Art in conversation.

It was Killer of Sheep yesterday, and Sinners today. One hard to find movie in a small four-screen independent theater, one playing just about everywhere - even taking special screening formats into account - in a multiplex on IMAX. One very quiet, one with a lot of sound. One trying to show you something so ordinary it becomes extraordinary, one trying to tell you a roaring story that takes you all the way out of yourself.

Two movies about being Black in America. Two movies that articulate the directors' intended visions as perfectly, forcefully, and gracefully as you could ask for. Two movies about the sublime power of music and its ability to transfix and transform and take you someplace else, wherever you happen to be. Two movies that each have a scene of people dancing that communicates the central thesis of the whole movie for the length of the song. Two movies with killing and death, and blood flowing freely. Two movies where there's barely the idea of a way out of a suffocating life, much less a means to achieve it. Two movies that capture a specific time and place, looking carefully at the community being portrayed, whether it's in the Mississippi Delta or Los Angeles' Watts neighborhood - it's the same struggle all over, no matter the time or place, to find a little bit of freedom and feel a little bit of joy.

It made for a wonderful double bill, just as I'd hoped they would.