Killer of Sheep: The Charles Burnett Collection

African-American director Charles Burnett's 1977 debut feature is certainly important from a historical perspective: shot on the fly in L.A.'s Watts ghetto, Killer of Sheep was one of the first independent films to present an uncompromising, authentic portrait of the black community in 1970s America, yet it did so using a stream-of-consciousness style that reflected the influence of European art cinema. Killer of Sheep also became one of the most famous semi-lost films of recent times: due to copyright issues involving the eclectic music score, the film largely disappeared from public view, circulating only in worn prints as a kind of suppressed underground classic. Selected by the Library of Congress for inclusion in the National Film Registry, Killer of Sheep—beautifully restored here by the UCLA Film & Television Archive—serves up an impressive mixture of gritty realism and moody lyricism in its portrayal of a sensitive husband and father working a brutal job at a slaughterhouse who struggles to achieve peace and security in a difficult environment. Although Burnett went on to do better work—including the criminally underrated To Sleep with Anger (1990)—Killer of Sheep remains a significant, emotionally resonant artifact of African-American cinema. In this truly bountiful double-disc set from Milestone Film & Video and New Yorker Video, Killer of Sheep is accompanied by Burnett's 1983 feature film My Brother's Wedding (in both its original 83-minute and restored 118-minute director's cut versions), and a trio of Burnett's short films (“Several Friends,” “The Horse,” and “When It Rains”). DVD extras on Killer of Sheep include an insightful commentary track by Burnett and film scholar Richard Peña, a cast reunion featurette, and liner notes by film critic Armond White. Highly recommended. (F. Swietek)