The Color Purple (film)

The Color Purple is a 1985 American coming-of-age period drama film directed by Steven Spielberg with a screenplay by Menno Meyjes, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1982 novel of the same name by Alice Walker. It was Spielberg's eighth film as a director, and marked a turning point in his career as it was a departure from the summer blockbusters for which he had become known. It was also the first feature film directed by Spielberg for which John Williams did not compose the music. The film stars Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Desreta Jackson, Margaret Avery, Oprah Winfrey, Rae Dawn Chong, Willard Pugh, and Adolph Caesar in one of his final film roles.[2][3]

The Color Purple
Theatrical release poster by John Alvin
Directed bySteven Spielberg
Produced by
Screenplay byMenno Meyjes
Based onThe Color Purple
by Alice Walker
Starring
Music byQuincy Jones
CinematographyAllen Daviau
Edited byMichael Kahn
Production
company
Distributed byWarner Bros. Pictures
Release date
  • December 18, 1985 (1985-12-18)
Running time
153 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$15 million
Box office$142 million

Filmed in Anson and Union counties in North Carolina,[4] the film tells the story of a young African-American girl named Celie Harris and shows the problems African-American women faced during the early 20th century, including domestic violence, incest, pedophilia, poverty, racism, and sexism. Celie is transformed as she finds her self-worth through the help of two strong female companions.[5]

The film was a box office success, grossing $142 million against a budget of $15 million. The film received positive reviews from critics, receiving praise for its acting, direction, screenplay, musical score, and production values; but it was also criticized by some critics for being "over-sentimental" and "stereotypical". The film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress for Goldberg, Best Supporting Actress for both Avery and Winfrey, and Best Adapted Screenplay, without winning any; it also received four Golden Globe Award nominations, with Whoopi Goldberg winning Best Actress in a Drama. Steven Spielberg did not receive an Academy Award nomination for his directing, but did receive a Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement, and a Golden Globe nomination. The film was later included in Roger Ebert's book series The Great Movies.

Plot

Celie is an African-American teenager in early 20th century rural Georgia who has lost two children by her abusive father. He gives her away as a wife to Mister who also abuses her and his children treat her badly. Celie's loving younger sister, Nettie, runs away from the abusive father and seeks shelter with Celie. The sisters promise to write if they are separated. Mister attempts to sexually assault Nettie and he kicks her out after she fights him off.

Years later, Celie is meek from abuse. Mister's son Harpo marries Sofia, and Celie is shocked to find her running a matriarchal household. Harpo attempts to overpower and strike Sofia but he fails. Celie advises Harpo to beat Sofia. Sofia retaliates and confronts Celie, revealing her long history of abuse. She threatens to kill Harpo if he beats her again and tells Celie to do likewise to Mister. Harpo doesn't change, so Sofia leaves and takes their children.

Mister and Harpo bring home the ailing Shug Avery, a showgirl and Mister's long-time mistress. Celie, who has slowly developed a fondness for Shug through a photograph sent to Mister, is in awe of Shug's strong will. She nurses Shug back to health, and Shug in turn takes a liking to her, writing and performing a song about her at Harpo's newly opened bar. Shug tells Celie she's moving to Memphis, and Celie confesses to Shug that Mister beats her. Shug tells Celie she's beautiful and that she loves her, and they kiss. Celie packs her things to follow Shug to Memphis, but gets caught by Mister.

Meanwhile, Sofia has been imprisoned for striking the town's mayor after he slaps her. Years pass, and she, now a shell of her former self, is released from prison  only to be immediately ordered by the judge to become a maid to the mayor's wife, Ms. Millie. Having not seen her children in eight years, Sofia is allotted Christmas to be with her family, and Ms. Millie tries to drive her but panics and turns around after encountering a group of Sofia's friends, who were only trying to help her.

Shug returns to Celie and Mister's home with her new husband, Grady, expecting to receive a recording contract. Shug gives Celie a letter from Nettie, who tells her that she's working for a couple that has adopted Celie's children. Celie and Shug realize that Mister has been hiding Nettie's letters from Celie; while he and Grady are out drinking, the two search the house and find a hidden compartment under the floor boards filled with dozens and dozens of Nettie's letters. Engrossed in reading, Celie does not hear Mister's calls to shave him and he beats her. Celie attempts to kill Mister with a straight razor, but Shug intervenes and stops her. At a family gathering, Celie finally speaks up against Mister to the delight of Shug and Sofia, who finds her old fighting spirit, which prompts Harpo's new wife, Squeak, to stand up for herself as well. Shug and Grady drive away, taking Celie and Squeak with them.

