Killer of Sheep: Analysis of Engine Carrying Scene

Killer of Sheep is a film neo-realism film by Charles Burnett. It centers around the Stan who is a man living in Watts, a ghetto of L.A. during the 1970s. Throughout the movie, a constant theme of seems to prevail: no matter how much one works, one will never get a head. Stan feels this way throughout this movie and spends a great deal of time battling with this concept. This, in turn, leads to his ever growing detachment from his family and friends.

However, despite this detachment, Stan does try to do things to better his family's life. This is exampled by an scene in which Stan and a friend go to purchase an engine. This, of course, is prefaced by a conversation that Stan has the day before with a neighbor in which the neighbor asks him, "What do you want with another raggity ass car?" His friend Gene replies,  "Tryna get ahead, man." Stan's neighbor replies "You niggas sick. You think you middle class!" Stan goes to defend himself saying he's not poor because he donates things to the Salvation Army. In this scene, we see the angst he has and how much he is desperately trying to get ahead, but constantly being reminded of how this will never be.

The engine carrying scene then serves to mirror the words Stan's neighbor said. In this scene, Stan and Gene go to buy an engine for a car from a man. As the Stan and Gene carry the engine down the steps from the man's apartment, the camera pans out, giving the audience the view of the steps from below. The audience sees how many stairs there are (there were many). This can represent the fact that the men have far to go, both metaphorically (because Stan is getting the engine to better the life of his family and he has far to go in order to accomplish this task) and physically (the men have to carry the engine a long way). After that the camera pans in on the engine and bodies of the men, not their faces. This is to emphasize the effort that the men are putting in. After the men get the engine down the stairs, they load the engine in the back of Gene's truck. The camera pans out again as the men get in the truck, giving a view of the engine in the back of the truck. As the men pull off, the engine falls out of the truck and breaks.  During this shot, the truck is also going up hill. The truck moving up hill and the engine falling down hill symbolizes that as Stan is trying to move forward and do better (going up hill),  he just gets knocked back down to the same place he was before (the engine was his mode for moving up and without he is in the same plight as before). The panning in on the engine after the men leave it broken just emphasizes the severity of the situation and symbolizes the brokenness of Stan's plight.