<em>To Sleep With Anger </em>Is a Masterpiece From an Overlooked Film Pioneer
Charles Burnett’s family drama was one of the best movies of the 1990s, but it never received the attention it deserved.
begins with a shot of a middle-aged African American man named Gideon (played by Paul Butler) dressed in his Sunday best: a crisp light-blue suit. On the table beside him are a bowl of fruit and a fading picture of a woman from another time. She’s looking sternly at the camera while he looks off into the middle distance. The fruit catches fire, followed by the table leg, then by Gideon’s shoes—but the flames consume none of them. It’s an omen weighted with biblical meaning, an inscrutable signal of the trials that lie ahead. The film then cuts to Gideon waking from a dream with a troubled look
