An Aesthetic Appropriate to Conditions: Killer of Sheep, (Neo)Realism, and the Documentary Impulse

Massood, Paula J.

doi:10.1353/wan.2004.0004

Cited by 19 publications

References 7 publications

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Reclaiming the Black Family

Cutler¹

2011

The Wiley‐Blackwell History of American Film

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In the mid‐1970s, a loosely knit group of black graduate students at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) produced a body of films designed to challenge Hollywood cinema thematically and stylistically. Working individually and collectively, members of what Clyde Taylor labels the “L.A. Rebellion” 1 and some others call the “L.A. School” crafted an alternative cinema in the shadows of nearby Hollywood studios, often focusing on working‐class and poor blacks in the inner city. 2 Despite their differing concerns and approaches, these filmmakers shared an urgent desire to counter mainstream cinema's misconceptions and distortions and to adopt modes of expression uniquely suited to representing the rich diversity of black life. Chief among these student filmmakers were Charles Burnett ( Killer of Sheep , 1977), Larry Clark ( Passing Through , 1977), Ben Caldwell ( I and I: An African Allegory , 1977), Haile Gerima ( Bush Mama , 1979), and later Alile Sharon Larkin ( A Different Image , 1982), Julie Dash ( Illusions , 1983) 3 and Billy Woodberry ( Bless Their Little Hearts , 1984). In the decades that followed, many continued to produce provocative works, including Burnett's To Sleep with Anger (1990), Dash's Daughters of the Dust (1991), and Gerima's Sankofa (1993).

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