Years later, Mister is an old drunk and alone, and Harpo has made amends with Sofia; the two now run the bar together, and Shug still performs there. Celie's father passes away, and she finally learns from Nettie's letters that he wasn't their biological father and that when their mother passed, "his" property was legally inherited by Celie and Nettie. This is when she receives the home and shop that had belonged to her father, which was passed to their mother before their step-father took it over. Celie begins to operate a tailor shop. Mister receives a letter from Nettie addressed to Celie, takes money from his secret stash, and arranges for Nettie, her husband, and Celie's children to return to the U.S. While mister is watching from a distance, Celie, Nettie, and Celie's children re-unite. The film is concluded with Celie and Nettie bonding over a hand clapping game from their childhood.

Cast

Release

The film premiered on December 18, 1985, and went on general release on February 7, 1986.[6] The Color Purple was shown at the 1986 Cannes Film Festival as a non-competing title.[7]

Reception

Box office

The Color Purple was a success at the box office, staying in U.S. theaters for 21 weeks,[6] and grossing over $142 million worldwide.[8] In terms of box office income, it ranked as the #1 rated PG-13 film released in 1985, and #4 overall.[6]

Critical response

The film received positive reviews from critics, receiving praise for its acting, direction, screenplay, score, and production merits, but was criticized by some for being "over-sentimental" and "stereotypical". Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 81% based on reviews from 31 critics, with an average score of 6.86/10. The website's critical consensus states: "It might have been better served by a filmmaker with a deeper connection to the source material, but The Color Purple remains a worthy, well-acted adaptation of Alice Walker's classic novel."[10] On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 78 out of 100, based on seven critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[11]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times awarded the film four stars, calling it "the year's best film." He also praised Whoopi Goldberg, calling her role "one of the most amazing debut performances in movie history" and predicting she would win the Academy Award for Best Actress. (She was nominated but did not win.) Ebert wrote of The Color Purple:

The world of Celie and the others is created so forcibly in this movie that their corner of the South becomes one of those movie places  like Oz, like Tara, like Casablanca  that lay claim to their own geography in our imaginations. The affirmation at the end of the film is so joyous that this is one of the few movies in a long time that inspires tears of happiness, and earns them.[12]

Ebert's long-time television collaborator, Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune, praised the film as "triumphantly emotional and brave", calling it Spielberg's "successful attempt to enlarge his reputation as a director of youthful entertainments." Siskel wrote that The Color Purple was "a plea for respect for black women." Although acknowledging that the film was a period drama, he praised its "... incredibly strong stand against the way black men treat black women. Cruel is too kind a word to describe their behavior. The principal black men in The Color Purple use their women  both wives and daughters  as sexual chattel."[13]

The New York Times film critic Janet Maslin noted the film's divergence from Walker's book, but made the case that this shift works:

Mr. Spielberg has looked on the sunny side of Miss Walker's novel, fashioning a grand, multi-hanky entertainment that is as pretty and lavish as the book is plain. If the book is set in the harsh, impoverished atmosphere of rural Georgia, the movie unfolds in a cozy, comfortable, flower-filled wonderland. ... Some parts of it are rapturous and stirring, others hugely improbable, and the film moves unpredictably from one mode to another. From another director, this might be fatally confusing, but Mr. Spielberg's showmanship is still with him. Although the combination of his sensibilities and Miss Walker's amounts to a colossal mismatch, Mr. Spielberg's Color Purple manages to have momentum, warmth and staying power all the same.[14]

Variety found the film over-sentimental, writing, "there are some great scenes and great performances in The Color Purple, but it is not a great film. Steven Spielberg's turn at 'serious' film-making is marred in more than one place by overblown production that threatens to drown in its own emotions."[15]

In addition, some critics alleged that the movie stereotyped black people in general[16] and black men in particular,[17] pointing to the fact that Spielberg, who is white, had directed a predominantly African American story.[18]

