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April 7, 2011

Charles Burnett: Interviews

I'd entirely forgotten that this was in the works until last month, when I happened across it on Amazon: a book of conversations with the great filmmaker Charles Burnett, including one by yours truly. Longtime readers may recall that it originally appeared on this site about four years ago, right around the time that I began to focus my efforts more seriously on making films rather than writing about them. It was the last interview I ever did.

The book also includes pieces by Terrence Rafferty, Gerald Peary, Amy Taubin, David Kehr and others. Here's the publisher's description:

Charles Burnett (b. 1944) is a groundbreaking African American filmmaker and one of this country's finest directors, yet he remains largely unknown. His films, most notably Killer of Sheep (1977) and To Sleep with Anger (1990), are considered classics, yet few filmgoers have seen them or heard of Burnett. The interviews in this volume explore this paradox and collectively shed light on the work of a rare film master whose stories bring to the screen the texture and poetry of life in the black community.

And here's where you can get it, along with his masterpiece Killer Of Sheep.

Posted by David Lowery at April 7, 2011 3:44 AM