TO SLEEP WITH ANGER

Showings

Chauncey -Theater 2 Thu, Oct 17, 2019 6:00 PM
Series Info
Series:Cinema Savant
Film Info
Rating:PG
Runtime:102 minutes
Director:Charles Burnett
Year Released:1990
Production Country:USA
Language:English

Description

Presented as part of our Charles Burnett Retrospective. Burnett will be honored in person with our Cinema Savant award on Saturday, November 2 at 7pm. Event information can be found here.

"Burnett and his cast tap depths of mystery, soulfulness, and glee." - New Yorker

"One of the finest films to explore city versus country, old ways versus new, kin versus kin." - Village Voice

"Burnett's acute and sensitive direction is free of hackneyed movie conventions; even something as simple as a hello is said differently from the way you've heard it in any other movie." - Chicago Reader

A slow-burning masterwork of the early 1990s, this third feature by Charles Burnett is a singular piece of American myth making. In a towering performance, Danny Glover plays the enigmatic southern drifter Harry, a devilish charmer who turns up out of the blue on the South Central Los Angeles doorstep of his old friends. In short order, Harry's presence seems to cast a chaotic spell on what appeared to be a peaceful household, exposing smoldering tensions between parents and children, tradition and change, virtue and temptation. Interweaving evocative strains of gospel and blues with rich, poetic-realist images, To Sleep With Anger is a sublimely stirring film from an autonomous artistic sensibility, a portrait of family resilience steeped in the traditions of African American mysticism and folklore.

Presented with Burnett's short film Several Friends (1969, 21 minutes). A group of eccentric and endearing young people converse in a variety of everyday settings.