1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 98: When it rains; The final insult
I saw Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep (1978) almost twenty years ago and gained nothing from it. The fault lay with me. Roger Ebert’s review should have prepared me for what it was like. It also would have helped if I’d been familiar with two of Burnett’s later, smaller productions: When It Rains (1995; 13 m.) and The Final Insult (1997; 55 m.). The lead actor in both short movies is Ayuko Babu. Los Angeles is the setting.
Here is the IMDb summary of Killer of Sheep:
When It Rains is the most accessible of the three movies. The plot is simple. A woman and her daughter are evicted from their apartment. The woman tracks down a jazz musician (Babu) and asks for help. The jazz musician talks to the landlord, who refuses to budge. (He is “crazed,” the jazz musician mutters, perhaps a little unreasonably.) The jazz musician doesn’t have money either. He goes around to various acquaintances to raise funds “for a Sister.” Most refuse. A kindly scrapyard worker gives a few dollars. This money is subsequently (and humorously) lost. Reconciliation with the landlord, when achieved, is not financial; it occurs because the jazz musician is able to find common cultural ground with the landlord. It’s not enough that all of the characters are Black; they have to like the same music. The jazz musician reflects that he was fortunate not to have been seen carrying a hip-hop record.
In The Final Insult, Babu plays a banker who advises business owners to hire temporary workers so that they can avoid paying taxes and employee benefits. At the end of his shift he goes to his car, in which he resides. He may have a job and wear a white shirt and a tie, but he is homeless (or quasi-homeless). The car is not in good shape. The banker is one breakdown from disaster.
Blended with this story are interviews with, and “candid” footage of, real homeless people of various races and class backgrounds. The point of these grueling passages is to show that homelessness is no joke. When It Rains is easier to watch because it’s funny. There are passages of poetry and piquant irony in The Final Insult, but these are swamped by the prosaic bitterness of having to watch real people suffer.
The banker is not a real person, as Jonathan Rosenbaum points out. His misadventures become stagier and stagier as the movie goes on. I don’t believe the banker is meant to evoke our sympathy. He is a transitional symbol. He is the rest of us, fallen on hard times. He retains a bourgeois attitude. An automobile dweller, he is mostly insulated from the horror of forced pedestrianism in a traffic-heavy society. Other homeless people react angrily to his call for revolution.
Intriguingly, the theme of finding common ground through music is revisited. Another homeless character – a (possibly educated) white man – sings Korean ballads to a group of Korean women at a bus stop. They are intrigued and charmed. How do you know this music?, they ask. From listening to records, he says. The man also sings Italian opera songs, and he can speak Spanish.
But the man’s encounters, which are uniformly positive, provide no lasting material relief. He remains homeless. The question is whether positivity and human connection can be enough. The movie doesn’t say.
Open-ended and loosely structured, the two movies manage to say a good deal. One is pleasing; the other is a downright slog. Considering them together is more enlightening than considering them apart.
Here is the IMDb summary of Killer of Sheep:
Set in the Watts area of Los Angeles, a slaughterhouse worker must suspend his emotions to continue working at a job he finds repugnant, and then he finds he has little sensitivity for the family he works so hard to support.That’s the scenario; more important are the episodic nature of the storytelling, the judicious use of music, and the blending of “acted” and “candid” footage. These elements recur, to a greater or lesser degree, in the shorter movies.
When It Rains is the most accessible of the three movies. The plot is simple. A woman and her daughter are evicted from their apartment. The woman tracks down a jazz musician (Babu) and asks for help. The jazz musician talks to the landlord, who refuses to budge. (He is “crazed,” the jazz musician mutters, perhaps a little unreasonably.) The jazz musician doesn’t have money either. He goes around to various acquaintances to raise funds “for a Sister.” Most refuse. A kindly scrapyard worker gives a few dollars. This money is subsequently (and humorously) lost. Reconciliation with the landlord, when achieved, is not financial; it occurs because the jazz musician is able to find common cultural ground with the landlord. It’s not enough that all of the characters are Black; they have to like the same music. The jazz musician reflects that he was fortunate not to have been seen carrying a hip-hop record.
In The Final Insult, Babu plays a banker who advises business owners to hire temporary workers so that they can avoid paying taxes and employee benefits. At the end of his shift he goes to his car, in which he resides. He may have a job and wear a white shirt and a tie, but he is homeless (or quasi-homeless). The car is not in good shape. The banker is one breakdown from disaster.
Blended with this story are interviews with, and “candid” footage of, real homeless people of various races and class backgrounds. The point of these grueling passages is to show that homelessness is no joke. When It Rains is easier to watch because it’s funny. There are passages of poetry and piquant irony in The Final Insult, but these are swamped by the prosaic bitterness of having to watch real people suffer.
The banker is not a real person, as Jonathan Rosenbaum points out. His misadventures become stagier and stagier as the movie goes on. I don’t believe the banker is meant to evoke our sympathy. He is a transitional symbol. He is the rest of us, fallen on hard times. He retains a bourgeois attitude. An automobile dweller, he is mostly insulated from the horror of forced pedestrianism in a traffic-heavy society. Other homeless people react angrily to his call for revolution.
Intriguingly, the theme of finding common ground through music is revisited. Another homeless character – a (possibly educated) white man – sings Korean ballads to a group of Korean women at a bus stop. They are intrigued and charmed. How do you know this music?, they ask. From listening to records, he says. The man also sings Italian opera songs, and he can speak Spanish.
But the man’s encounters, which are uniformly positive, provide no lasting material relief. He remains homeless. The question is whether positivity and human connection can be enough. The movie doesn’t say.
Open-ended and loosely structured, the two movies manage to say a good deal. One is pleasing; the other is a downright slog. Considering them together is more enlightening than considering them apart.