To Sleep With Anger

 

 

Writer/director Charles Burnett

Burnett with Danny Glover (left)

Burnett (center) surrounded by the cast

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TO SLEEP WITH ANGER              A-                                                                                        USA  (101 mi)  1990  d:  Charles Burnett

The past is never dead.  It’s not even past.                                                                            —William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun, 1951

A curious hybrid of a black American film, one that views the modern Los Angeles landscape with an eye on the past, totally aware that their roots are in the Deep South, yet separating themselves from the mythical folklore that arose out of slavery days.  The film is an enchanted yet thoroughly understated depiction of the contradictions of being black in America, one of the few with no apparent references to an urban ghetto, no drugs, no gangs, no guns, no policemen, no hookers, and no rap or hip-hop soundtrack, showing the extent to which black lives have been stereotyped elsewhere.  With aspirations running into a wall contending with a predominately white America, there is a deep connection with where you came from and a special significance paid to historical roots, including what was once an illiterate culture, where slaves were deprived of education and even reading books, relying upon oral traditions, fables, and symbols, creating their own customs and mythology, where the modern era vantage point offers so many more opportunities, yet connections to black heritage include the memories of grandparents and those family members who came before, describing things that bear a resemblance to witchcraft, to a spiritual realm where the ancestors live, providing an unsettling depiction of life in a Jim Crow era where lynchings still occurred, and where people had run-ins with local police, and bad blood between various members of families.  People may still view what happened with deep prejudice, still casting blame for unnecessary deaths that occurred, carrying their disturbing recollections over into the present, where bearing grudges doesn’t begin to describe it, as some still live under the shadow of omens and spells, believing nothing ever happens naturally, that good luck charms really exist, and that ancient remedies are still needed.  This is a family film that suggests the ancestors are angry, bearing an ominous, near Biblical significance on the living, where prior sins need atonement and perhaps a bit of mercy, all of which suggests we need to put our differences aside and live better lives.  The idea behind the film is a reflection on what constitutes black consciousness, a mosaic constructed from fragmented memories, where we remain connected as a people, though deep understandings about ourselves are rooted in a strange mysticism that may have lost its potency through the passing years, that may go back to superstitions and folklore brought from Africa, where this film reminds us of deep connections that are on the brink of extinction, yet remain relevant in our lives and still powerful enough to remember.  Between the 1890’s and 1910, large groups of black Americans migrated to Los Angeles from Texas, Shreveport, New Orleans, and Atlanta to escape the racial violence and bigotry of the South.  The great migration of the 1920’s saw major populations of the black South move to northern cities like Detroit, Chicago, and New York, largely bypassing Los Angeles.  It was during the Second Great Migration in the 1940’s that the most significant shifts in the city were made.  During World War II defense production skyrocketed in Los Angeles with more than $11 billion dollars in war contracts, which called for labor in the automobile, rubber, and steel industries, where the black population in Los Angeles leaped from 63,700 in 1940 to 763,000 in 1970 (The Great Migration: Creating a New Black Identity in Los ...). 

