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 was a change from the summer blockbusters for which he had become famous. The film was also the first feature-length 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.
Filmed in Anson and Union counties in North Carolina, 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.
The film was a box office success, raising $142 million from a budget of $15 million. The film received positive reviews from critics, receiving praise for its acting, direction, screenplay, score, and production merits; 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, without winning any; it also received four Golden Globe Award nominations, with Whoopi Goldberg winning Best Actress in a Drama. Steven Spielberg didn't 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

In 1909, Celie is an African-American girl in rural Georgia who has had two children by her abusive father, both of whom have been taken from her. Her father then gives her away as a wife to widower Albert "Mister" Johnson, who already has three children and who also abuses Celie and the children treat her badly. Celie's younger sister, Nettie, the only person who loves her, runs away from home when their father starts abusing her and seeks shelter at Celie and Mister's home. The sisters promise to write each other should they ever be separated. Nettie teaches Celie to read and the two are happy together until Mister tries to rape Nettie while on her way to school. She successfully fights him off and is forcibly removed by him from the property.
Seven years later, Celie is now a meek adult who has avoided standing up to Mister's continued abuse. His eldest son, Harpo, marries his pregnant girlfriend, Sofia, a strong-willed, boisterous woman, and Celie is shocked to find her running a matriarchal household. On Mister's advice, Harpo attempts to overpower and strike Sofia in an attempt to better control her. After he fails, he asks Celie what to do. Confronted with her own inability to stand up to abuse, she also advises Harpo to start beating Sofia. Sofia forcefully retaliates and confronts Celie about what she told Harpo. She also reveals she has had to fight off abuse from all the men in her family. She threatens to kill Harpo if he beats her again and tells Celie to do likewise to Mister. After Harpo doesn't change his ways, Sofia leaves him, taking their children with her.
Mister and Harpo bring home Shug Avery, a showgirl and the former's long-time mistress, as she suffers from an unknown illness. Celie, who has slowly developed a fondness for Shug through a photograph sent to Mister, is in awe of Shug's strong will and ability to stand up to Mister. She nurses Shug back to health over the next six years, and Shug in turn takes a liking to her, writing and performing a song about her at Harpo's newly opened bar. That night, Shug tells Celie she's moving to Memphis, and Celie confesses to Shug that Mister beats her when Shug isn't there for not being her. Shug tells Celie she's beautiful and that she loves her, and the two women kiss. Celie decides to follow Shug to Memphis, but gets caught by Mister while she's frantically packing her things.
Meanwhile, Sofia has been imprisoned for striking the town's mayor after he assaults her. Years pass, and she, now a shell of her former self, is released from prisononly 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. As Ms. Millie tries to drive home, she panics after encountering a group of Sofia's friends trying to help her, ordering Sofia to help her drive home before Sofia can spend any time with her children.
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 for 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 to Tennessee. Before leaving, Celie places a curse on Mister that unless he does the right thing, everything he does will go wrong. While in Tennessee, Celie supports herself as a tailor selling one size pants.
Years later, Mister is old, a drunk, and alone. He's feeling the effects of Celie's curse as his farm becomes a literal pigsty and remorse starts to set in on him. When his father appeals to him to remarry, Mister sends him away. Harpo has made amends with Sofia and the two now run the bar together, and Shug still performs there. Celie returns home to attend her father's funeral. From a lover of his, she finally learns that he wasn't their biological father and that her real father's property is legally inherited by Celie and Nettie. Celie opens up the property into a shop for pants. 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., where they finally reunite while Mister watches from a distance. Shug is proud of him for finally doing the right thing and bringing Celie's family home.

Cast

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

Reception

Box office

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

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: "A sentimental tale that reveals great emotional truths in American history." 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".
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. Ebert wrote of The Color Purple:
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 womenboth wives and daughtersas sexual chattel."
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:
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."
In addition, some critics alleged that the movie stereotyped black people in general and black men in particular, pointing to the fact that Spielberg, who is white, had directed a predominantly African American story.
About some criticism the movie received, Steven Spielberg: "Most of the criticism came from directors 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 relationship between Shug Avery and Celie that were finely detailed in Alice's book, that I didn't feel could get a 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."
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."
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."

Accolades

The Color Purple was nominated for 11 Academy Awards. 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.
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.
AwardCategoryNomineeResult
Academy AwardsBest PictureSteven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall and Quincy Jones
Academy AwardsBest ActressWhoopi Goldberg
Academy AwardsBest Supporting ActressMargaret Avery
Academy AwardsBest Supporting ActressOprah Winfrey
Academy AwardsBest Screenplay Based on Material from Another MediumMenno Meyjes
Academy AwardsBest Art DirectionJ. Michael Riva, Bo Welch and Linda DeScenna
Academy AwardsBest CinematographyAllen Daviau
Academy AwardsBest Costume DesignAggie Guerard Rodgers
Academy AwardsBest MakeupKen Chase
Academy AwardsBest Original ScoreChris Boardman, Jorge Calandrelli, Andraé Crouch, Jack Hayes, Jerry Hey, Quincy Jones,
Randy Kerber, Jeremy Lubbock, Joel Rosenbaum, Caiphus Semenya, Fred Steiner and Rod Temperton
Academy AwardsBest Original Song"Miss Celie's Blues" – Quincy Jones and Rod Temperton and Lionel Richie
All Def Movie AwardsMost Quoted MovieThe Color Purple
ASCAP Film and Television Music AwardsTop Box Office FilmsChris Boardman, Jorge Calandrelli, Andraé Crouch, Jack Hayes, Quincy Jones, Joel Rosenbaum, Fred Steiner and
Rod Temperton
Black Movie AwardsClassic Cinema Hall of FameThe Color Purple
Blue Ribbon AwardsBest Foreign FilmSteven Spielberg
British Academy Film AwardsBest Adapted ScreenplayMenno Meyjes
British Society of CinematographersBest CinematographyAllen Daviau
Casting Society of America AwardsBest Casting for Feature Film – DramaReuben Cannon
Directors Guild of America AwardsOutstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion PicturesSteven Spielberg
Golden Globe AwardsBest Motion Picture – DramaThe Color Purple
Golden Globe AwardsBest Actress in a Motion Picture – DramaWhoopi Goldberg
Golden Globe AwardsBest Supporting Actress – Motion PictureOprah Winfrey
Golden Globe AwardsBest Director – Motion PictureSteven Spielberg
Golden Globe AwardsBest Original Score – Motion PictureQuincy Jones
Heartland Film FestivalTruly Moving PictureSteven Spielberg
Japan Academy Film PrizeOutstanding Foreign Language FilmThe Color Purple
Kansas City Film Critics Circle AwardsBest DirectorSteven Spielberg
Los Angeles Film Critics Association AwardsBest ActressWhoopi Goldberg
Los Angeles Film Critics Association AwardsBest Supporting ActressOprah Winfrey
Los Angeles Film Critics Association AwardsNew Generation AwardWhoopi Goldberg
NAACP Image AwardsOutstanding Motion PictureThe Color Purple
NAACP Image AwardsOutstanding Actress in a Motion PictureWhoopi Goldberg
National Board of Review AwardsBest FilmThe Color Purple
National Board of Review AwardsThe Color Purple
National Board of Review AwardsBest ActressWhoopi Goldberg
Online Film & Television AssociationHall of Fame – Motion PictureThe Color Purple
Writers Guild of America AwardsBest Screenplay Based on Material from Another MediumMenno Meyjes