Ghostly Poetry

The nature of dreams is that the events or images depicted in dreams are rooted in reality; usually whatever occurs in dreams happened in some form or fashion in reality. If Stan’s life depicted in Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep is a collection of dream sequences then the portrayals of the people around him including his wife and his daughter are askew versions of themselves that reflect what Stan truly thinks about them. If Stan’s life is perceived as a real-life and not a collection of dream sequences then Killer of Sheep is about a man who makes his boring life bearable by choosing to avoid conflict and refuse the temptations that come his way. The temptations present in Stan’s life are always available to be consumed; it all depends on if Stan wants to consume the temptations.

If the images in Sheep are perceived as dream sequences than all the images are representations of Stan’s inner thoughts that speak truthfully in a sometimes abstract way. Stan’s wife is depicted in Sheep as a glamorous woman who wears long, fake eyelashes, shiny jet-black tresses, sparkling doe eyes and a megawatt smile that could light up a Christmas tree. She’s an embodiment of beauty that Stan may feel he doesn’t deserve. Stan’s wife could give Diana Ross a run for her money when it comes to glamour, so it’s no wonder he feels a bit intimidated by her beauty and joyful presence. Stan is a depressed man and when people are depressed, they don’t want to see someone always smiling and constantly trying to be positive. It only makes them more depressed. When Stan and his wife slow dance to Dinah Washington’s ‘This Bitter Earth,” and his wife cries in despair after Stan pulls away from her and walks away out of the scene, it is communicating that Stan is aware of what his distance is doing to his wife and how it is making her feel. The slow dancing is definitely something that Stan and his wife often did in happier times, as well as when Stan, his wife and daughter are sitting together side by side in the backseat of the car; these are all images that refer to better times, times that are seemingly lost. If the image of Stan’s wife throughout Sheep is a reflection of what he truly thinks about her then it means that he genuinely thinks she’s beautiful, but she is emotionally and sexually-deprived because of him.

When watching Sheep, one gets the sense that goodness and light is buried beneath all the foggy despair of life in Stan’s Watts neighborhood. Just as Dinah Washington’s lyrics state, “And if my life is like the dust that hides the glow of a rose/what good am I, heaven only knows,” Stan and the people that surround him are looking for something more. Stan’s life really is this dusty reel of images that roll without color or energy. Sheep is no doubt a lethargically-paced film, but it’s reflects what Stan really feels about his life. Race is not at the forefront of Sheep, but as black people, the characters feel forgotten by society and feel that they have something to offer, but there’s no one to listen to them or give them a chance. Most people regardless of race, whether poor or middle-class are forced to live life working 9 to 5 earning an average salary. In Cliff Thompson’s 1997 Cineaste article, “The Devil Beats His Wife,” he uses a quote from Burnett that shows how the themes in Burnett’s films are “universal.” “There’s something unique about different peoples and what they’ve experienced…the thing is to not reduce it, not trivialize it, but show what it is, and show its universality” (Thompson, 26). In The things that make an average life bearable are the love of family and friends and hobbies and interests, but Stan has reached such a level of depression that he can’t appreciate the little things in life. Many people live life as if they’re running out of time and that every year that goes by is another year closer to death. The lyrics from “Bitter Earth” reflect this philosophy on life. “Lord, this bitter Earth, yes can be so cold/today you are young, too soon you’re old.” The interspersing of children playing definitely shows how the carelessness of youth is very short-lived and adulthood brings the harsh reality of working to pay the bills and other problems. As people grow older, they become more complicated. Whether it’s holding down a job to pay the bills, sexual needs or dealing with the complexity of human relationships, being an adult requires so much more than it does being a child; that’s why so many people fear adulthood and age in general.

Sheep is a film without an immediate conflict, despite having potential conflicts within it. Conflict is usually required in a plot because dissonance is created when a plot unfolds and drives the film forward. Most dreams are static and Sheep stays true to the nature of dreams because it doesn’t move forward and just stays in the same place. There’s really no beginning, middle or end, but instead just dream sequences depicting life or imitations of life. In the Thompson’s Cineaste article, he compares and contrasts Burnett’s two films, Sheep and My Brother’s Wedding and mentions how the presence of conflict affects a film. “…it has something Sheep doesn’t have—an immediate conflict. When Pierce’s best friend is released from prison, Pierce is forced to choose, finally, between his upright family and his friend’s criminal ways” (Thompson, 25). In general, many films are about people living their uneventful lives when something unexpectedly pops into their lives and makes their lives interesting and usually causes some type of conflict. The conflict makes way for the plot, which will drive the rest of the film and steer the film to its conclusion or climax. Thompson writes that “Pierce is forced to choose…,” and Stan is not forced to choose anything in Sheep mainly because he chooses to not invite conflict.

It’s clear that Stan loves his family, but he’s lost in connection with them because he’s lost his sense of self. He’s not working towards anything in his life. His desire to be wealthier is evident when he says, “I’m not poor, I give away things to the Salvation Army. You can’t give away things to the Salvation Army if you’re poor.” When people want to be more than what they are or want to achieve something, they become restless. They end up just waiting for something to come along and they end up not appreciating each day of their life and living in the moment. Stan is waiting for something, even if it’s a conflict. There are already potential conflicts waiting to be grasped, but Stan is waiting for a conflict worth grasping that could lead him to a life of wealth.

Some critics have referred to Burnett’s films as elegies and that they are. Elegies are sorrowful poems and through the reliance of mostly facial expressions and wistful jazz music, Sheep is an elegiac poem that tears the heartstrings, but in a very subtle way. The fact that the film is in black-and-white shows that Stan’s world is drained of life and energy. The use of poetry in Sheep comes in literal form when Bracy starts rapping after Gene’s car gets a flat tire while Stan and company are on the way to the racetracks to make a bet on a horse. “Man, I’m out here singing the blues, got my money on a horse can’t lose, and you’re out here on a flat. I always told you to keep a spare, but you’s a square. That’s why you can’t keep no spare. Now how are we going to get there?” These rhyming couplets sum up the entire film. Bracy is communicating that every time something that could rescue everyone from their misery, there’s something thwarts it. Also, when Bracy raps “I’m out here singing the blues,” he’s referring to not only his lamenting, but of the blues music that serves as the soundtrack to Sheep and as the crying voices of the characters.

If the characters in Sheep are viewed as people that the audience can relate to and care about then there’s one question to be asked: what does the future hold for Stan and his family? It makes the audience wonder what could cure Stan’s depression. One could assume that serious cash flow would definitely make Stan feel better, but in the meantime, Stan’s depression will increase and possibly bear tragic fruit. Since Stan spends his day killing sheep, surrounded by lifeless sheep corpses and cleans up all the blood, it wouldn’t be unusual if Stan’s became quite morbid. There are elements of Sheep that are prime material for a macabre Stephen King tale. Decapitated sheep heads being squeezed along with the big lifeless black eyes of the sheep staring like the glass eyes of stuffed animals are prime examples of the gruesome present in Sheep. There ingredients are all there.

Whether the meaning of Killer of Sheep is understood by analyzing the film as a collection of dream sequences or by analyzing as if the images are depictions of real-life, the message of Sheep is conveyed. The message is of regular people going through life in a monotonous routine where they go up nor down, yet have a better chance of going down than up. After watching Sheep, it remains in the psyche as if seeing someone’s life drift past you like a ghost.