To Sleep With Anger

To Sleep With Anger

Synopsis

Charles Burnett, one of America's most highly regarded independent filmmakers, wrote and directed this domestic drama about a black middle-class family living in South Central Los Angeles. Husband and wife Gideon (Paul Butler) and Suzie (Mary Alice) have two sons, Junior and Babe Brother, and grandchildren. Tensions in the family are already simmering when Harry Mention (Danny Glover) arrives on the scene to visit his old friends. Gideon and Suzie are delighted to see him – he exudes an easy charm, knows secrets past and present and is soon installed in the heart of the family. However, as his stay lengthens, he begins to cast an ever more malevolent spell, provoking turmoil, setting son against son, reviving past hatreds and inflicting a mysterious illness.

Charles Burnett's award-winning Killer of Sheep (1977) was declared a 'national treasure' by the American Library of Congress. It was almost 13 years later that To Sleep with Anger became the first of his films to attract widespread critical notice. Director David Gordon Green (All the Real Girls) acknowledges the powerful influence of Burnett's style on his debut film George Washington. Danny Glover delivers a career-topping performance as the garrulous family fiend, full of hidden menace, effortlessly evoking nostalgia and horror in the same breath. To Sleep with Anger is a brew of mysticism and melodrama, about ordinary people who find a monster in their midst. The soundtrack features gospel, blues and jazz and a cameo from the legendary Jimmy Witherspoon.

Special Features

- Director's biography