Burnett was born in Mississippi and moved to the Watts area of southern Los Angeles at an early age, a neighborhood with a strong southern migration influence, where the Watts riots of 1965 played a prominent role in his upbringing, having witnessed the burning down of the neighborhood, while Watts is also notorious for the beating of Rodney King in 1991 and the subsequent outbreak of violence and looting that followed the acquittal of the police officers responsible.  Burnett became known to the film going public through Thomas Andersen’s extraordinary documentary Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003) which identified black independent filmmakers like Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep (1979) and Billy Woodberry’s Bless Their Little Hearts (1984), both key figures of the L.A. Rebellion, black and brown UCLA film students from the 70’s dedicated to providing a more authentic black perspective, with both creating a new aesthetic countering false and stereotypically inaccurate Hollywood images, with a focus on working-class black families living in South Central Los Angeles living from paycheck to paycheck, which comes across as near documentary truth without an ounce of artifice about the black experience.  Winner of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 1988, this is among Burnett’s most accessible films, his first to find a distributor and the first to feature professional actors, given a higher budget, made for an estimated cost of $1.4 million, but only after partnering with actor and executive producer Danny Glover, who was immensely popular after making the first two Lethal Weapon movies in 1987 and 1989 which earned $100 million and $200 million dollars in net profit respectively.  But this film was only released in 17 theaters nationwide, with the director conceding it “offered no apparent reference point for white Americans,” so like all of this director’s films they are criminally underseen, despite the fact he may be the best black American director working today, or in the past 30-years, though Barry Jenkins has recently given him a run for his money, however he’s rarely mentioned in the same breath as Spike Lee or John Singleton.  Opening in a foreshadowing dream sequence, we hear the gospel sounds of SISTER ROSETTA THARPE - Precious Memories [1956 ... YouTube (2:52) and we’re immediately attuned to the fact this is a memory play, a summoning of ancient spirits, featuring Paul Butler (remember him? always superb) as Gideon, a retired laborer living comfortably in a house of modest means in Los Angeles with his devout wife Suzie (Mary Alice), an old married couple with family photographs seen scattered around their home, retaining signs of their old-style rural upbringing by raising chickens in the backyard, with church figuring prominently as the moral center of their lives.  Like Cain and Abel, they have two distinctly different older sons, Junior (Carl Lumbly), the favored son, hard-working, mature, and responsible, married to Pat (Vonetta McGee, as they were in real life), and the more insecure, perpetually disrespected Baby Brother (Richard Brooks) who grows increasingly hostile, remaining susceptible and confused about his identity, torn between a disconnected black heritage and capitalist aspirations, easily seduced into doing the wrong thing, troubled by what he perceives as overt favoritism shown to his older brother, both seen arguing incessantly while crying the blues that his father is always picking on him, criticizing every selfish move he makes, including his rocky marriage to Linda (Sheryl Lee Ralph) where both work long hours, largely avoiding his paternal responsibilities with his young son, who always seems to be staying with the grandparents, picked up at all hours of the night, never at any designated time, continually shuffled back and forth in a routine that suggests taking advantage.  

Set in a place with a very strong sense of family and community, which may no longer be the norm, the film offers a unique black perspective on their historical connections to the Deep South, where unmitigated racial violence consumed the lives of nearly all descendents of southern slaves and sharecroppers, creating an invisible and near underground black culture, like a parallel universe remaining undetected from the neighboring white community, which makes this film an utter revelation, operating on the premise, “You don’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’ve been.”  What sets the gears in motion is Gideon’s loss of an old charm, a toby, an ancestral talisman, believing it will help protect his family.  As if on cue, an old friend Harry (Danny Glover) that he hasn’t seen in thirty years from Mississippi mysteriously arrives at his door, where he is wholeheartedly welcomed and embraced and urged to stay as long as he likes, evoking an overpowering nostalgia for the old ways.  Harry is like a figment of the imagination, a folkloric character, a trickster and master manipulator, deceptive and dishonest, the embodiment of evil, yet isn’t evil, a multi-dimensional presence that exists in a realm of ambiguity, hiding behind a façade of Southern graciousness, whose enduring charm and sly smile make people see what they want to see, where references to mythical crossroads are legendary in Robert Johnson blues songs, seemingly making a deal with the devil, where his presence is a throwback to an earlier era, symbolic of the old days, constantly reminding people who they were back in the day, yet constantly stirring up trouble wherever he goes, as trouble just seems to follow him, having a hugely unsettling and destabilizing effect on the entire community.  Baby Brother, on the other hand, is enthralled by his overwhelmingly brash male confidence and bravado, filled with stories about the old days, as ghosts of the past come perilously close to haunting and disrupting the present.  Bringing back the traditional fish fry, the presence of corn liquor seems to bring people out of the woodworks, strange, disreputable people we hadn’t seen before, spending the night telling tall tales, while laughing and drinking, and even singing songs, as we hear the sounds of LITTLE MILTON - ANNIE MAE'S CAFE YouTube (5:06) and Bobby Blue Bland - Walking, Talking & Singing The Blues ... YouTube (3:55), with Jimmy Witherspoon actually making an appearance onscreen singing “See See Rider,” To Sleep With Anger – Jimmy Witherspoon YouTube (1:23), with a guitar played by musical composer Stephen James Taylor.  Urging a former lover Hattie (Ethel Ayler) to perform some old juke joint songs, recalling her mother ran a home of ill repute back home, but she defers, righteously offended by his insinuations, telling him, “You remind me of so much that went wrong in my life,” perhaps the only one to see right through him, as she’s been saved, having found religion, and instead can be heard singing an eloquently slow rendition of a gospel song, ETHEL WATERS Gospel Spiritual. Church , Stand By Me , Mammy YouTube (3:56).  Casting a spell on an otherwise peaceful household, tempers flare, smoldering tensions brew, large knives are unleashed, with people inexplicably struck down, though it’s hard to tell if by God or the Devil, as Burnett beautifully interweaves evocative strains of blues and gospel traditions mixed with images of poetic realism, easily moving between tragedy and comedy, featuring a constantly moving camera by Walt Lloyd.  Thrown into the mix is a young kid next door (Burnett’s son) heard practicing the trumpet, continually making screeching sounds and playing off-key, where at least in the eyes of Harry he’s nothing but a nuisance disturbing the neighborhood, but his finally on-key music melodically soars over the closing credits, To Sleep With Anger Ending Credits (Ramon Flores Trumpet Solo) YouTube (3:57), bringing symmetry and harmony to what feels like a spiritual road movie, constantly following the wrong path, continually swerving off course, yet ultimately finding its way. 

