Welcome to the Movie Club! Our sixth movie is Charles Burnett’s black comedy To Sleep with Anger!
To Sleep with Anger blends family drama and black comedy with a touch of magical realism, following an African-American family that invites the enigmatic Harry (played by Danny Glover) to stay over for a while. Harry is an old friend of the family’s patriarch, Gideon (Paul Butler), and serves as a reminder of their Southern roots. Tradition and modernity then begin to collide as Harry’s malignant presence escalates conflicts between the family’s members, with it being subtly suggested that his powers reach further beyond simple instigation.
This was the first film from Charles Burnett to get picked up by a major distributor (and also his first to use professional actors), largely in part due to the casting of Danny Glover. He additionally signed on as an executive producer and was instrumental in helping it receive extra funding. Despite its modest budget of only $1.4 million, a small release in only 14 theatres and marketing that positioned it as more of an art house film resulted in it only making $1.1 million in the domestic box office. While it was not popular with general audiences at the time, it was adored by critics and went on to win numerous awards, including 4 Independent Spirit Awards for Best Director, Screenplay, Male Lead and Supporting Female.12
- Harry is directly inspired by a legend known as “The Hairy Man”. Folklore states that The Hairy Man bargains with you for your soul and must be tricked in order to get it back, but Charles Burnett thought that building to that resolution would add too much to the film’s length, so they went with the marble death instead.
- This movie went unreleased on DVD for nearly 3 decades until it finally received the Criterion Collection treatment and was given a beautiful remaster and release on DVD and Blu-ray in 2019.
- Harry was originally written with another actor in mind but, according to Charles Burnett, once Danny Glover read for the character, “That opened up everything. All of a sudden it became a movie.”
I found quite a few, fairly recent interviews and essays while researching this one, largely thanks to the Criterion release bringing extra attention to this film. Here’s a couple you might find interesting:
Otherwise, what did everyone think? Share your thoughts below!
Up Next: The next discussion will be on October 4, which is our second themed month. October’s theme is horror, so the next movie will be Na Hong-jin’s sprawling folk horror nightmare, The Wailing (2016)! This movie is much more widely available than the last. Check out the trailer and where it’s playing:
USA
- Stream: Fubo, Hi-Yah, Hoopla, Kanopy, Kokowa+, Netflix, Peacock, Viki Rakuten, The Roku Channel, Tubi
- Rent or Buy: Amazon, Apple TV, Microsoft Store, Google Play, YouTube, Fandango At Home
Canada
- Stream: Hoopla, Kokowa+, Netflix, Viki Rakuten, Tubi
- Rent or Buy: Apple TV, Microsoft Store, Google Play, YouTube
UK
- Stream: Prime Video, Netflix
- Rent or Buy: Amazon, Apple TV, Google Play, YouTube
- https://www.rogerebert.com/interviews/connected-to-the-soil-charles-burnett-on-to-sleep-with-anger ↩︎
- https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/blogs/la-rebellion/2011/12/16/myth-memory-and-history-sleep-anger ↩︎
- https://slate.com/culture/2022/07/danny-glover-sleep-anger-ending-meaning-burnett-interview.html ↩︎
- https://www.tcm.com/articles/Article/020943/charles-burnett-reflects-on-ito-sleep-with-anger-i) ↩︎