The Color Purple

The Color Purple is a 1985 American coming-of-age period drama film directed by Steven Spielberg with a screenplay by Menno Meyjes, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1982 novel of the same name by Alice Walker.

Summary
A black Southern woman struggles to find her identity after suffering abuse from her father and others for over four decades.

Why It Rocks

 * 1) It stay’s almost completely true to it’s source material and captures the many tones and elements of the book very well.
 * 2) The aforementioned tone of the movie is very powerful, emotional, realistic, somewhat cynical and serious as it follows a woman named Celie going through years of abusive and suffering relationships that started when she was a teenage girl.
 * 3) The characters are very interesting, well-developed and relatable, such as Celie, Nettie, Sofia and many others.
 * 4) This, along with E.T., Jaws, Jurassic Park, and the Indiana Jones movies, has become one of Steven Spieldberg’s most best known movies.
 * 5) All of the actors performances in this movie are beyond powerful and amazing, especially Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover and Akosua Busia.
 * 6) The chemistry between Celie and Nettie is incredibly heartwarming.
 * 7) An amazing and accurate representation/setting for how most black people lived in the South during the early 1900s.
 * 8) The dialogue is very memorable as well, such as the “You sure is ugly” line that’s given a hilarious delivery or the famous “You told Harpo to beat me!” line.
 * 9) Many moments in the film are intense, powerful and well-executed, like the one where Sofia hits a white man in broad daylight in the middle of town or the tear-jerking moment where Mister forcefully separated Celie from her sister, Nettie.
 * 10) The movie can also have it’s funny moments as well.
 * 11) The cinematography and camera angles are amazing.
 * 12) The ending is extremely heartwarming and it'll leave you on tears.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Just like the source material, it has a somewhat uncreative and generic title.
 * 2) While most likely intentional, Alphonso is downright unlikable as he is in the book.

Trivia

 * Alice Walker’s contract stipulated 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”. After the film’s release, the NAACP praised the production for employing more African American actors and filmmakers than any motion picture to date since Sounder.
 * Producer Quincy Jones personally selected Steven Spielberg to direct the film.
 * Oprah Winfrey made her feature debut in this film.
 * Chaka Khan, Patti Labelle and Tina Turner were all considered for the role of Shug, which eventually went to Margaret Avery.
 * Alice Walker helped the actors translate their lines with greater authenticity, teaching them the pacing and rhythm of the Southern black dialect she knew as a child.
 * North Carolina provided the primary locations for the film, even though Walker’s novel reflected her childhood in segregated Georgia. Other parts of the film were filmed by a second unit in Kenya in the Maasai tribal areas, as well as Nairobi.
 * The field in front of Celie’s house was sown with purple flowers that bloomed within two weeks, providing the location of Celie’s climactic conversation with Shug Avery and her reunion with Nettie. In the last week of filming, the flowers were replaced with fabricated snow for winter scenes, even though the actors were enduring sweltering summer heat.
 * This film that was nominated for 11 Academy Awards· in the following categories – Actress in a Leading Role (Whoopi Goldberg), Actress in a Supporting Role (Margaret Avery), Actress in a Supporting Role (Oprah Winfrey), Art Direction, Cinematography, Costume Design, Makeup, Music (Original Score), Music (Original Song, “Miss Celie’s Blues (Sister),” Writing and Best Picture

Box office
The Color Purple was a success at the box office, staying in U.S. theaters for 21 weeks, and grossing over $142 million worldwide. In terms of box office income, it ranked as the #1 rated PG-13 film released in 1985, and #4 overall.