Art Encounter

I attended Charles Burnett’s screening of Namibia this last Saturday and found it very interesting to see how completely different his style of filmmaking has become since his 1979 film Killer of Sheep. I truly enjoyed his break from traditional Hollywood type filmmaking that he exhibited in his earlier works. For example the lingering shots on the subjects with lack of dialogue that seemed to almost make you feel uncomfortable because they lasted so long as well as creating that fly on the wall type viewing experience. It made me wonder if he purposely intended to create that feeling or was it just his lack of experience and or conditioning to Hollywood type productions at the time that gave his earlier work that feel of rawness and truth.
The story of Namibia ‘s independence was one worth telling but I wish he would have keep to that varte type filming style he used in Kill of sheep. It made me wonder what Namibia would have looked like had he used some of those same techniques? I know that I felt more of a feeling of despair and struggle form the characters in Killer of Sheep than I did in Namibia, which is ironic if you look at the difference in severity of the two situations. I attribute that to the style of filming and use of symbolism he used in Killer of Sheep opposed to the traditional Hollywood style used in Namibia.
Burnett used music in a totally different way in Namibia than he did in Killer of Sheep. In Namibia the music seemed to be used to enhance emotion during the dramatic scenes of the movie where in Killer of Sheep the music seemed to be used to help transition from scene to scene and not as a crutch to heighten emotion. Again I found Burnett’s earlier techniques to be more cutting edge and potent than the recent film. I really learned a lot and found it very beneficial to be able to see filmmakers Progression form there early works too more recent. I wonder how ill look back at my works in the future? After this experience I will defiantly reference my earlier works to see things I felt worked and didn’t work.

Field Report Journal

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