To
Sleep with Anger (1990)
Directed
by: Charles
Burnett.
Written
by: Charles
Burnett.
Starring:
Danny
Glover (Harry), Paul Butler (Gideon), DeVaughn Nixon (Sonny), Mary Alice
(Suzie), Reina King (Rhonda), Cory Curtis (Skip), Richard Brooks (Babe
Brother), Sherul Lee Ralph (Linda), Carl Lumbly (Junior), Vonetta McGee (Pat).
Charles Burnett’s debut film –
Killer of Sheep (1978) is one of the great American films of the 1970s – but it
took a good 30 years for it to get its due. The music rights – which Burnett
didn’t bother to clear when he made the film as a student – made releasing the
film impossible, so while anyone who had seen the film loved it, that number
wasn’t very large until those issues were finally resolved, and the film got
proper attention. It is often referred to as an American neo-realist film, and
the film certainly does capture some of the same sort of feeling of the films
of Vittorio De Sica or Roberto Rossellini, there is also something somewhat
otherworldly about the film. Burnett’s To Sleep with Anger – his third film,
made 12 years after Killer of Sheep – takes this mixture of realism with the
fantastical to even greater extremes. It isn’t the perfect film that Killer of
Sheep was – but it’s still fascinating – a modern day Parable set in Burnett’s
Los Angeles.
The film is about Gideon (Paul
Butler) and Suzie (Mary Alice) – transplants from the Deep South, now living in
Los Angeles. They have two sons – Junior (Carl Lumbly), more mature and stable,
and Babe Brother (Richard Brooks), immature and entitled – with a wife, Rhonda
(Reina King), who looks down on her Southern in-laws – so much so that she
stays in the car in the driveway during Sunday dinner, but not enough to not
let them constantly babysit her son until late into the night. The family puts
on a happy face, but there are cracks under the surface – cracks that gradually
become exposed with the arrival of Harry (Danny Glover).
Harry is an old friend from the
South – he hasn’t seen Gideon or Suzie in decades – since they left – yet when
he arrives, he is greeted with open arms, and an offer to stay as long as he
likes. Harry seems nice – he’s friendly, he’s quick with a story and a laugh –
and everyone seems to love him. But right from the start, there is something
vaguely sinister about Harry, and there are questions about him you cannot help
but wonder – logistical questions about how he knew when Gideon and Suzie were,
and why he decided to show up out of the blue for the first time in decades. As
the movie progresses, Harry goes from genial to passive aggressive – he almost
takes over the house in his seemingly friendly way, bossing people around as he
clips his toenails in the middle of the living room, leads Gideon on a walk,
which provides him with visions, and leads to a stroke and Gideon in a coma,
and leading the weak willed Babe Brother down the path of temptation. He has
many people fooled, but not Linda (Sheryl Lee Ralph) – an old girlfriend of his
from those back home days, who very quickly knows Harry hasn’t changed, and
shows that Harry isn’t the only one who can tell stories that make everyone
uncomfortable. What Harry really is – who he represents – is never explicitly made
clear, but if he isn’t Satan, he’s at least on a first name basis with him.
All of this leads to a climax
that is straight out of the bible, and a denouement that is both abrupt and
hilarious – putting a happy face on everything, although whether it’s a
legitimate happy ending or just a family agreement to go back to pretending is
open from debate.
There is much to admire about To
Sleep with Anger – not least of which is the best performance of Danny Glover’s
career (it even somehow fits to have Glover be younger in real life than Harry
is clearly supposed to be). It’s hard to hate Harry, who seems so genial, so
happy, and is never overtly threatening, even if he is also undeniably the
cause of the family almost being broken apart. Other performances in the film
are good as well – particularly Mary Alice, so outwardly sweet and polite,
masking something stronger inside, Sheryl Lee Ralph – hilarious and tough as
nails as the only one who sees through Harry from the start and Richard Brooks
as the overgrown child Babe Brother – the one who actually does need to grow
the hell up.
The film has a tricky tone that
is all Burnett’s own. There are large family gatherings that have the feeling
of authenticity to them – especially the large fish fry gathering, in which
Harry breaks out the corn liquor. But there is also the undeniable feeling of
the supernatural hanging over the whole movie – and just waiting to drop. I do
think Burnett probably waits a little too long for it to drop – and the movie
can be a little too repetitive leading up to the climax.
Still, To Sleep with Anger is
rare for an American film of its time (and sadly, would still be rare for an
American film of this time) in its depiction of an African American family –
the roots of the past coming to haunt the present, and how the film was clearly
made without a white audience in mind (there is no code switching here).
Burnett should be a figure in American film on par with Spike Lee – but he’s
always struggled to get his films made, and struggled to get his films seen
once they have been (To Sleep with Anger is not the easiest film to track
down). That really does need to change.
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