“To Sleep With Anger” (Amazon$ and You-Tube)

Filmmaker Charles Burnett has been described by The New York Times as”the nation’s least-known great filmmaker and most gifted black director”. Like many films I watched thirty years ago, I remembered liking his “To Sleep With Anger” but not much more about it. It’s a great film. Some might describe it as too “slow” but I enjoyed the way Burnett paced his story. A middle-class Black family living in a Los Angeles receives a surprise visitor. Danny Glover is an old friend from the South who insinuates himself into their lives with his charming country ways. Once he is entrenched, bad things happen, and he manages to bring underlying tensions to a dangerous head. The film plays with themes of generational clash, the superstition of the “old ways” vs a modern Christian faith, the need for community, and the nature of evil. The sound track is great and the characters likably complex.