Charles Burnett (; born April 13, 1944) is an American film director, film producer, writer, editor, actor, photographer, and cinematographer. His most popular films include Killer of Sheep (1978), My Brother's Wedding (1983), To Sleep with Anger (1990), The Glass Shield (1994), and Namibia: The Struggle for Liberation (2007). He has also directed several short films and documentary films.

Burnett has been named as "one of America's very best filmmakers" by the Chicago Tribune and "the nation's least-known great filmmaker and most gifted black director" by The New York Times. He received an Academy Honorary Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for being an "influential film pioneer who has chronicled the lives of black Americans with eloquence and insight" in 2017.

Early life and education

Burnett was born on April 13, 1944, in Vicksburg, Mississippi, to a nurse's aide and a military father. According to a DNA analysis, he is mainly descended from people from Sierra Leone.

In 1947, Charles's family moved to Watts, a largely black neighborhood in South Los Angeles.

Burnett first enrolled at Los Angeles City College to study electronics in preparation for a career as an electrician.

In an interview for Cahiers du Cinéma, Burnett speculated that "a serious speech impediment" may have led him to become a filmmaker: <blockquote>I always felt like an outsidean observerwho wasn't able to participate because I couldn't speak very well. So this inability to communicate must have led me...to find some other means to express myself...I really liked a lot of the kids I grew up with. I felt an obligation to write something about them, to explain what went wrong with them. I think that's the reason I started to make these movies.</blockquote> Burnett continued his education at the UCLA film school, earning a Master of Fine Arts degree in theater arts and film. His professors Elyseo Taylor, who created the department of Ethno-Communications, and Basil Wright, a British documentarian, also had a significant influence on his work. The films of this group of African and African American filmmakers had strong relevance to the politics and culture of the 1960s, yet stayed true to the history of their people. Another accomplishment of the Black Independent Movement and Burnett was the creation of the Third World Film Club. The club joined with other organizations in a successful campaign to break the American boycott banning all forms of cultural exchange with Cuba. Many critics have compared the films of the Black Independent Movement to Italian neorealist films of the 1940s, Third World Cinema films of the late 1960s and 1970s, and the 1990s Iranian New Wave. Burnett was involved in many shorts that include Several Friends (1969), The Horse (1973), When It Rains (1995), Olivia's Story (2000), and Quiet as Kept (2007). When It Rains follows the story about a musician that tries to assist his friend with paying her rent. Quiet as Kept is a story about a relocated family after Hurricane Katrina.

1978–1989: Film debut and breakthrough

Burnett's first full-length feature film, Killer of Sheep, was his UCLA master's thesis. According to the film's website, the movie “offers no solutions; it merely presents life”. The soundtrack of ballads, jazz, and blues includes artists Faye Adams, Dinah Washington, Gershwin, Rachmaninov, Paul Robeson, and Earth Wind & Fire. The film was only screened occasionally because of its poor 16mm print quality and a Special Critics' Award from the 2007 New York Film Critics Circle. It was an inductee of the 1990 National Film Registry list. As in Killer of Sheep, many of the film's actors were amateurs, including the costume designer's wife. The family's instability seems to reflect the larger community's volatility. Both main actors in the movie, Carl Lumbly and Danny Glover, participated in Burnett's prior films, with Lumbly and Glover both appearing in To Sleep with Anger.

Recurring themes

The recurring themes in Charles Burnett's work are primarily history's effect on the structure of family. His films are also frequently about working-class African-Americans and denounce stereotypes and clichés. He also found a recurring theme in liberation and struggle perhaps after the influence from the UCLA's Third World Film Club that championed the revolutions occurring worldwide in the 1960s and 1970s.

Burnett earned the Freedom in Film Award from the First Amendment Center and the Nashville Independent Film Festival. The award was given to Burnett to honor his commitment to presenting cultural and historical content that he felt needed to be discussed, rather than focusing on commercial success.

Personal life

Burnett is married to actress and costume designer Gaye Shannon-Burnett. They have two sons, Steven and Jonathan.