday, September 1 7:00 p.m.
Rotunda, Brumby Hall
Peabody Collection screening:
"Nightjohn"

Thursday, September 2 7:00 p.m.
Room 150, Student Learning Center
Film screening:
"The Glass Shield"

Screening Highlights
Killer of Sheep(1977)
This story of a black slaughterhouse worker's struggle to survive despite crushing economic and social pressures was Burnett's thesis film. It stars Henry Gayle Sanders as Stan and features Kaycee Moore, Charles Bracy, Angela Burnett, Eugene Cherry, and Jack Drummond. The Killer of Sheep's rejection of stereotype rbains as rbarkable today as it was at the time of the film's release.

To Sleep with Anger (1990)
"Danny Glover stars as Harry Mention, a mysterious and magnetic visitor from the Deep South who comes to stay with an old friend, named Gideon (Paul Butler), in South-Central Los Angeles. Harry's effect on Gideon and his assimilated black middle-class family is both immediate and profound. He spins tales full of folklore, lucky charms and bad magic that seb exotic and ominous to these urban up-and-comers who have lost touch with the rural tradition."* The film also stars Paul Butler, Mary Alice, Carl Lumbly, Vonetta McGee, Richard Brooks, and Sheryl Lee Ralph. It won a special jury prize at Sundance and an Independent Spirit Award.
(*Description from Facets multimedia.)

Nightjohn (1996)
Set in the ante-bellum south, Nightjohn tells the story of a young slave girl, Sarny, and her undeterred conviction to learn how to read and write. Sarny is taught by another slave, Nightjohn, at great risk to both of thb, during a time in history when it was against custom for a slave to have these skills. This compelling drama, which was Burnett's first feature film for television, is both an entertaining story and a moving statbent of the power of freedom. It stars Beau Bridges, Carl Lumbly, Lorraine Toussaint, Bill Cobbs, Kathleen York, Gabriel Casseus, Tom Nowicki, Joel Thomas Traywick; and Allison Jones (as Sarny).

The Glass Shield (1994)

"Based on a true story, this highly charged look at corruption in the Los Angeles Police Department focuses on a rookie cop (Michael Boatman) trying to do his job and find acceptance within a racist systb. A murder case involving a black suspect (Ice Cube) brings things to a boiling point. 'Never relinquishing his poetic and highly intelligent sense of character or his inventive mise en scene, Burnett refuses to reduce his drama to the ritualized and oversimplified formats of the standard police procedural thriller' (Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader). With Lori Petty and Elliott Gould." (*Description from Facets multimedia.)




The Life of Charles Burnett: Turning trouble into treasure

image source: http://citypaper.net/articles/2003-09-25/movies.shtml

A college student in 1960s Los Angeles has car trouble and has to ride the bus to school for a while, and in the course of doing so meets a younger boy who works in a slaughterhouse. The student is Charles Burnett, and the slaughterhouse worker's story would became the basis for his first feature film, The Killer of Sheep (1977). The film, later called a "national treasure" by the Library of Congress, was among the first fifty films to be placed on the National Film Registry. Burnett thus has some things in common with the characters who people his films, folks who do their best to find good in difficult circumstances.

Charles Burnett was born in 1944 in Vicksburg, Mississippi. His family moved to the Watts area of Los Angeles when he was still quite young, but many of their California neighbors had similar roots and the community was "Southern in culture." He entered UCLA's film department in 1967. Although he was one of the first people of color in the program, he was soon joined by others from diverse backgrounds. These students were creative, energetic, and supportive of one another, and this dynamic environment helped nurture a master. Burnett was awarded a MacArthur Foundation Award (commonly known as the "genius grant") in 1988.

Burnett followed The Killer of Sheep with, among other works, To Sleep with Anger (1990), The Glass Shield (1994), Nightjohn (1996), and the "Warming by the Devil's Fire" episode of Martin Scorsese's The Blues (2003).

Charles Burnett Filmography (as director unless noted) Titles in bold are available in the University of Georgia Libraries Media Department

2003 Warming by the Devil's Fire (The Blues) 2003212 DCT

2003 For Reel?

2003 Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property

2002 American Family 2002119 ENT

2000 Finding Buck McHenry 2000026 CYT

2000 Olivia's Story

1999 The Annihilation of Fish

1999 Selma, Lord, Selma 99162 ENT

1998 Dr. Endesha Ida Mae Holland

1998 The Wedding 98004 ENT

1996 Nightjohn 96068 CYT

1995 When it Rains

1994 The Glass Shield

1991 America Becoming 91069 DCT

1990 To Sleep With Anger

1983 Illusions* as editor VHS 2684.1

1983 My Brother's Wedding

1977 The Killer of Sheep VHS 2692.1

1973 The Horse

1969 Several Friends

1999 Selma, Lord, Selma

source: http://dep.disney.go.com/educational/store/

2003 Warming by the Devil's Fire

source:http://www.cbo-boxoffice.com/

1977 The Killer of Sheep VHS 2692.1

source: http://www.cinema.ucla.edu/

1990 To Sleep With Anger

source: http://www.ybca.org/

1994 The Glass Shield

source: http://www.bampfa.berkeley.edu/

1996 Nightjohn

source: http://www.companysj.com/

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