BUY TICKETS HERE
Join us at 1 p.m. Sunday, June 29, for a rare screening of Charles Burnett’s 1990 drama “To Sleep with Anger,” about a family living in South Central Los Angeles who receive a visit from a charismatic stranger (Danny Glover).
TO SLEEP WITH ANGER | 1990 | WRITER-DIRECTOR: Charles Burnett | WITH: Danny Glover, Paul Butler, Mary Alice, Carl Lumbly, Sheryl Lee Ralph | RUNNING TIME: 1H 42M | RATED: PG for adult themes
A slow-burning masterwork of the early 1990s, this third feature by Charles Burnett is a singular piece of American mythmaking.
In a towering performance, Danny Glover plays the enigmatic southern drifter Harry, a devilish charmer who turns up out of the blue on the South Central Los Angeles doorstep of his old friends. In short order, Harry’s presence seems to cast a chaotic spell on what appeared to be a peaceful household, exposing smoldering tensions between parents and children, tradition and change, virtue and temptation.
Interweaving evocative strains of gospel and blues with rich, poetic-realist images, “To Sleep with Anger” is a sublimely stirring film from an autonomous artistic sensibility, a portrait of family resilience steeped in the traditions of African American mysticism and folklore.
“Charles Burnett’s “To Sleep With Anger” is a subtle kind of horror movie in which the unwelcome visitor is not a slasher or a cartoon character, but a soft-spoken relative named Harry, getting on a bit in years, well-dressed, seemingly courteous. The tension in the movie is created as he stays and stays, until he is clearly unwelcome and yet no one can figure out a way to get rid of him. And the horror element comes as it begins to dawn on us, and the characters in the movie, that this man is some sort of emissary of evil. Perhaps not Satan precisely, but familiar with the neighborhood.
“Harry is played in the movie by Danny Glover, who usually plays the most pleasant of men; he is the easy-going member of the team in the “Lethal Weapon” movies. Here his very pleasantness makes him more sinister. His good manners turn oily, somehow, and the others begin to clear a space around him, physically and in conversation. Glover is an actor of considerable presence, and here he lets us know his character is from hell, and hardly has to raise his voice.” — Roger Ebert
Tickets are $6 and available at link above. Students use code STUDENT at checkout for free admission (must show student ID at the door).
