Killer Of Sheep

Charles Burnett - 1977
Ah, this is a real joy. We have long takes throughout pretty much, some onwderful long shots, where we see, in the blazing sunshine, kids playing, the dusty street. We can move in to, sometimes for extreme close-ups (this is when the takes can actually be very fast).
This film is deeply beautiful. I wouldn't call it precise, but there's a clear sense of pictoral compostion, especially in using sillouhette, both with the light and with light backgrounds for darker foregrounds. As well as some nice geometries, dividing up the screen. 'Poetic' is what I would call these images, just, having a look. The slaughterhouse images, amongst others, are also edited in a way which seems to roll nicely, in time with the music, with the movement.
We have here people at work, usually doing something. We have the slowburn as people try to live their lives. I'm not sure if the order is chronological, but it doesn't matter, we're really building up a picture. We get close this way; the engine falling off is quite a moment.
The sound mix is nice and complex, and the great soundtrack moves along scenes, chiming perfectly with the rythm of the movie.
What are we doing here? Just having a look. This is hard for a filmmaker to achieve; the people must somehow be interesting. They are, because, with some remarkable performances and an absence of melodrama, they go about their lives. And this also requires a distinct aesthetic sense, a kind of beauty and general atmosphere, that is created by the wonderful, wonderful, clear and at once relaxed images that Burnett comes to give us.