Charles Burnett had a dilemma. He had agreed to attend the wedding of a co-worker, but the wedding was scheduled for the same day and time as a funeral for a childhood friend.
Initially, the film-maker – a landmark chronicler of Black working-class lives – decided he’d go to the funeral. But when he tried to break the news to the co-worker, she was so dejected that he couldn’t go through with it. He tried asking the bride to change the wedding – which was “ridiculous to think of trying to do”, he says decades later – but that didn’t work either. He decided he’d go to both events.