Blackboard Jungle

 

BLACKBOARD JUNGLE           B                                                                                            USA  (101 mi)  1955  d:  Richard Brooks

We, in the United States, are fortunate to have a school system that is a tribute to our communities and to our faith in American youth. Today we are concerned with juvenile delinquency--its causes--and its effects. We are especially concerned when this delinquency boils over into our schools. The scenes and incidents depicted here are fictional. However, we believe that public awareness is a first step toward a remedy for any problem. It is in this spirit and with this faith that Blackboard Jungle was produced.                                                              —Introduction prior to opening credits

A contentious film about juvenile delinquency, an outdated term that’s not even used much anymore, changed to juvenile offenders, perhaps due to the proliferation of inner city guns, where murder rates are through the roof, with so many juveniles placed in adult prisons, but the term was all the rage in the conformism of the 1950’s, made just a year after the 1954 landmark Supreme Court decision Brown vs. Board of Education ordering the desegregation of American public schools, sending flocks of white parents out into the safer suburbs to avoid blacks and what they viewed as the inner city riff-raff.  Though heavy handed and overly bombastic, with almost non-existent character development, and glaring contrivances as a substitute for a social message, the film remains one of Hollywood’s most iconic depictions of deviant American youth, with South London screenings provoking vandalism and riots in the theaters by disenchanted teenagers known as the Teddy Boys, thuggish, working class white hoodlums known for making unprovoked attacks on blacks and newly arriving immigrant groups, viewing them as a threat to their already disintegrating communities.  Whatever you may think about it, the film was extremely controversial for its day, shocking contemporary audiences with revelations on teenage violence, sexuality, and racial antagonism, provoking discussions about the need to improve public education in America.  Adapted from the 1954 novel by Evan Hunter, aka Ed McBain, a noted crime fiction writer who embellished his substitute teaching experiences at a Bronx Vocational High School in New York City, claiming none of the depicted incidents actually occurred, but were “within the realm of realistic plausibility.”  Nonetheless, the topic was hailed by Time magazine as “nightmarish but authentic,” while the Saturday Review called it “the most realistic account I have ever read of life in a New York City vocational high school,” creating a moral panic about troubled youth in postwar America, with movie reviews focused on the more sensational aspects of the film, creating tabloid headlines warning us of the coming Apocalypse, where the film was debated, denounced, banned, and scapegoated for its violent content, denounced by teachers and principals, banned in Memphis, Tennessee and Atlanta, Georgia, claiming it was “immoral, obscene, licentious and will adversely affect the peace, health, morals and good order of the city,” screenings in New Jersey included a disclaimer that what’s depicted onscreen does NOT reflect local schools in the area, a Boston theater ran the first reel in silence for fear that the rock ‘n’ roll music on the soundtrack would over-stimulate audiences into violence, while U.S. Ambassador to Italy, Clare Boothe Luce, fearful of potential communist propaganda, prevented the film’s screening at the Venice Film Festival, claiming it was not representative of American values.  The film remains something of a cultural artifact from a forgotten era, literally frozen in time, certainly viewed differently with a modernist lens.  This is the first instance when a movie propelled a rock ‘n’ roll song to the top of the charts, where the jolting music of Bill Haley & the Comets “Rock Around the Clock” became a mainstream cultural phenomenon, Blackboard Jungle/Rock around the clock - YouTube (1:20), the first rock song to ever hit #1, selling 25 million copies, staying in the Top 100 for 38 weeks, specifically targeting a teen audience, with American Bandstand’s Dick Clark calling it “the national anthem of rock ‘n’ roll,” which at the time was blamed for “causing” juvenile delinquency.  There were also debates (particularly overseas) suggesting the film’s promotion of rock ‘n’ roll music was equally responsible for corrupting America’s youth, yet despite an overall tone of melodrama mixed with realism, one immediately senses just from the opening scene that this is a fantasia into public education, (macho guys holding hands and dancing with other macho guys just ain’t macho), a lead-in to the artful lyrics of Stephen Sondheim’s American musical WEST SIDE STORY (1961), originally staged in the summer of 1957,  West Side Story - Gee Officer Krupke! (1961) HD - YouTube (4:05), mockingly suggesting “Juvenile delinquency is purely a social disease.”  The film is also notable for launching the career of actor Sidney Poitier, who at age 28 plays one of the high school teenagers.  Ironically, he played a doctor five years earlier in No Way Out (1950).      

