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The Color Purple (1986)


Directed by Steven Spielberg
Released February 7, 1986
Screenplay written by Menno Meyjes
Novel written by Alice Walker

Movie Synopsis Courtesy of IMDB

"A black Southern women struggles to find her identity after suffering abuse from her father and others over four decades."

I bet many of you are surprised to see this movie on the blog. It is not the same style and genre as a lot of the movies on this blog, but you know what it does have in common with those movies? This movie was made in the 80s, therefore I am going to talk about it!

Now, not only does this movie portray a very hard part of history, but it also covers a lot of dark and disturbing subject matter. With that said, it is important for the creators of the movie to do their research on the history of this time period. Everything from the sets, to costumes, music, and most importantly the language. This is the part that stuck out to me the most in this movie, the way the characters all talked. Not only the grammar and word choice, but the accent of their voice as well was carefully thoughtout and researched. I think that is the main aspect of this movie that draws people in right away. 

Especially, with the use of Celie's voice over. Right away at the start of the movie we hear her praying to God and it is with her tone that viewers see that this movie is going to take you on an emotional and difficult ride. I think the use of the voice over in this movie was used very cleverly. I say that because if you think about the character, she really doesn't say much. Whether that be because she is not allowed to talk or that she had no one to talk to, without her voice overs we would not know as much about her and the life she is living. We also wouldn't see as much as to how the actions of the people around her make her feel. By praying to God, through the use of voice overs, we see what she is really thinking because a conversation with God is something that is honest and not someone you are trying to hide things from.

One technical aspect of this movie that I noticed, is that it strayed away from the typical rhythm of movie edits. First off, most of the shots were very wide and took up whole locations. There weren't a lot of close ups or even medium shots throughout the movie. Many of the scenes were comprised of shots that had the whole character's or sometimes characters' bodies in the shot. Going along with that, the other part to this is that their were not a lot of shots in general in this movie. Most of the shots lingered, or tracked the characters throughout the scene with only cutting a few times to get a better angle. Most of the time in film you see a cut about every 3 seconds. You can see both of these techniques being used in this scene.



I think the main reason that Spielberg made these choices was because of the subject matter. Like I mentioned in the intro, this movie covers a lot of dark and depression subject matter. Which means in most scenes there is a lot physically and/or emotionally going on. Both are present in the scene above. The conversations and physical actions command the viewer's attention longer, so therefore the director didn't need to worry as much about changing shots to keep the viewer's attention. 

Completely contradicting the above statements, one of my favorite scenes has a lot of cuts in it. I am talking about the scene when Celie is shaving Mr. Johnson. 


Not only does this scene have a lot of quick cuts and close up shots, but it also uses the music along with the themes in the different locations to illustrate the actions of Celie. There is not much dialogue in this scene, but there doesn't need to be. The tension that is created through the quick cuts, music, and emotions of the characters creates an emotion of anticipation in the viewer to see if Celie actually manages to cut Mr. Johnson.


The last thing that I want to touch on about this movie is the strong use of characterization. Not only in the characters themselves, but in the choice of actors for those parts. The main two characters I am looking at is Whoopi Goldberg's Celie and Oprah Winfrey's Sofia. These two strong women help drive the emotion of this story more than any of the others. Sofia's character is so important in this movie to show the rarity of a woman fighting for herself and not letting a man take advantage of her. During this time it was rare, and frankly unheard-of for a women to be that independent. Seeing a women like Sofia to contrast Celie's scared life brings more emotion to both characters. It shows how Celie is basically a slave in her marriage to her husband while Sofia is more of a partner to her husband.



These parts were also expertly portrayed by these two actresses. We normally don't see these two women in such vulnerable and dark films as this one, but in my opinion these are the best performances that the women have ever had. Period. 

Sofia: "All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my uncles. I had to fight my brothers. A girl child ain't safe in a family of men, but I ain't never thought I'd have to fight in my own house!"




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