About some criticism the movie received, Steven Spielberg: "Most of the criticism came from directors [who] felt that we had overlooked them, and that it should have been a black director telling a black story. That was the main criticism. The other criticism was that I had softened the book. I have always copped to that. I made the movie I wanted to make from Alice Walker's book. There were certain things in the [lesbian] relationship between Shug Avery and Celie that were finely detailed in Alice's book, that I didn't feel could get a [PG-13] rating. And I was shy about it. In that sense, perhaps I was the wrong director to acquit some of the more sexually honest encounters between Shug and Celie, because I did soften those. I basically took something that was extremely erotic and very intentional, and I reduced it to a simple kiss. I got a lot of criticism for that."[19]

Filmmaker Oliver Stone defended The Color Purple as "an excellent movie, and it was an attempt to deal with an issue that had been overlooked, and it wouldn't have been done if it hadn't been Spielberg. And it's not like everyone says, that he ruined the book. That's horseshit. Nobody was going to do the book. He made the book live again."[20]

In 2004, Ebert included The Color Purple in his list of "Great Movies". He stated that "I can see its flaws more easily than when I named it the best film of 1985, but I can also understand why it moved me so deeply, and why the greatness of some films depends not on their perfection or logic, but on their heart."[21]

Accolades

The Color Purple was nominated for 11 Academy Awards (including Best Picture, Best Actress for Goldberg and Best Supporting Actress for both Avery and Winfrey).[22] It failed to win any of them, tying the record set by 1977's The Turning Point for the most Oscar nominations without a single win.[17]

Steven Spielberg received his first Directors Guild of America Award at the 38th awards ceremony for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures. He became the first director to win the award without even being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Director.

Award Category Nominee(s) Result
Academy Awards Best Picture Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall and Quincy Jones Nominated
Best Actress Whoopi Goldberg Nominated
Best Supporting Actress Margaret Avery Nominated
Oprah Winfrey Nominated
Best Screenplay – Based on Material from Another Medium Menno Meyjes Nominated
Best Art Direction J. Michael Riva, Bo Welch and Linda DeScenna Nominated
Best Cinematography Allen Daviau Nominated
Best Costume Design Aggie Guerard Rodgers Nominated
Best Makeup Ken Chase Nominated
Best Original Score Chris Boardman, Jorge Calandrelli, Andraé Crouch, Jack Hayes, Jerry Hey, Quincy Jones,
Randy Kerber, Jeremy Lubbock, Joel Rosenbaum, Caiphus Semenya, Fred Steiner and Rod Temperton
Nominated
Best Original Song "Miss Celie's Blues" – Quincy Jones and Rod Temperton and Lionel Richie Nominated
All Def Movie Awards Most Quoted Movie The Color Purple Nominated
ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards Top Box Office Films Chris Boardman, Jorge Calandrelli, Andraé Crouch, Jack Hayes, Quincy Jones, Joel Rosenbaum, Fred Steiner and
Rod Temperton
Won
Black Movie Awards Classic Cinema Hall of Fame The Color Purple Won
Blue Ribbon Awards Best Foreign Film Steven Spielberg Won
British Academy Film Awards Best Adapted Screenplay Menno Meyjes Nominated
British Society of Cinematographers Best Cinematography Allen Daviau Nominated
Casting Society of America Awards Best Casting for Feature Film – Drama Reuben Cannon Won
Directors Guild of America Awards Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures Steven Spielberg Won
Golden Globe Awards[23] Best Motion Picture – Drama The Color Purple Nominated
Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Drama Whoopi Goldberg Won
Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture Oprah Winfrey Nominated
Best Director – Motion Picture Steven Spielberg Nominated
Best Original Score – Motion Picture Quincy Jones Nominated
Heartland Film Festival Truly Moving Picture Steven Spielberg Won
Japan Academy Film Prize Outstanding Foreign Language Film The Color Purple Nominated
Kansas City Film Critics Circle Awards Best Director Steven Spielberg Won
Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards Best Actress Whoopi Goldberg Nominated
Best Supporting Actress Oprah Winfrey Nominated
New Generation Award Whoopi Goldberg Nominated
NAACP Image Awards Outstanding Motion Picture The Color Purple Won
Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture Whoopi Goldberg Won
National Board of Review Awards Best Film The Color Purple Won
Top Ten Films Won
Best Actress Whoopi Goldberg Won
Online Film & Television Association Hall of Fame – Motion Picture The Color Purple Won
Writers Guild of America Awards Best Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium Menno Meyjes Nominated