The film is a product of its times, an era when there were hundreds of teen gangs roaming the streets of New York City creating a wide array of vandalism and violence, when nearly 24% of American children ages 14 to 17 were not attending school at all, and 54% of students entering high school in the State of New York did not graduate, with reports also revealing that 50% of the male population in the Chicago public schools in 1953 were functionally illiterate.  In addition, incidents of teacher brutality against children were not uncommon, with children having little recourse other than dropping out.  In 1951, nearly 41% of all grade school teachers in America had no college degrees, with estimates in New York City that less than half even held teaching certificates, so the postwar state of American education was in dire straits, with this film serving as a public wake up call, putting the entire system on notice.  Like a plague spreading across the nation, the release of the film led to U.S. Senate subcommittee hearings chaired by Tennessee Senator Estes Kefauver, school board meetings, and plenty of talk festering about teenage dissent, gathering opinions from various experts, psychologists, child behavior professionals, and university researchers, including the harebrained suggestion that comic books led to the corruption of youthful minds, mirroring the post-McCarthyist hunt for subversive Communists lurking within, ignoring the rapid spread of racism that was ravaging through the urban expansion into suburbia, which were basically white-only places of refuge to escape the inner cities, setting up model schools that became distinguished by the quality of teaching and school districts that were flush with money, as opposed to the massively underfunded inner city schools that were largely ignored, becoming dilapidated relics of a failed system, eventually leading to a school-to-prison pipeline for predominately minority students.  It’s important to understand that the so-called remedy for this scourge of delinquency spreading across the nation was to accentuate a two-tiered system, one for the rich and one for the poor, an approach that continues to exist today.  In 1978 voters in California rebelled against funding public schools through the implementation of Proposition 13, dramatically lowering the tax base, leading a tax revolt that spread across the nation, literally decimating inner city public schools, gutting their resources, putting them at a decisive educational disadvantage, where today the everyday realities in largely minority inner city schools resemble decrepit conditions in Third World countries, driving wealthy kids into private schools reserved for the rich, while the expansive schools in the predominately white suburbs continue to flourish, with some resembling college universities.  This two-tiered system also translates into two unequal systems of justice and opportunity, which only accentuates the racial divide haunting our nation at the moment.  This film, however, feeds into the common stereotypical perception of minority criminalization, where minorities are viewed as criminals.  All the well-meaning teachers are white, while the out-of-control class in question is of mixed race, white, Latino, and black, mirroring the possibilities of desegregation, yet it’s viewed as a social experiment gone wrong, creating a disturbing atmosphere of social defiance and disobedience, contaminated by an element of criminalization.  All are tainted by the same broad brush, even if those most guilty are actually white, which actually matches a continuing perception of today, with whites mistakenly believing blacks are responsible for the majority of crimes committed in America, as if justifying their racial apprehension, yet the overwhelming majority are committed by whites, with more than double the amount of arrests and more than two-thirds of charged criminal offenses annually (FBI — Table 43).

