| The Color Purple | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster byJohn Alvin | |
| Directed by | Steven Spielberg |
| Screenplay by | Menno Meyjes |
| Based on | The Color Purple byAlice Walker |
| Produced by |
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| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Allen Daviau |
| Edited by | Michael Kahn |
| Music by | Quincy Jones |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
Release date |
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Running time | 154 minutes[1] |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $15 million |
| Box office | $98.4 million |
The Color Purple is a 1985 Americanepicperiod drama film, directed bySteven Spielberg and written byMenno Meyjes, based on the1982 novel byAlice Walker. Spielberg's eighth film as a director, it marked a turning point in his career as it was a departure from the summerblockbusters for which he had become known. It is the first film directed by Spielberg for whichJohn Williams did not compose the score, which was done byQuincy Jones instead. Jones also produced the film alongside Spielberg,Kathleen Kennedy andFrank Marshall. The film starsWhoopi Goldberg in her breakthrough role, along withDanny Glover,Oprah Winfrey (in her film debut),Margaret Avery, andAdolph Caesar.
Filmed inAnson andUnion counties in North Carolina,The Color Purple tells thecoming-of-age story of a young African-American girl named Celie Harris and the brutal experiences she endured includingdomestic violence,incest,child sexual abuse,poverty,racism, andsexism.
Upon its release byWarner Bros. Pictures on December 18, 1985,The Color Purple was a box office success, grossing $98.4 million against a budget of $15 million. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, with praise going to its acting (especially Goldberg's performance), direction, screenplay, musical score, and production values; criticism was directed by some for being "over-sentimental" and "stereotypical". The film was nominated for 11Academy Awards, includingBest Picture, but did not achieve a single win. It holds the record for most Oscar nominations without one forBest Director. It also received fourGolden Globe Award nominations, with Goldberg winningBest Actress in a Drama. In 2006, theAmerican Film Institute ranked the film 51st onits list of the most inspiring movies.
Celie is anAfrican-American teenager in early 20th century ruralGeorgia who twice has borne children by her abusive father, which were taken from her. He gives her away as a wife to Mister, who also abuses her, and his children mistreat her. Celie's loving younger sister, Nettie, runs away from their 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 theirs to be a matriarchal household. Harpo attempts to overpower and strike Sofia, but he fails. Celie advises Harpo to beat Sofia, who retaliates and later 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 does not change, so Sofia leaves, taking their children with her.
Mister and Harpo bring home the ailing Shug Avery, ashowgirl and Mister's long-timemistress. Celie, who has slowly developed a fondness for her through a photograph sent to Mister, is in awe of Shug's strong will. Celie nurses Shug back to health, who in turn takes a liking to her, writing and performing a song about her at Harpo's newly opened bar. Shug tells Celie she is moving toMemphis, and Celie confides to Shug that Mister beats her. Shug tells Celie she is 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 for speaking back to his wife Ms. Millie. 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 Ms. Millie. Having not seen her children in eight years, Sofia is allotted Christmas to be with her family. When Ms. Millie tries to drive her, she panics and turns around after encountering a group of Sofia's family and friends, who were only trying to help her.
Shug returns to Celie and Mister's home with her new husband Grady, expecting to receive arecording contract. She gives Celie a letter from Nettie, who tells her that she is working for the couple who adopted Celie's children. Celie and Shug realize that Mister has been hiding Nettie's letters from Celie so, while he and Grady are out drinking, they search the house. They find a hidden compartment under the floorboards filled with dozens and dozens of Nettie's letters.
Engrossed in reading, Celie does not hear Mister's calls to shave him, so he beats her. She attempts to kill Mister with his straight razor, but Shug stops her. At a family gathering, Celie finally speaks up against Mister to the delight of Shug and Sofia. This fighting spirit 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; they now run the bar together, and Shug still performs there. Upon Celie's father's death, she finally learns from Nettie's letters he was not their biological father. When their mother died, "his" property was legally inherited by Celie and Nettie. So, she receives the home and shop that had belonged to her father.
Celie begins to operate atailor shop. When Mister receives a letter from Nettie addressed to Celie, he takes money from his secret stash, and arranges for Nettie, her husband, and Celie's children to return to the U.S. from Africa, where they had been living. While Mister watches from a distance, Celie, Nettie, and Celie's children reunite, and the two sisters bond over a hand-clapping game from their childhood.
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Alice Walker was initially reluctant to sell the film rights to her novelThe Color Purple, due to Hollywood's portrayal of female and African American characters. She only agreed to executive producersJon Peters andPeter Guber's offer after consulting with friends, who agreed the only way to improve representation of minorities was to work within the system.[2] Walker's contract stipulated that she would serve as project consultant and that 50% of the production team, aside from the cast, would be African American, female or "people of the Third World".[2] Walker wrote an initial screenplay draft, but was replaced by Dutch-born writerMenno Meyjes, under the provision that she be given final script approval. Walker worked as an uncreditedscript doctor, and coached actors in their use of a SouthernAfrican American Vernacular English dialect.
