Reviews of The Color Purple

The Color Purple

Posted : 1 year, 4 months ago on 1 July 2008 03:07 (A review of The Color Purple)

Spielberg's first attempt at a mature work soars above and beyond, and creates a moving portrait of humanity during a specific period in American history. It is a beautiful film about life and love, filled with all of the joys and pains that go along with it.

At times it adheres closely to the letter(s) and spirit of the wonderful source novel, but when it divulges it either transcends and creates something richer or distracts and creates unnecessary comedy. In the book Harpo is given more a spine and less of a comedic character, while Mr. ____ is given more dimensions and scope. Here that is all removed or changed. Mr. ____ begins his transformation at the end, and we only briefly glimpse into the anger and abuse that formed his persona. He adheres close to cariacture, but Danny Glover's performance shows that cracks and humanity beneath the surface. Within a lesser actor's talent Mr. ____ would have been nothing but a monster.

But The Color Purple has always been and always will be a "woman's picture." And how do the women deliver in their performances. From the younger version of Celie to the complicated hellcat Shug Avery, every actress is in fine form. Oprah Winfrey had never acted in a film before, which is hard to believe given the truth emanating from her performance. When she delivers both of her speeches, every nuance and vocal inflection is in the correct place. Margaret Avery also tears her role up. Originally offered to Tina Turner but turned down, Avery adds a little bit of her fiery onstage personality to her characterization. She also dives into the depths of her sorrow to give the subplot about Shug and her preacher father a bigger emotional scope.

But the best performance, and one of the best performances of all time in my opinion, belongs to Whoopi Goldberg who transforms from mild and meek to confident and strong before your eyes. This film will always remain a shiny beacon to her talents -- a little big of comedy, a little bit of drama, and a lot of emotional truth and complexity. It's a pity that she has been squandering her talents on horrendous films beneath her. But she will always have The Color Purple.

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did you say Spielberg?

Posted : 1 year, 6 months ago on 27 April 2008 11:37 (A review of The Color Purple)

A lot of people may not know that this was directed by Spielberg. I know I didn’t, when I watched it, so I was surprised.
However, I’m not surprised that he would pull off such a great direction with then relatively unknown actors like Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover and Whoopi Goldberg; their performances are impressively emotional.

This film proves that Spielberg doesn’t just direct blockbusters; he does take risks and I now respect the man for that.


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Fantastic

Posted : 2 years, 6 months ago on 25 April 2007 11:58 (A review of The Color Purple)

Usually when it comes to novels being adapted to film I pick out all the faults and am thoroughly disappointed but in this case I think it was done beautifully. Even Whoopi Goldberg (who I don't usually like) played the part of Celie perfectly. Most of the detail was included too. The only problem was the length of it (I do have a short attention span though) but I believe that if they had of cut it shorter it wouldn't of done the story justice.

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