Set in the all-boys North Manual Trades High School of New York, an inner city working class milieu, the film simmers with anxiety about race and how that translates to an American educational system that feels woefully inadequate.  Glenn Ford plays Richard Dadier, a Navy vet who got his education on the G.I. Bill, a naïve yet liberal-minded white teacher at a new mixed race school that is largely a collection of stereotypes, approaching the first day with a certain amount of apprehension, where all around him he sees examples of unruly behavior, where he is challenged right from the outset.  While the principal, Mr. Warnecke (John Hoyt), insists there is no discipline problem, all the evidence proves otherwise, where some of the indifferent teachers describe the school as “the garbage can of the educational system,” while calling these kids “savages” and “screaming animals,” suggesting there is no hope for them, as teaching methods are simply ignored.  As if on cue, one of the teachers is attacked in a brutal rape assault, with Didier coming to her rescue, then beating the tar out of the attacking kid, who leaves escorted by the police in a bloody mess.  His students aren’t too happy about that, refusing to cooperate in class, where traditional teaching methods immediately hit a wall of resistance, with students intentionally answering incorrectly followed by a series of smart remarks, making jokes about his name, calling him “Mr. Daddy-O.”  Sensing rebelliousness in their ranks, he attempts to single out an ally in one of the brighter students, Gregory Miller (Sidney Poitier), thinking if he could get one to cooperate the others would follow, but Miller has no interest in being anyone’s prized favorite, retreating into the disharmony of the class, refusing to stick out like a sore thumb.  Dadier and a new math teacher, Joshua Edwards (Richard Kiley), commiserate over drinks after work, with Edwards expressing an interest in bringing his prized jazz collection to school for his more advanced students, suggesting mathematics are a key component to jazz music, thinking his kids would take an interest, but his plan backfires when both men are assaulted in an alley by a group of students afterwards (payback for the earlier incident), and again when Artie West (Vic Morrow, doing his best Brando imitation) and his gang of goons decide to teach Edwards a lesson by sadistically throwing his records around in a game of keepaway before destroying his entire collection, leaving Edwards devastated, quitting his job shortly afterwards in a state of utter despair.  Dadier tries a similar technique, playing a 16mm cartoon projection of Jack and the Beanstalk, which does generate plenty of interest and enthusiasm, asking engaging questions afterwards, suggesting even a cartoon can get them to learn to think for themselves, thinking he may finally be breaking through, but he’s stymied on several fronts.  Unbeknownst to him, his pregnant wife (Anne Francis) starts receiving anonymous letters followed by prank phone calls suggesting her husband was having an affair with one of the teachers, causing her extreme anxiety, almost losing the baby in a premature birth (in the book the child dies).  Another student files a complaint against Dadier for his use of inflammatory racist language during a lesson, including the n-word, called into a conference with Mr. Warnecke, suspected of having racial motives, with Dadier angrily denouncing the accusations, suggesting the words were used as an example of what “not” to say.  In today’s politically correct culture, the teacher would be fired anyway, regardless of their intent.  It’s Poitier who provides the saving grace, heard singing and harmonizing the Negro spiritual “Go Down Moses” with several other black friends, almost like an apparition, The Blackboard Jungle (1955) – Leading The Group - YouTube (2:28).  Despite the apparent peace offering, Dadier faces more resistance in class when he catches West cheating in class, building to an inevitable confrontation, with West pulling a switchblade in defiance, leading to the dramatic spectacle of a knife fight.  This heavy handed approach is overly simplistic, setting the moral forces of good against evil, like the arrival of the cavalry, suggesting if you can remove the bad apples the rest will flourish, which is a technique still being used today, where there are record numbers of expulsions, routinely targeting minorities.  If only it were that easy, continuing the fantasy narrative by suggesting it is, becoming more of a cultural time capsule than a relevant social treatise, added to the National Film Registry in 2016.