Year: 1983/ 2007
Writer(s): Charles Burnett
Cinematographer: Charles Burnett
Cast:
Running Time: 115 min.
Widely acclaimed but seldom seen, this second film from director Charles Burnett is at last ready to take its rightful place as a rediscovered landmark of African American cinema. Until recently, My Brother’s Wedding has only been available (if at all) in a nearly two-hour long “rough cutâ€? which premiered during the 1984 “New Directors/New Filmsâ€? series at New York’s Lincoln Center. Reviews were lukewarm, and when Burnett appealed to his producers to let him perform a final edit, they shelved the film instead. Burnett would not direct again for nearly seven years. Film critic Armond White has called the loss of My Brother’s Wedding “a catastrophic blow to the development of American popular culture.â€?
After nearly a quarter century in limbo, Milestone Films acquired the rights to My Brother‘s Wedding, and at Burnett’s request, allowed him to complete his “tragic comedyâ€? of manners. A.O. Scott of the New York Times has hailed the new director’s cut as “an 81-minute feature of astonishing richness and density…an indelible reminder of what real independence looks like,“ and “a film that is so firmly and organically rooted in a specific time and place that it seems to contain worlds.â€?
Like Burnett’s first feature, the independent classic Killer of Sheep, My Brother’s Wedding takes place in the Watts ghetto of Los Angeles, and observes the harsh realities of working-class life with the uncanny accuracy of a documentary. The film tells the story of thirty-year-old Pierce Mundy (Everett Silas), an unambitious African American dry-cleaner, working for his parents, who discovers that his best friend’s funeral will occur on the same day as his upwardly mobile brother’s wedding. Torn between loyalty to his community and duty to family, Pierce tries to work out a compromise.
On a deeper level, My Brother’s Wedding also presents a delicate and timely portrait of a Black community in crisis. Never resorting to sensationalism, Burnett hints ominously at a rising tide of violent crime, even as he celebrates the deep religious faith which enables his characters to withstand it. With crisp color cinematography and a keen sense of place, My Brother’s Wedding weaves its close observations of working-class family life into a larger tapestry of African American struggle.
