‘The Color Purple: THRs 1985 Review

December 16, 1985 Warner Bros. The premiere of Steven Spielberg's film "The Color Purple" took place in New York. At the 58th Academy Awards, the film received eleven nominations, including Best Picture. The Hollywood Reporter's original review is below:

For those who think of Steven Spielberg as just a maker of sci-fi adventure films or high-tech horror films, The Color Purple will be a pleasant surprise. This is a film full of tenderness and love, the eternal love of two sisters cruelly separated in childhood, the love of one of them for her two children taken from her at birth. Based on Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, this novel tells us that everyone and everything needs love and that if we believe in love, everything will be okay.

While I want you to believe it with all my heart, I can't deny that anything is possible when The Color Purple is on screen. Director Spielberg and the great actor who embodies his beliefs are convinced of this. Despite its dark nuances, this film is a lyrical ode to human goodness. Despite his cruelty, Mr. Albert (Danny Glover) has finally mellowed.

The greatest test of a director is his ability to create, within two hours, a universe that makes you believe it actually exists. Spielberg has demonstrated this type of creativity many times, but never more convincingly than here. The story is set in the South and spans nearly 40 years, from 1909 to 1947, and is almost entirely about black communities in rural areas. (The main exception is the mayor of a neighboring town and his indulgent wife.)

This film, written by Menno Mayes, follows the tragic and triumphant story of Celie, who at the age of 14 married a man she did not love, a father who sexually abused her. Celie literally becomes a slave to her husband, who humiliates and insults her in every possible way. His heart belongs to Shug Avery, a blues singer whose father didn't want him to marry. When Albert brings home a sick Shug, Sally cares for him tenderly and they become friends. It is Shug who leads Celie to self-knowledge and recognition of her worth. Shug also finds a letter from Celie (the basis of Walker's novel), telling her that her beloved sister is still alive.

Around him is a large and lively group of characters: the martinet father Albert, four children from a previous marriage, the energetic Sophia, who married Albert's eldest son, Shugen's father, a priest, and several good friends from the city. . In their minds, they fight, Sofia clashes with the mayor's wife and ends up in prison, but years later finds herself in an almost catatonic state. But this is entirely a local phenomenon; I suspect that these two major wars would never have affected their lives or any of the rural policies of the Roosevelt administration because references to them would have changed the focus of the script.

Instead, by focusing on these people, Spielberg shows how a lack of love or understanding, blind prejudice or devotion to passion can endanger the lives of others, and, conversely, compassion and an open heart can heal wounds. It sounds like a simple lesson, but how many movies can you think of these days that are preachy in nature?

Not that Barpur is a sermon. There's too much emotion in exploring the bonds between people who care about each other, too much heartfelt action, such as when grumpy bar patron Shug follows her to join the gospel singers at her father's church, or when a family feud erupts during Christmas dinner . And it’s a wonderful feeling that everything is okay when women finally break free from male dominance and begin to assert themselves.

Thanks to the great help of production designer J. Michael Riva and cinematographer Alain Davia, the film marked the debut of Warner Bros. to achieve a strong impression of a place, even if the place is not in the southern region that we usually visit. These people don't live in shacks with ugly paper walls; They have houses that look like old plantations, and although they are not Taras, they demonstrate a kind of economic stability that unites them. They are not afraid of losing their country, they are afraid of losing their loved ones.

Spielberg has assembled a superb cast for the occasion, led by Danny Glover, whose Albert Suge is a tower of evil, warmed only by his presence, and Whoopi Goldberg, whose rise from slavery to radiant womanhood is a joy. As Shug, Margaret Avery creates a pair of repentant sinners who go from friends to vampires to the ultimate Quincy Jones heroes. Oprah Winfrey portrays the bold and daring Sophia, and Adolph Caesar smiles often as the domineering father Albert.

All these people and all these events are supported organically and flawlessly by Spielberg's impeccable direction, where the tone is often more eloquent than the dialogue and the music (by Jones) is just as integral to the plot. Perhaps not everyone is able to cope with their own world, where emotions dominate economics. But I regard this only as his defeat; You're missing out on one of the most beautiful parables ever put on screen. – Arthur Knight, first published December 17, 1985