CHARLES

2025, 2' 38''. Experimental doc. HDV, Black & White, Sound.

Do you remember the scene in Killer of Sheep (1978) where the kids are playing on abandoned railroad tracks? This is in the Watts neighborhood. Charles Burnett took me to some of the locations from his films in Los Angeles.

The arrival of the railroad and cinema shaped the modern world. The U.S. railroad is a prime example of how technology accelerated the perception of time, representing a movement towards progress within the image industry. The railroad ran hand in hand with the American colonial project and has been represented in numerous mainstream American films as a way to construct imagery. The L.A. Rebellion film movement, an “alternative” type of cinema that existed outside the mainstream despite being created in Hollywood, engendered a kind of Resistance Image, prompting viewers to engage with the work through their labor and the ghosts of their imagination.