Music mogulQuincy Jones, whose only prior film experience was as a composer, served as producer and approachedSteven Spielberg to direct. Spielberg was initially reluctant to take the job, feeling his knowledge of theDeep South was inadequate and that the film should be directed by someone of color. Walker was likewise skeptical but was convinced otherwise after watchingE.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. Spielberg waived his usual $15 million salary in lieu of theDirectors Guild of America minimum of $40,000.[2] He chose to play down the lesbian subtext between Celie and Shug, feeling that it would increase the rating if he didn't.[3]
Rather than cast established stars, Walker sought out lesser-known actors to play the principal roles, since their rise from obscurity represented the experience of characters in her novels.[2]Whoopi Goldberg was a comedic stage performer who had starred in an acclaimed one-woman show on Broadway but whose only prior film role was in a 1982 avant-garde film,Citizen: I'm Not Losing My Mind, I'm Giving It Away. In her 2024 memoirBits and Pieces, Whoopi revealed she sent a letter to Alice Walker at the encouragement of her daughter after enjoying Walker's readings of the novel on the radio. As Whoopi was relatively unknown in the mainstream at the time she was shocked to receive a reply from Walker who indicated she was not only aware of Whoopi's stage work but she had put her on Quincy Jones and Steven Spielberg's radar ahead of casting talks.Oprah Winfrey was a radio and television host without prior acting experience, who was hired at Jones's insistence.[4] Oprah later said she had chosen the film as it had special meaning in her life.[5] After lobbying producers for the part, 29-year-old Goldberg was personally selected by Walker after she saw her stand-up.[2] Goldberg's audition for Spielberg, where both Jones andMichael Jackson were present, saw her perform a routine involving a stonedE.T. being arrested for drug possession.[6]
Other cast members, such asDanny Glover,Adolph Caesar, andCarl Anderson, were predominantly stage performers.Akosua Busia was a graduate of theRoyal Central School of Speech and Drama, and the daughter ofGhanaian prime ministerKofi Abrefa Busia. Goldberg's real-life daughterAlex Martin has a minor role as one of the children in the Easter sequence.[7]
Margaret Avery was a veteran actress who had previously won anNAACP Image Award for the made-for-television filmLouis Armstrong – Chicago Style. Spielberg had pursued singersChaka Khan andTina Turner but both turned it down.[8][9]Patti LaBelle andSheryl Lee Ralph also auditioned, andPhyllis Hyman was considered. Though Avery had prior musical experience, her singing voice was dubbed byTáta Vega.
While the novel was based on Walker's childhood home ofEatonton, Georgia, the film was shot predominantly in James C. Bennett's house,[10] located inLilesville (Anson County), andUnion County inNorth Carolina during the summer months.[11] Sets were constructed at anAntebellum-eraplantation outsideWadesboro, while the town ofMarshville had its paved roads covered in mud and clay to match the early 20th-century setting. The church was a real 60-year-oldBaptist chapel that was moved piece-by-piece from its original location. Due to the summer heat, the winter sequences were shot with fabricated snow. Additional scenes were filmed on theUniversal Studios Hollywood backlot, and asecond unit led byFrank Marshall traveled toKenya to shoot scenes inNairobi and in theMaasai regions.[2] Principal photography began on June 5, 1985.[12]
Spielberg encouraged both Goldberg and Winfrey toad lib during filming, including Sofia's speech at the dinner table. Quincy Jones' insistence on giving more dialogue to Winfrey sparked an apparent feud between her and Goldberg that lasted several years afterwards.[13][14]
The Color Purple'sfilm score was written by Quincy Jones, the first feature film directed by Spielberg for whichJohn Williams did not compose the music. The score combines elements of classical and period jazz,blues, andgospel, and features several popular songs of the era. The trackMiss Celie's Blues (Sister), performed in the film by the character Shug (Avery; dubbed byTáta Vega), later gained popularity as a concert piece.
Due to his dual responsibilities as both producer and composer, Jones delegated many of the tasks to a team of eleven other musicians and arrangers. This led to a dispute during theAcademy Awards over the nominees forBest Original Score. While Jones is the sole credited composer of the film, the nomination lists all twelve musicians (Jones, Chris Boardman,Jorge Calandrelli,Andraé Crouch,Jack Hayes,Jerry Hey,Randy Kerber,Jeremy Lubbock, Joel Rosenbaum,Caiphus Semenya,Fred Steiner andRod Temperton).
