The Wedding (1998)

Based on Dorothy West’s novel of the same title, The Wedding is an expensively mounted, three-hour television film produced by Oprah Winfrey and directed by Burnett, with a large cast and a broad historical sweep. It centers on a wealthy enclave of blacks on Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts, where the youngest daughter of a prominent family is about to be married to a white jazz musician from New York. Neither of the two families approves of the match, and the plans for the elaborate wedding lead to a variety of dramatic conflicts. The film flashes back to the Reconstruction era, revealing the family trees of black “strivers” who have sacrificed love to become successful and are biased against anyone not of their class.

Warming by the Devil’s Fire (2003)

Warming by the Devil’s Fire is one in a series of films on blues music produced for television by Martin Scorsese. Burnett’s episode is by far the best of the series, in part because it shows the culture of poverty and brutal labor out of which the blues were created. The film contains powerful archival footage of southern black musicians and the world in which they grew up. Interwoven with this material is a fictional but highly autobiographical story about a boy from Los Angeles whose grandmother sends him to visit relatives in Vicksburg, Mississippi. She hopes he will learn about old-time religion, but he falls into the hands of a ne’er-do-well uncle who is a passionate blues historian.

Nat Turner: A Troublesome Property (2003)

Very little is known about Nat Turner, the leader of the most famous slave revolt in American history. As Burnett’s experimental film shows, however, Turner was, in life, the property of slave owners, and after death, he became the property of various interpreters of his actions. Many whites have viewed him as an insane monster, and many blacks have regarded him as a revolutionary hero. He is the subject of oratory, literature, drama, film, and scores of historical writings. Burnett’s film seizes on these many representations and shows what they reveal about American history and society. It consists of interviews with a wide range of blacks and whites, plus a series of dramatic scenes based on writings about Turner, in which six different actors play him. Burnett has given us a meta-interpretation and the best way of understanding the Turner revolt.

To Sleep with Anger (1990)

This chapter discusses one of Burnett’s major achievements and the first of his films to be made under relatively normal Hollywood production circumstances. To Sleep with Anger tells the story of generational and class conflict within a black family in Los Angeles. Retired worker Gabriel and his wife, Susie, are visited by Harry, an old friend from the south, who becomes a houseguest. Soon after Harry’s arrival, strange things begin to happen. Gabriel falls ill, and his youngest son falls under Harry’s bad influence.

Killer of Sheep (1977)

This chapter discusses Burnett’s most celebrated film, which was completed as an MFA thesis and became one of the first movies to be designated by the Library of Congress as a national treasure. Shot on weekends using residents of Watts as actors and crew, Killer of Sheep describes the everyday life of a man who works in a sheep slaughterhouse. A film made up of short vignettes, it gives an alternately sad, humorous, and grim account of a black father who struggles for the survival of his family.

Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation (2007)

In 2007, the government of Namibia commissioned Burnett to write and direct a wide-screen epic film about the history of their war for independence against South Africa. They hoped to use the film as the foundation for a national film industry. Against great complications involving a nation of many languages and a large cast of inexperienced actors, Burnett gave them a film of which they could be proud. Unfortunately, the film had few commercial possibilities in America and has rarely been shown here. Beautifully shot in color, it concisely tells the story of the long, bloody war of liberation and its many political tensions. It is based, in part, on the autobiography of Sam Nujoma, Namibia’s first president.

Two Screenplays

Burnett is a complete filmmaker who has not only directed but also photographed, edited, and written many films. This chapter puts emphasis on his talent as a screenwriter, using two very different projects as examples. Bless Their Little Hearts was written for director Billy Woodbury and is similar in many ways to Burnett’s Killer of Sheep. It tells the story of an unemployed black man in Watts who suffers a crisis of masculinity while he tries to find a job and keep his family together. Man in a Basket is an adaptation of Crazy Kill by noir novelist Chester Himes. Set in 1950s Harlem, Burnett describes it as Himes’s only love story. Burnett has long wanted to direct this film and is still trying to find backers.

The Annihilation of Fish (1999)

This chapter discusses the only feature film directed by Burnett that never found a distributor. An unusual, often sweetly comic romance starring James Earl Jones and Lynn Redgrave, The Annihilation of Fish tells the story of a relationship between an aging, apparently mismatched couple, one of them black and the other white, both of whom suffer from schizophrenia. Gradually, their love for one another enables them to overcome their cultural differences and psychological problems.

A Cinema of Symbolic Knowledge

This chapter discusses Burnett as a major African American director whose entire career has been devoted to the proposition that black lives matter, and it argues that his work deserves to be more widely known. It describes the aims and methods of the book and explains the term symbolic knowledge, which is Burnett’s way of describing a moral and social education gained from storytelling.

In His Element

Some of Burnett’s most characteristic and impressive work has taken the form of completely independent, very low budget short films that he has written, directed, photographed, and edited. These films return him to his beginnings as a sort of guerilla filmmaker who works in the streets. This chapter gives three examples: When It Rains (1995), a jazz fable about a neighborhood griot who tries to keep a mother and daughter from being evicted; The Final Insult (1997), an experimental mixture of documentary and fiction concerning homelessness in Los Angeles; and Quiet As Kept, a darkly comic film about a black family that has been displaced by Hurricane Katrina. The chapter ends with a comment on Burnett’s work in progress and his continuing importance for us today.