To Sleep with Anger

“I love To Sleep with Anger. I mean, really taps at the core of like African American surrealist imagery in a way that I love. I'm very, very glad that this has been restored and remastered because I think this movie is worth hundreds of watches. And also shout out to Abbott because Sheryl Lee Ralph is in this and it's just amazing in this. Everybody's amazing in this. I love this movie.”

“To Sleep with Anger. I worked for many years at the Samuel Goldwyn Company, when indies were indies, and there is no truer indie auteur than Charles Burnett. A powerful, beautiful, enduring film, To Sleep with Anger. If you haven’t seen it, check it out. This one I’m definitely taking home.”

“Oh, okay. To Sleep with Anger. The opening of this movie has this Sister Rosetta Tharpe song as Paul Butler, his shoes start to catch on fire, and then the still life of the fruit starts to catch on fire. And Danny Glover’s pretty amazing, kind of playing the devil in this movie. Charles Burnett, to me, is just… I love his movies so much because he makes movies about family, and this is just one of his masterpieces.”

“Oh, Charles Burnett somewhere. I’ve got to find him. There we go. To Sleep with Anger. Nice. Let’s have a look. Are you going to have it? Yes, I am. Well, then, I’m going to have it too. Do you want mine? Yeah, have one. I think you’d love these other ones. Say no more. I like his stuff but I’ve never seen this one. Great. Cool. Charles Burnett. To Sleep with Anger.”

“Charles Burnett, To Sleep with Anger. Love it. Also cannot wait for Criterion hopefully to release Killer of Sheep. We’ll see. Come on, Charlie, going home.”

“To Sleep with Anger. Charles Burnett was a major influence in my life actually. His movie which I don't think we have yet is Killer of Sheep, the one that I saw at the time. He doesn't follow any kind of a conventional structure, you know, and what he does is so quirky and so brilliant that, you know, it defies your ability to replicate it.”

“In that vein, I remember like the title sequence of To Sleep with Anger is ridiculously cool. It is just enthralling, exciting, and sets you up for this really intense, thoughtful family drama. The acting, the Performance, it was so exciting when it came out to see this, such a breath of fresh air. But for some reason, it's the title sequence that is just seared into my mind.”

“Sleep with Anger because Danny Glover’s amazing and obviously Charles Burnett is, I guess we’d call him a hero of cinema or something, kind of changing our understanding of community, art, aesthetics.”

“To Sleep with Anger. Every Burnett film feels, has a sense of being lived in, but nothing feels staged. You can feel that intersection of American black life and Italian neorealism and also the Nouvelle Vague. I can't think of anyone who's more masterly about that kind of thing, about unobtrusive, generous filmmaking than Charles Burnett.”