The Task: Watch and write about every movie on my shelf, in order (Blu-rays are sorted after DVDs), by June 10, 2015. Remaining movies: 303 Days to go: 292
Movie #70: The Color Purple
That The Color Purple did not win even one of the 11 Oscars it was nominated for — particularly one for Whoopi Goldberg (I love Ghost, but kiss my ass Best Supporting Actress) — is something I am still incredibly angry about. Still. Forever. Always. I will never get over this slight. Stupid Academy. I mean, seriously, you can’t convince me in a million years that Out of Africa is a better damn movie in any capacity than The Color Purple, but Geraldine Page as Best Actress for The Trip to Bountiful?? Does anyone even remember that role? That movie? No. Goldberg’s performance of Celie was iconic and transcendent and still resonates to this very day. And that was instantly obvious the first time I saw this movie, as a 10-year-old, so don’t tell me seasoned veterans in the Academy didn’t know it as well.
I remember distinctly when I first saw The Color Purple, in a tiny little village theater called the Paris Cinema that doesn’t even exist anymore. I was with my mother and she took me to all the Oscar nominated films that year that came through our town (that weren’t rated R). (She’d started doing this the year before, making the Oscars a prominent feature in my life from a very young age. I’m not sure what prompted her to do this, except that my stepfather was almost surely averse to movies with prominent lady feelings so I was her only standing option, but it was so rewarding to me. Those hours in the darkened rooms with towering ceilings and screens — especially tall to a child — escaping to different times and different lands were the best of my young life. In many ways, they are still the best — truth: if I’m ever terribly grouchy and dissatisfied with everything, send me to the movies; I’ll feel better.) There’s no doubt she knew I could handle the subject matter — I was a preternaturally mature and analytical child — but I still find it kind of fascinating that she trusted my interest in it. I mean, it was 1985. I was also really interested in She-Ra and Jem at the time.
I still remember the shock I felt at seeing this young girl skipping with her sister through a field emerge from behind the tall reeds and flowers to reveal her massive pregnant belly. I remember the fear as she screamed through her labor, the disgust at Mister’s (Danny Glover) kitchen doubled over when she’d cleaned it to sparkling and he’d put his muddy boot on the table, and the creeping terror when Mister wouldn’t leave Nettie (Akosua Busia) alone. I was so afraid for Celie, so engulfed in her misery. The rhythmic slapping of Mister’s belts against the headboard the first time he “does his business” is an image etched on my brain. It was so clear to me that she had no options, had no escape. She was a slave to Mister and his whims, just as sure as she’d been a slave to her Pa’s, just as sure as their entire race had been only a couple of generations before. I was overwhelmed with how tragic it was to Celie, not just for the wounds inflicted on her person, but for the wounds inflicted on her spirit.
When Sofia (Oprah Winfrey) charges in on the arm of Mister’s son Harpo (Willard Pugh), it’s like seeing the early stirrings of feminism. Strong-willed and self-possessed, Sofia takes no crap from no one. It’s not a surprise when Mister suggests Harpo beat her to keep her in line — after all, that’s how Mister has dealt with Celie from the start — but it’s devastating when Celie parrots Mister’s advice. Her own oppression and abuse has led her to believe it’s okay to oppress and abuse others, and my heart breaks all the more for her. Still, I couldn’t help but love Sofia. Not even kidding, I think most of my attitudes toward marriage stem directly from her. (“Ain’t you gonna git it for me?” “Is there something wrong wit’ you?”) Sofia taught me a marriage should be a partnership, not a competition, that husband and wife should work together to keep the house and raise the family (for all the “bossing around” Sofia supposedly did, she also worked harder than anybody). It wasn’t until Sofia and Harpo came together as equals that they found peaceful harmony in their lives, after years of fights and separations. It was being put constantly on the defensive that made Sofia so hard and so outspoken and so strong, and ultimately it was the thing she was punished so cruelly for. Because if this movie is about the powerlessness of these women in a society pitted against them, it’s also about the struggles of being black in that same society.
