The Annihilation of Fish (Charles Burnett, 1999)

James Earl Jones in The Annihilation of Fish

Cast: James Earl Jones, Lynn Redgrave, Margot Kidder. Screenplay: Anthony C. Winkler. Cinematography: John L. Dempsey Jr., Rick Robinson. Production design: Nina Ruscio. Film editing: Nancy Richardson. Music: Laura Karpman. 

I was surprised that The Annihilation of Fish was written for the screen and not adapted from a play. Anthony C. Winkler's script is mostly talk, the action is largely confined to one setting, and it makes use of only three characters. James Earl Jones plays Fish, a man who believes he is being harassed by a demon; Lynn Redgrave is Poinsettia, who believes that her lover is Giacomo Puccini; and Margot Kidder is their landlady, Mrs. Mudroone, and God forbid if you ever spell her name without the final E. The plot, such as it is, comes from bringing the three together in Mrs. Muldroone's Los Angeles rooming house, where the two misfits, Fish and Poinsettia, fall in love (and into bed) while dealing with Fish's invisible demon, whom he literally wrestles and she finally kills, precipitating a crisis that threatens to end their affair. All three performers are wonderful, and some people find the film charming and funny, but I began to be more annoyed than intrigued by their eccentricities. 

To Sleep With Anger (Charles Burnett, 1990)

Paul Butler and Danny Glover in To Sleep With Anger

Cast: Danny Glover, Paul Butler, Mary Alice, Richard Brooks, Carl Lumbly, DeVaughn Nixon, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Vonetta McGee, Ethel Ayler, Reina King, Cory Curtis, Paula Bellamy, Wonderful Smith, Sy Richardson, Davis Roberts, John Hawker, Julius Harris. Screenplay: Charles Burnett. Cinematography: Walt Lloyd. Production design: Penny Barrett. Film editing: Nancy Richardson. Music: Stephen James Taylor. 

The conventional interpretation  of Charles Burnett's To Sleep With Anger is that the character of Harry, played by Danny Glover, is the devil. But remember Rilke's assertion that "every angel is terrible." The film begins with an image of endurance, a man being enveloped but not consumed by flames. It ends with an instance of persistence, an amateur trumpet player whose discordant notes segue into a triumphant harmony. Remember, too, that it's Harry who points out that however much the young trumpeter's practice may annoy the neighbors, if he continues with it he may become a real musician. Harry brings mischief and misfortune to the South Central LA family and their friends, but he leaves them wiser and more harmonious. He brings the refining fire, the resolution to discord. He stirs memories of the Southern past -- the discrimination and abuse, but also the pleasure-seeking and lawlessness -- that spurred the Black diaspora, but by reminding them of it he enables them to move on with their lives more assuredly. Burnett's morality tale is never so didactic: Its strength lies in its ambiguities. It falters occasionally in narrative ellipses and by being a bit overcrowded with characters, but it fully earns the praise it has gained over the years since its somewhat inept release and marketing. 

Killer of Sheep (Charles Burnett, 1978)

Kaycee Moore and Henry G. Sanders in Killer of Sheep

Cast: Henry G. Sanders, Kaycee Moore, Charles Bracy, Angela Burnett, Eugene Cherry, Jack Drummond, Delores Farley. Screenplay: Charles Burnett. Cinematography: Charles Burnett. Film editing: Charles Burnett. 

"Poetic" is not a word I like to use about movies, but it's the one that comes most to mind in thinking about Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep. Great poetry often comes from juxtaposition and irony, and Burnett's film is full of such things. For example, the scene in which Stan (Henry G. Sanders) and his friend return wearily from an ill-fated task, lugging a motor down some stairs and into a truck, only to have it tumble from the truck bed and crash into ruin. As they trudge home, children are leaping in perilous freedom from rooftop to rooftop over their heads. The image needs no exposition; it lingers in the mind for what it is, a scene pregnant with symbolic truth. Throughout the film, songs are played, sometimes diagetically, as in the dance of Stan and his wife (Kaycee Moore) to a phonograph record of "This Bitter Earth" by Dinah Washington pictured above, but also nondiagetically, throughout the film, with the words of the songs resonating both directly and ironically with the images. This is an almost documentary portrait of life in the Los Angeles ghetto of Watts, inspired by the Italian neorealists, with a mostly nonprofessional cast drawn from its residents. Its poetry comes from a personal vision, and producer-writer-director-editor Burnett's vision is a powerful and haunting one.