The episodic narrative revolves around the emotional pressures faced by a factory worker moments of humor and despair, mixed with evocative African American music, form a clear-eyed, compassionate portrait.Īlile Sharon Larkin's film looks at a mother, a child, a better life on the horizon, and a bond that cannot be broken. (Weathers) and the protection of her daughter and unborn child, Dorothy undergoes an ideological transformation from apathy to action.Ĭharles Burnett’s captivating vision of 1970s Watts reveals a vibrant community living in the dusty lots, cramped houses and concrete jungles of South Los Angeles. Motivated by the incarceration of her partner T.C. When a woman accepts a ride from two men at the corner of Western and Adams, the encounter quickly turns ugly, venturing into painful, surreal territory.Ĭharles Burnett employs a sparse lyricism in this haunting coming-of-age tale about an African American boy tending to a horse that is to be put down.īush Mama is Haile Gerima's powerfully moving look at the realities of inner city poverty and systemic disenfranchisement as experienced by Dorothy, a pregnant welfare recipient in Watts, played by the magnetic Barbara O. In Charles Burnett’s first student film, Several Friends, a group of eccentric and endearing young people converse in a variety of everyday settings.įilmmaker Thomas Penick explores race, gender and violence in this provocative, disturbing drama set on a hot, summer day in 1969. In 2011, the Museum of Modern Art showcased his work with a month-long retrospective.
#Martin scorsese presents the blues watch online series#
MacArthur (“genius grant”) Fellowship and shortly thereafter Burnett became the first African American recipient of the National Society of Film Critics’ best screenplay award, for To Sleep with Anger (1990).īurnett made the highly acclaimed “Nightjohn” in 1996 for the Disney Channel his subsequent television works include “Oprah Winfrey Presents: The Wedding” (1998), “Selma, Lord, Selma” (1999), an episode of the seven-part series “Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues” (2003) and “Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property” (2003), which was shown on the PBS series “Independent Lens.”īurnett has been awarded grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the J. In 1988, Burnett was awarded the prestigious John D. His thesis project, Killer of Sheep (1977), won accolades at film festivals and a critical devotion in 1990, it was among the first titles named to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry.Įuropean financing allowed Burnett to shoot his second feature, My Brother’s Wedding (1983), but a rushed debut prevented the filmmaker from completing his final cut until 2007.
Burnett studied creative writing at UCLA before entering the University’s graduate film program. Born in Vicksburg, Mississippi, his family soon moved to the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. Charles Burnett is a writer-director whose work has received extensive honors.