Surely if Miss Millie (Dana Ivey) were to be slapped by her husband, she’d not be in a position to hit him back, even as a wealthy, important, privileged white woman in town, but as a black woman, Sofia has even fewer options. So when Miss Millie’s husband the mayor slaps Sofia for being impertinent, and Sofia hits him back, all the rage and hatred of an entire community comes down on her head. She is jailed for years and then essentially enslaved to Miss Millie and forever separated from her children — even on Christmas not getting to see them long enough to take her coat off — in what no doubt every white person in town at the time (and sadly, probably, still some people today) considered reasonable and justified. Indeed, Miss Millie’s irrational panic at the black men trying to help her maneuver her car is a scene that, given so many tragic news stories around our country the past several weeks (the past several years, even), still fills me with dread. This is how young black men keep getting killed, my heart tells me, because the readiness and the deadliness of weapons has advanced while the mindless hysteria hasn’t changed.
Of course, The Color Purple isn’t all maudlin hardships. Shug Avery (Margaret Avery) arrives on scene and gives Celie the much-needed love and encouragement she’s never had in her life since Nettie was sent away. Shug is bold and beautiful and sexy. Shug is a woman while in many ways Celie is still a girl, and Shug teaches Celie how to love herself and how to know her worth. She showed her (and a young me) that sex should be good, should be willing, should be pleasurable — a lesson I think all developing girls should learn, giving them greater agency over their own bodies. Shug is Celie’s salvation in every way — being her friend, showing her love, and ultimately finding the letters from Nettie that Mister Albert had hidden from her. She also provides Celie’s escape from Albert, and when Celie confronts him at the dinner table, there is no more powerful scene, pounding the table in her fury. “Did I ever ask you for anything!? I never asked you for anything, not even your sorry-ass hand in marriage.” He tries to fight her and tear her down, “You’re black, you’re poor, you’re ugly, you’re a woman! You’re nothing at all!” But she curses him and leaves him in the dust. “‘Til you do right by me, everything you even think about gonna fail.” Celie would’ve never had that strength without Shug.
As strong is Shug is, though, she’s also broken. Shunned by her preacher father for being a fallen woman, she mourns their lost relationship throughout her many visits to Albert and Celie’s. Crying in the bathtub over how he’s forsaken her, Shug lets Celie brush her hair while she hums the tune that will become “Miss Celie’s Blues,” the second song Shug performs at Harpo’s Juke Joint. It’s a song about finding your strength and knowing your worth, and it’s beautiful and haunting. Despite her attempts to reach out to him, though, Shug’s father ignores her when she comes to his church and when she calls out to him on the road that she’s now married and respectable. It’s not until Shug is performing at the Juke Joint and overcome by the carrying sounds of the church choir that she manages to break down his walls. Belting out “God’s Trying To Tell You Something” as she leads a parade of Juke Joint patrons to the church, Shug brings me closer than I’ve ever been to being truly saved (though in the end, what I take from the song is that everyone is worthwhile, everyone has a voice). The music and emotions soar as she embraces her father. “See Daddy, sinners have soul too.” My chest could burst from joy when he hugs her back. A girl should be accepted and embraced by her father, no matter what. Shug taught me that too.
On top of everything else, The Color Purple is just a gorgeously rendered film. The fields of flowers, the incomparable handsomeness of young Mister on a horse when he comes to court Nettie, the sleek, chic black ensemble Celie wears when she returns to her childhood home — striking and beautiful scenes, one and all. Spielberg also brilliantly frames his shots to make the boldest statement, from the aforementioned belts on the headboard to the bloody handprint on the rock to the way Mister would always block the view of Celie and focus only on Nettie. And the scenes set in Africa are magnificent and powerful, culminating in the sharp, intercut sequence of Celie “home, fixing to shave Mister” and her children undergoing a scary tribal ritual with homemade blades thousands of miles away. It brought even more tension than the earlier scene of Celie shaving Mister after he threatens to kill her if she cuts him — a scene that still leaves me on the literal edge of my seat, biting my nails and which had my son today covering his eyes with dread. My favorite shot, though, is when Nettie and the others show up at the end of Celie’s drive, and Celie walks down the porch to see who they are. Everyone else in the yard freezes — Shug halfway down a step, Harpo holding a tray, Sofia leaning over curiously — creating a striking tableau and the sensation of time having stopped as the sisters are about to be reunited.
I don’t think I’m drastically more empathetic than other people, particularly, but I know The Color Purple opened my ten-year-old eyes to a lot of injustice and inequality — not just theatrically but extrapolated to modern life and real-world situations people are faced with every day. In this way, I think The Color Purple is an indispensable, integral part of anyone’s film (and worldly) education. In fact, I think The Color Purple is still one of the best films of any year, and there isn’t an argument on Earth to make me think otherwise. Stupid Academy.
Viable Option 