February 06, 2005
#6 The Color Purple
The Color Purple came out in 1985. It was critically acclaimed and copped 11 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Actress (Whoopi Goldberg), and Best Supporting Actress (Oprah Winfrey and Margaret Avery). Yet, it was frozen out worse than Michael Jordan in that year's all star game. No wins.
Yes, this movie came out in 85, however, I was not allowed to watch it until 1988. Even then, my cousin and I had to sneak and watch it when everyone went to work one summer's day. I wasn't prepared for how long this shit was, but for some reason it wasn't boring. It held my attention for that amount of time, and has had it ever since.
The story follows Celie's (whoopi) life from her abusive father to her abusive husband, Albert ska Mista (Danny Glover). In the process she gets separated from her sister Nettie (Akosua Busia) and her children, and has to rear Mista's kids and put up with his abuse, watch his ex Shug Avery (with that 'Nasty Woman's disease, according to Old Mista) move in and out, and all other kinds of shit, til one day she was like, fuck it, and left.
I think this movie was the jump-off to the Oprah movement as an actress. After this, she was in the Native Son remake and that miniseries The Women of Brewster Place, which is something I would NEVER have watched on my own, but being on punishment at granny's house will open a person up to things he would not do on a normal basis, like read encyclopedias for leisure.
There are wayyy too many great scenes out of this to go through them all. But I think one of the best is the jook joint scene where Shug is performing. Damn near all the principal characters were there at one point:
Mista brought Celie out for the performance, and them women just dogged her something awful. But it was more than made up for when Shug sung "Miss Celie's Blues...'
Sofia was there with her boxer boyfriend, who I believe got knocked out in the fight.
Harpo (mista's son) was running the joint with his girl, Squeak (You said this here our jook joint!)
The trouble really started when Squeak tried to sass Sofia and got knocked into the water. The whole place erupted into a fight, with mista getting some licks in and Celie tickled pink, which, would pale in comparison with her getting tickled by Shug later on. I mean, Celie became a bonafide stalker after that.
Oh, I cannot leave out the whole 'God's Tryin' to Tell You Somethin'' scene. It brought Shug home for forgiveness from her preacher father, and opened the window for even Mista to redeem himself by making a way for Nettie and Celie's kids to come home. I would sit through it again just for those two scenes (and the dinner table, can't leave that out....).
I'm trying to find the flaws here. One that may have stood out was the length. But the story was told so well, and the performances so compelling that getting wrapped up in it was next to impossible. I'm not sure how well it stayed close to the book either, since I never read it. I only heard that it was more brutal and there was a lot of black male bashing, so I kinda lost the desire to read it. Maybe I will as a primer to Alice Walker being on UA's campus next month for a talk.
Oh yeah, the soundtrack is rare on CD and like $95...
Posted by maximillian at February 6, 2005 11:19 PM