Musical film remake

On November 2, 2018, it was announced that a film adaptation of the 2005 stage musical version was in development.[24] Steven Spielberg and Quincy Jones return to co-produce this version, alongside the stage musical's producers Scott Sanders and Oprah Winfrey. On August 25, 2020, it was announced that Marcus Gardley will pen the screenplay and Black is King's Blitz Bazawule will direct.[25][26][27] On December 23, 2020, it was announced that the film would be released on December 20, 2023 and that Alice Walker, Rebecca Walker, Kristie Macosko Krieger, Carla Gardini, and Mara Jacobs will executive produce the film.[28]

See also

References

  1. "The Color Purple (15)". British Board of Film Classification. April 10, 1986. Retrieved March 16, 2016.
  2. Stewart, Robert W. (March 7, 1986). "Adolph Caesar: Fatal Heart Attack Fells Actor on Set". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved November 9, 2018.
  3. Benke, Richard (March 7, 1986). "Adolph Caesar Dead of a Heart Attack at Age 52". AP News. Retrieved February 10, 2020.
  4. "The Color Purple filming locations". The 80s Movie Rewind. Retrieved January 17, 2010.
  5. Corliss, Richard (December 23, 1985). "Cinema: The Three Faces of Steve the Color Purple". Time. Retrieved October 29, 2010.
  6. "The Color Purple". Box Office Mojo. Accessed Dec. 9, 2011.
  7. "The Color Purple". Festival de Cannes. Retrieved February 10, 2020.
  8. Matthews, Jack (December 25, 1985). "A Strong Start for 'Color Purple' in Christmas Box Office Race". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 29, 2010.
  9. "Alice Walker". Desert Island Discs. May 19, 2013. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved January 18, 2014.
  10. "The Color Purple (1985)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved October 18, 2020.
  11. "The Color Purple Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved July 17, 2019.
  12. Ebert, Roger (December 20, 1985). "The Color Purple". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved October 30, 2010.
  13. Siskel, Gene (December 20, 1985). "Color Purple: Powerful, Daring, Sweetly Uplifting". Chicago Tribune. Retrieved October 30, 2010.
  14. Maslin, Janet (December 18, 1985). "Film: 'The Color Purple,' from Steven Spielberg". The New York Times. Retrieved October 29, 2010.
  15. "The Color Purple". Variety. December 31, 1984. Retrieved October 30, 2010.
  16. Clegg II, Legrand H.(Chairman, Coalition Against Black Exploitation, Compton) (February 16, 1986). "Bad Black Roles In 'Purple'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 30, 2010.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  17. Friendly, David T. (March 27, 1986). "Academy Hits Racism Accusation". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 30, 2010.
  18. Matthews, Jack (January 31, 1986). "3 'Color Purple' Actresses Talk About Its Impact". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 30, 2010.
  19. Breznican, Anthony (December 2, 2011). "Steven Spielberg: The EW interview". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved February 10, 2020.
  20. Cooper, Marc. Oliver Stone interview from Playboy Magazine (1988), in Stone, Oliver and Silet, Charles L.P., editors. Oliver Stone—Interviews, University Press of Mississippi (2006), p. 87.
  21. Ebert, Roger (March 28, 2004). "The Color Purple Movie Review (1985)". rogerebert.com. Retrieved June 4, 2015.
  22. "'Out of Africa' Ties as Oscar Nominees: 11 Citations; Spielberg Not Named". Los Angeles Times. February 5, 1986. Retrieved October 29, 2010.
  23. "Winners & Nominees 1986 Golden Globes". goldenglobes.com. Retrieved September 16, 2018.
  24. McPhee, Ryan (November 2, 2018). "Film Adaptation of The Color Purple Musical in Development". Playbill.
  25. Hempstead, Pete (September 2, 2020). "Crossword: Get Ready for The Color Purple Movie Musical With This Week's Puzzle". TheaterMania.
  26. "Ghana's Blitz the Ambassador to direct Warner Bros' 'The Colour Purple'". GhanaWeb. August 26, 2020.
  27. D'Alessandro, Anthony (August 24, 2020). "'The Color Purple' Feature Musical: 'Black Is King's Blitz Bazawule Set To Direct". Deadline.
  28. https://variety.com/2020/film/news/warner-bros-mad-max-fury-road-color-purple-1234874609/

Further reading

  • Tibbetts, John C., and James M. Welsh, eds. The Encyclopedia of Novels Into Film (2nd ed. 2005) pp 67–68.
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