The Color Purple premiered on December 18, 1985, inLos Angeles. However, the premiere was picketed by members of theNAACP for its depiction of rape.[15] The film went into general release in the United States on February 7, 1986.[16] It was also shown at the1986 Cannes Film Festival as a non-competing title.[17]
The Color Purple was a success at the box office, staying in U.S. theaters for 21 weeks,[16] and grossing over $98.4 million worldwide.[18] In terms of box office income, it ranked as the number one ratedPG-13 film released in 1985, and number four overall.[16]
Onreview aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 73% based on 125 reviews, with an average rating of 7.6/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "It might have been better served by a filmmaker with a deeper connection to the source material, butThe Color Purple remains a worthy, well-acted adaptation of Alice Walker's classic novel."[20] OnMetacritic, the film received a weighted average score of 78 out of 100 based on seven critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[21]
Roger Ebert of theChicago Sun-Times awarded the film four stars, calling it "the year's best film". He also praisedWhoopi Goldberg, calling her role "one of the most amazing debut performances in movie history" and predicting she would win theAcademy Award forBest Actress; she was nominated but lost toGeraldine Page, for her performance inThe Trip to Bountiful. Ebert wrote ofThe 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 – likeOz, likeTara, likeCasablanca – 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.[22]
Ebert's long-time television collaborator,Gene Siskel of theChicago 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 thatThe 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 inThe Color Purple use their women – both wives and daughters – as sexual chattel."[23]
The New York Times film criticJanet 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'sColor Purple manages to have momentum, warmth and staying power all the same.[24]
James Greenberg forVariety found the film over-sentimental, writing, "there are some great scenes and great performances inThe 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."[25]
FilmmakerOliver Stone praised the film, saying it's "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 todo the book. He made the book live again."[26] In 2004, Ebert includedThe Color Purple in his book seriesThe 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."[27]
In 2019, actress and singerCynthia Erivo, who played Celie in the 2015 Broadway revival of the stage musical adaptation, named it as one of her five favorite films, saying that it "changed her life."[28]
In addition, some critics alleged that the film stereotyped black people in general[29] and black men in particular,[30] pointing to the fact that Spielberg had directed a predominantly African-American story.[31] In response, Spielberg said, "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."[32]
During the time and since then it has had an intense debate amongcivil rights activists, commentators, and film critics. TheNAACP accused the film of "stereotypical portrayals of black males". Clarence Page of theChicago Tribune wrote, "It was a debate that divided much of the nation's black intelligentsia against itself. AuthorJames Baldwin accused the movie and its director, Steven Spielberg, of mangling the poetic vision of Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel. Black feministMichele Wallace said the movie smothered Walker's feminist message in syrupy Disney-like sentimentality. Black authorIshmael Reed... called the book a near-criminal assault on black family life and heterosexual relationships."[33]
In 2022, writerAisha Harris revisited the controversy onNPR'sPop Culture Happy Hour saying, "when it first came out, there was a lot of tension and debate about how it depicted Black men and Black women and the Black family". Harris later detailed, "nearly all of the Black men in the movie are depicted as cold-hearted, violent abusers. To some audiences, especially Black men,The Color Purple was the mainstream reinforcement of a deeply damaging and persistent perception".[34]
The film was fiercely defended by its stars includingOprah Winfrey who said, "It's one woman's story. It was not meant to be the history of every black man or woman in this country and I wish they'd just shut up about it".Whoopi Goldberg said "We got a lot of shit from a lot of people [and] theNAACP... I was really pissed off. [Spielberg] made a damn fine film".[35]
The Color Purple was nominated for 11Academy Awards (includingBest Picture,Best Actress for Goldberg andBest Supporting Actress for both Avery and Winfrey).[36] It failed to win any of them, tying the record set by 1977'sThe Turning Point for the most Oscar nominations without a single win.[30] Some organizations such as the NAACP protested against the decision of theAcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to not award the film any categories.[33]
Steven Spielberg received his firstDirectors Guild of America Award at the38th awards ceremony for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures. He became the first director to win the award without even being nominated for theAcademy Award forBest Director.
On November 2, 2018, it was announced that a film adaptation of the2005 stage musical version was in development.[40] Spielberg and Jones returned to co-produce, alongside the stage production's producers Winfrey andScott Sanders. On August 25, 2020, it was announced thatMarcus Gardley would pen the screenplay andBlack is King'sBlitz Bazawule would direct.[41][42][43] On December 23, 2020, it was announced that Alice Walker,Rebecca Walker,Kristie Macosko Krieger, Carla Gardini and Mara Jacobs would executive produce.[44]H.E.R. andCorey Hawkins were cast in August 2021.[45] The film was released on December 25, 2023.[44] Although the film performed unsuccessfully at the box office, it did however receive positive reviews from critics and received numerous accolades, including a nomination for Danielle Brooks inBest Supporting Actress at the96th Academy Awards as well as nominations for twoGolden Globe Awards, twoBAFTA Awards, twoScreen Actors Guild Award, and fiveCritics' Choice Awards. It also earned 19 nominations at the2024 Black Reel Awards, winning nine; both totals were a record for a musical.[46]
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.
