TO SLEEP WITH ANGER
US, 1990, 102 minutes, Colour.
Danny Glover, Paul Butler, De Vaughan Nixon, Mary Alice.
Directed by Charles Burnett.
Charles Burnett is an African- American director who has received great admiration from film critics. He made the landmark film, Killer of Sheep, and, in 1990, released this film which is considered a classic.
Danny Glover had emerged on cinema screens, especially with The Colour Purple and his Lethal Weapon films with Mel Gibson. Here he plays a charming stranger from the south who travels to Los Angeles, South Central, ingratiating himself with the family he is visiting. He has the touch of the diabolical, charm and shrewdness, edge with the various characters, members of a family with whom he is staying, a catalyst for uncovering secrets long hidden with severe consequences.
Many people know that this is an African- American film of 1990, just before there were a number of action films like Rage in Harlem, Boyz in the Hood… By contrast, this is not a film about the ghetto, it is not a film of physical violence with guns and gangs. Rather, it is an intense human drama, specific in its focus but universal in its application.
1. The status of the film? Considered a classic?
2. The work of the director, his reputation, African- American and his perspectives?
3. A film of the 1980s, the picture of Los Angeles, South Central? Homes, streets, ordinary life? The musical score?
4. A portrait of a more quiet African- American family, no emphasis on drugs and gangs, guns and ghettos? The more traditional American score?
5. The African- American heritage, the effect on families, on the men, on the women, on the different generations? The universal aspects of the story? Audience expectations in seeing a film about an African- American family?
6. The title, indication of themes?
7. The portrait of the family, the members, ordinary, the relationships, calm on the surface, yet what was simmering underneath, about to surface?
8. The visit from Harry, the presence of Danny Glover, as a character in himself, his coming to the family, exercising charm, his telling of stories, his shrewd assessment of people, his relationships, his knowing the secrets, his facilitating the surfacing of the secrets, the results, his touch of evil and malevolence?
9. The effect of Harry’s visit on the different members of the family, the reactions, secrets exposed?
10. The consequences for the family, the reality of the past, the father and his hesitations, the mother and her moving into a world of imagination, its influence on the present? Harry as a mysterious catalyst for the uncovering of truth?
