The color purple (film)

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Movie
German title The colour purple
Original title The Color Purple
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 1985
length 148 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Steven Spielberg
script Menno Meyjes
production Steven Spielberg,
Kathleen Kennedy ,
Frank Marshall ,
Quincy Jones
music Quincy Jones
camera Allen Daviau
cut Michael Kahn
occupation

The Color Purple (Original Title: The Color Purple ) is an American drama film directed by Steven Spielberg from 1985 . The film is based on the novel of the same name by the American author Alice Walker , which was published in 1982 and was awarded the Pulitzer Prize .

Whoopi Goldberg plays the African American Celie, who is sold as a wife to a farmer by her stepfather, where she experiences further oppression and humiliation. Many years pass before Celie manages to give her life a whole new direction.

action

1909 in the southern states : Fourteen-year-old Celie is pregnant for the second time by her own father . Like their first child, a son named Adam, their father sells the newborn. In addition, Celie has to keep the abuse a secret, since her terminally ill mother should not find out about any of this. The only stop in these difficult times is Celie's younger sister Nettie. After the mother's death, her father remarries. Farmer Albert Johnson is also present at this wedding. He's noticed Nettie a few times and finally demands to marry Nettie. This refuses Nettie's father categorically and offers him to marry Celie instead. Johnson agrees because he needs a new mother for his three children after his wife is murdered. He sees Celie as a worker he can bully and humiliate at will.

When the father now approaches Nettie, she flees to Celie. But because Johnson has an eye on her too, she expects to have to move on soon. In order to keep in touch with her sister, she teaches her to read and promises to write letters. It happens as she foreseen: after Nettie has fended off an attempted rape by her brother-in-law , he chases her from the court.

A few years pass. Johnson's son Harpo plans to marry Sofia in 1916, who is already pregnant. The father refuses to give his consent and Harpo complies, but the resolute young woman prevails. Harpo soon realizes that he can't beat his wife. Albert Johnson advises his son to beat up Sofia to gain respect. Celie tells him the same. But this only ends with Harpo's black eye.

Johnson meanwhile makes Celie's life hell and one day brings his sick lover into the house: the blues singer Shug Avery. He wants to keep her healthy and cooks for her himself. But she throws his burnt fried eggs on the wall and doesn't eat until Celie cooks for her. The two women become friends. Shug pulls Celie out of her lethargy and gradually awakens her self-confidence. Celie learns from her that you can defend yourself.

In the summer of 1922, Harpo opened a jazz bar where Shug Avery performed. Her father is the Reverend, who preaches in the church against the jazz club, the new " Babylon " in the neighborhood. He thinks his daughter is depraved and treats her like air. When Shug Avery wants to go to Chicago with a band , Celie also packs her bags, but in the presence of her husband she doesn't dare to get into Shug's car. Shug leaves without her; Excessively disappointed and desperate about her own inability, Celie collapses on the street.

Millie, the mayor's wife, meets Sofia and her children on the street, kisses the little ones enthusiastically and asks Sofia if she would like to work for them as a maid. However, a dispute ensues in the course of which Sofia knocks down the mayor. She is then imprisoned for eight years.

Autumn 1930: After her release from prison, the broken and prematurely aged Sofia has no choice but to become Millie's housemaid. With their help, the mayor's clumsy wife learns to drive a car and brings Sofia to visit her children for Christmas. Her children hardly recognize Sofia, who has aged a lot during the eight years in prison. When the mayor's wife does not move in the car, she insists that Sofia accompany her.

Shug Avery unexpectedly returns from Chicago with her new husband in 1936 and visits Albert and Celie Johnson. While the two gentlemen get along surprisingly well and amuse themselves with plenty of alcohol, Shug sees the postman approaching, whereupon she claims she is expecting a letter. When she then looks in Johnson's mailbox, she discovers that the letter is addressed to Celie. He comes from Nettie, which is now in Africa lives and her sister reported that Celies children Adam and Olivia by a missionary and his wife adopted were and grow up together. Celie has no inkling of this, because all of Nettie's previously written letters were intercepted by Johnson: The women search the house and find a hiding place under a loose floorboard with dozens of letters from Nettie. Celie is then tempted to murder Johnson. Shug stops them.

At a family dinner, Shug announces that Celie will be taking her to Memphis. In front of everyone present, Celie settles accounts with her father-in-law and Johnson, who in turn puts her down. Sofia finds her smile again and defends Celie. She leaves her husband and his children and accompanies Shug and her husband to Memphis.

Autumn 1937: Johnson's fields are neglected one year after Celie's departure, the chickens and goats roam free in the completely filthy farmhouse. One day a letter arrives from the Immigration and Naturalization Services addressed to Celie. Albert Johnson takes it, takes money from a hiding place and takes it to a government agency.

After the death of her actual father, Celie learns that her supposed father, the father of her children, was not her biological father at all. With the inheritance she can build a new life for herself.

When the congregation in the church is singing a spiritual , Shug breaks into the nearby jazz club and walks with her fans over to the church, where she reconciles with her father.

Nettie comes to visit from Africa with Olivia and Adam, and Celie can for the first time embrace her children, whom she calls mom. In the distance, Shug sees Johnson walking by with his horse, who watches the whole thing moved. It appears to have enabled Nettie and Celie's children to enter the country.

synchronization

role actor speaker
Celie Whoopi Goldberg Regina Lemnitz
Albert Danny Glover Uwe Friedrichsen
Shug Avery Margaret Avery Karin Buchholz
Sofia Oprah Winfrey Dagmar Biener
Swain Laurence Fishburne Benjamin Völz
Albert's father Adolph Caesar Gottfried Kramer

criticism

Lexicon of the International Film : “An emotional, high-quality handcrafted cinematic melodrama that deals primarily with the problems of racial and women's discrimination on the emotional level. Remarkable in terms of acting, but in the highly schematic character drawings, especially of the colored men, it is rather clichéd and questionable. "

background

The novel, written in the form of a diary , describes the life of an oppressed African-American woman named Celie who, with the help of the jazz singer Shug, finally succeeds in emancipating himself from her violent husband. Spielberg brought the themes of the original, which include lesbian love, incest and patriarchal violence, to a mainstream audience for the first time. The film was quite successful commercially, but caused heated controversy. Especially black men accused Spielberg of racism, although the model by feminist Walker was far more uncompromising and direct than the film.

Others accused Spielberg of making the film, set in the southern states of the 20s, look too wealthy for blacks. Alice Walker personally monitored the historically correct implementation of the film. It was also criticized Spielberg's approach to play down the love affair between Shug and Celie compared to the original.

Awards

The film received eleven nominations at the 1986 Oscars , but came out empty-handed in all categories. He was nominated in the following categories: Best Picture , Best Actress ( Whoopi Goldberg ), Best Supporting Actress ( Margaret Avery and Oprah Winfrey ), Best Adapted Screenplay ( Menno Meyjes ), Best Cinematography ( Allen Daviau ), Best Score ( Quincy Jones , Jeremy Lubbock , Rod Temperton , Caiphus Semenya , Andraé Crouch , Chris Boardman , Jorge Calandrelli , Joel Rosenbaum , Fred Steiner , Jack Hayes , Jerry Hey and Randy Kerber ), Best Song ( Quincy Jones , Rod Temperton and Lionel Richie for the song Miss Celie's Blues ) , Best Production Design ( J. Michael Riva , Bo Welch and Linda DeScenna ), Best Costume Design ( Aggie Guerard Rodgers ) and Best Make-up ( Ken Chase ).

The German Film and Media Evaluation FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the title valuable.

literature

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