7:30 p.m.	The Glass Shield Charles Burnett (U.S., 1995)

As The Glass Shield begins, J. J. Johnson (Michael Boatman) has just been appointed the first black officer at L.A.'s Edgemar station. The opening sequence sketches out this eager innocent's vision of comic-book heroism; the events that follow (based on a true story) carry him from cartoon fantasy into the morally ambiguous realm of film noir. "You're one of us, not a brother," a white coworker reminds J. J., and this divided loyalty becomes the crux of the hero's crisis when he discovers that he's been unwittingly involved in framing a black man (Ice Cube). J. J.'s fellow odd-person-out, Jewish female Deputy Fields (Lori Petty), has good reason to ask him, "Which side are you on?" Terrence Rafferty wrote in the New Yorker, "The truth that informs all the action in the movie is simple and profoundly political: you can't know yourself until you know what you're a part of."

—Juliet Clark

• Written by Burnett, from a screenplay by Ned Welsh. Photographed by Elliot Davis. With Michael Boatman, Lori Petty, Ice Cube, Michael Ironside. (108 mins, Color, 35mm, From Miramax)

Total running time: 155 mins plus intermission and discussion

Preceded by:

Shorts by Charles Burnett

Three stylistically diverse shorts demonstrate Burnett's abiding interests in community, family, and the cultural significance of music. Several Friends (1969, 21 mins, B&W, 35mm, Courtesy UCLA Film & Television Archive) prefigures Killer of Sheep and My Brother's Wedding with its bleakly comic slice of L.A. black life, its protagonists dreaming of Hollywood parties, flashy rides, and fine broads while coping with everyday breakdowns. The moody, enigmatic The Horse (1973, 13 mins, Color, 16mm, Courtesy UCLA Film & Television Archive) depicts a bleached rural landscape where various characters, including a young boy, anticipate an inevitable act of violence. A contemporary griot traverses an L.A. neighborhood in search of rent money for a young mother in When It Rains (1995, 13 mins, Color, 16mm, From the artist), “a masterpiece about the disparate elements of a modern American community and the humane art—the good humor—that binds it” (Armond White, Film Comment).—Juliet Clark