Field Report #1

For my field report, I attended the screenings at the UWM theatre on Sunday, October 5th. I saw Iverson White's "Self Determination" and we also viewed Charles Burnett's "Killer of Sheep" again. It was interesting to see this film again and also to hear Burnett's opinions of his film afterward. During the film, I tried to pay more attention to the aspect of using Stan, children, and sheep all in one film. I noticed towards the end of the film, there was a part where Stan's wife wanted to go to bed with Stan and he just kind of blew her off. Then there was a part right after where a girl was hanging clothes on a clothes-line, and a few boys walked past and made fun of her. Then there was a close-up of a sheep rubbing his face against another sheep, and then the other sheep walked away and we just saw the lonely sheep's face for a few seconds. It was as if everyone got rejected. I think maybe what I got out of it was that common problems can be seen in different ages and different species. Everyone has problems of some kinds. Alot of times when they showed the kids in the film, I always seemed to find a kid who looked like Stan. The first time i saw this film, i kept thinking that maybe this was some kind of flashbacks, showing Stan when he was a child. I also found myself thinking about how Stan worked at the slaughterhouse, and perhaps they would show clips of Stan and then clips of the sheep-- it was like Stan was relating to the sheep every once in awhile. I though the "Self Determination" movie was somewhat interesting. I kind of found it too ordinary. It seemed like just another movie or television show. I thought it also left a little too much to the imagination. There was so many questions left in my head-- Why was the husband cheating? Did the wife cheat also? Did she leave in the end? It was just a little to general and broad for me.