Odyssey To Save Ulysses
On June 25, 1978, 12-year-old Ulysses "Butch" Slaughter listened as his mother, Clarice, was shot to death by his father Ulysses Sr. For decades the son would contemplate revenge, stalking and taunting his aging father. From rage to reconciliation, Odyssey To Save Ulysses is the journey of his lifetime. Before watching "Odyssey" read Dear Daddy, I hate you. Then watch My Father's Sins.
My Father Sins
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The date is June 25, 1978. The location is a small apartment near 83rd and Cottage Grove on Chicago's South Side. Twelve-year-old Ulysses “Butch” Slaughter lies on his bed paralyzed with fear as his father Ulysses Sr. prepares to pull the gun’s trigger. “I’ll kill you if you try to leave,” Ulysses Sr. tells Butch’s mother Clarice. “Kill me!” the woman shouts. “Kill me!” And so Ulysses Sr. does. He kills his son’s mother. Within moments, the door to Butch’s bedroom opened and the boy sees his mother bleeding from two gunshot wounds to her right temple. His father is holding the gun.
“I had to do it,” Ulysses Sr. tells his son. “She was going to leave us. I had to do it.”
At age thirteen, Ulysses “Butch” Slaughter would become the chief witness in the trial against his father who pleaded self-defense and served less than four years in prison. Over the next 30 years, the father and son would rarely talk. The father became a social outcast, cut off by his son. The son became a father himself but remained bitter and frequently considered exacting a revenge for which God seemed reluctant.
One day, the son grew tired under the weight of self-hatred and hatred for his father. One day the son decided to seek salvation - for himself and for his father. One day the son decided to take the Odyssey To Save Ulysses.
Odyssey To Save Ulysses is a series of short documentaries that chronicle the reunion and reconciliation of Ulysses "Butch" Slaughter and his father Ulysses Grant Slaughter, Sr. The first film of the series "Act One: I never had a father" is a deeply moving story that follows Ulysses Jr., 45, as he embarks on a 12-hour trip from Philadelphia to Chicago to meet his estranged father. The 75-year-old father waits anxiously for his son in Chicago and reflects on the tragedy that tore his family apart.
Ultimately the two men come face to face on June 25, 2011, exactly 33 years to the date of Clarice's death. More than a symbolic ritual, the son takes his father to Clarice's gravesite for the very first time.
