the fresh films reviews

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The Color Purple (1985)

Director:
Steven Spielberg 
COUNTRY
USA
GENRE
Drama
NORWEGIAN TITLE
Purpurfargen
RUNNING TIME
152 minutes
Producer:
Steven Spielberg
Kathleen Kennedy
Frank Marshall
Quincy Jones
Jon Peters
Peter Guber
Screenwriter (based on the novel by Alice Walker):
Menno Meyjes


Cast includes:

CHARACTER ACTOR/ACTRESS RATING
Albert Danny Glover
Celie Whoopi Goldberg ½
Shug Avery Margaret Avery ½
Sofia Oprah Winfrey
Harpo Willard Pugh
Old Mister Adolph Caesar
Squeak Rae Dawn Chong
Miss Millie Dana Ivey
Swain Laurence Fishburne

 

Review

Spielberg's rendition of Alice Walker's novel is a chauvinistic, excessive, sentimental fantasy which tries to recapture life in the South States in the early twentieth century. The objective is to portray the contemporary harsh and unloving paternal society in which women found themselves, and to show how the spirit and union of these women made them able to bear. Unfortunately, what might seem inspiring at first glance, becomes more of a moralistic Disney cartoon as the film settles in. Spielberg over-dramatizes his contrasts in order to increase payoffs, adds shamelessly evocative music (for the first time not by John Williams), and paints with the widest brushstrokes imaginable. As he so often has set out to do in his post-1970s career, Spielberg's mission here is to right historical wrongs, but he also desperately wants to do the thinking for us, and if possible, run away with some of the glory himself. His whimsical shifts in tone make the film lackadaisical and thus makes this triumphant epos rather insipid. It might work if you really want it to, preferably while you're wearing red stockings.

Copyright © 11.9.2007 Fredrik Gunerius Fevang

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