There was a time in my life when I could blissfully watch a film like The Color Purple without knowing anything about the production side of things and think that I was seeing a film that deserved more accolades than it ultimately got at the time. Unfortunately, that was not the experience I had yesterday as I put this movie on for the first time in perhaps twenty years and watched it with fresh, more educated eyes. Suddenly I was seeing this film in a new light and discovering that there were some questionably made decisions behind the scenes that forever tarnished this film in a way that I can no longer unsee. Not the least of which was the decision to give this film to Steven Spielberg, a white Jewish man whose instinct leans towards sentimentality and, at that time anyway, was not known for heavy-hitting dramas along the lines of Alice Walker’s novel.
This was 1985 and Hollywood wasn’t the most forward-thinking entity at the time. Even so, it would seem obvious that a film such as this should have had a black director at the helm. Spielberg even felt so, being reluctant to take the assignment initially. He was approached by Quincy Jones, who was one of the producers, and offered him the job. For his part, Spielberg chose to work for the DGA minimum of $40,000 rather than his usual $15 million.
The choice of Spielberg for director proved to be a controversial one, leading to an active campaign against the film that was probably a factor in how that following year’s Oscars voting went. The Color Purple was nominated for eleven Oscars, but was surprisingly swept in every category, coming up completely empty-handed. While it does feel excessively maligned, some felt that they were sending a message to let Black directors be the voice for their people in films such as this. A lot has changed in Hollywood since 1985, not all of it for the better, but with the rise of talented directors like Ryan Coogler and Barry Jenkins, we are seeing more of that representation and that voice in our media. Indeed, in 2023, when a new, musical adaptation of The Color Purple came to theaters, Blitz Bazawule (AKA Samuel Bazawule AKA Blitz the Ambassador), a Black man, was at the helm. That version has its own weaknesses, but it was a step in the right direction for racial representation behind the cameras.
Another problem the film had is its portrayal of Black men. Alice Walker’s novel had the space to better represent the situation around the men in this story than the film does. We get a better understanding of the racial politics of the time and how that impacts the way the men see the world around them and how they treat their women. It doesn’t justify their actions but it gives us some clarity behind it. The way things are portrayed in the film, the men are very one-sided, cheaters and abusers, molesters and rapists. There is very little representation of positive male role models in this film. It’s a disservice to Black men in general who already had to contend with unfavorable racial stereotypes.
Whoopi Goldberg spoke in later years about how frustrating it was working on this film; not the actual acting or filming environment but the backlash that was coming out of the Black community over the production. Spike Lee was particularly vocal about it, voicing his displeasure with Spielberg helming the project. With that voice of dissent came more angry Black people who felt their story was in the hands of a white man, further proof that white America stood in the way of Black people telling their own stories. She felt caught in the middle of all of that, trying to tell an important story about rising out of a cycle of abuse but being threatened by the very people she was trying to lift up.
And she ultimately is the best part about this picture. She is playing Celie Harris-Johnson, a girl subjected to rape and a couple of pregnancies at the hands of her stepfather. In both cases, the children were taken from her by said stepfather and given up for adoption. When a man, Albert “Mister” Johnson (Danny Glover) comes, looking for a new wife to raise his kids and take care of the house, he asks for Celie’s sister, Nettie (Akosua Busia), only to be told he cannot have her but can have Celie, the “ugly” one, instead. He accepts the offer and takes Celie away to a house filled with abuse from both Mister and his children. Later, when Nettie comes to stay, in part to avoid their stepfather—who is now making advances on her—and to try and educate herself, Mister tries to rape her. She fights him off and ends up forcibly separated from her sister by him, forbidden to have any contact with her sister ever again.
The film details the years Celie spends with Mister and the abuse she suffers at his hands. It also follows his eldest son Harpo (Willard Pugh) as he grows up and marries Sofia (Oprah Winfrey), a loud-spoken woman who is determined to keep abuse from entering her own household after enduring it in her childhood. It’s a lesson hard learned and another casualty of the translation from page to screen. It also highlights another weakness of having Spielberg directing this film: tone. We hear that Harpo tries to beat Oprah, which doesn’t go over well. Then we hear that she beats him back. This goes back and forth a few times before the two finally break up their marriage. The way this information is portrayed is humorous, but it is not something we should be laughing at, causing confusing emotions in us as the viewer. As dark humor, it just doesn’t work.
Another thing that doesn’t work is the relationship that develops between Celie and Shug Avery (Margaret Avery). Shug is a showgirl who is Mister’s long-time mistress. Late in the film, Shug and Celie are comforting each other, and the scene turns intimate for just a moment. It’s an awkward scene as filmed and was a lot more involved in the novel. Spielberg cut out most of this in fear of the film getting an R rating and has expressed remorse for this in more recent years. Perhaps audiences were not ready for that in 1985, but it also begs the question: Who is this film targeting that it needed to tame things down to avoid an R rating? This is a movie about incest, rape, and physical and psychological abuse, and it is afraid of two women finding love and comfort in each other? What’s even worse is that the 2023 remake, and the stage musical that film is based on, virtually ignore this side story entirely. It’s tone-deaf, and the reason behind the change makes little sense. This is a film that needs to be hard to watch. It needs to be brutal and honest, and it needs that raw detail to give us a better understanding of Celie and just how lonely and starved for affection she really is.
Also short-served is another side character, Mary “Squeak” Agnes (Rae Dawn Chong), Harpo’s girl after Sofia leaves him. Sofia speaks up when a white woman, the wife of the town’s mayor, tries to force her to take a job as her housemaid. The mayor starts yelling at her and slaps her. Sofia punches him and is brutally knocked out and thrown in jail. In the book, Mary is instrumental in getting Sofia’s sentence reduced, but in the film, she is played up as nothing more than a joke, her squeaky voice her only distinguishing characteristic. Sofia, on the other hand, is reduced to a near catatonic state, a shell of her former self, and forced by a court order to be the mayor’s housemaid. She stays in that catatonic state until magically coming back to her old self upon hearing Celie finally standing up to Mister and defending herself at the end of a table knife.
Celie’s character development is about the only thing that comes across as fully believable in this. We watch her endure years of abuse and can understand why she is so meek and has such a low opinion of herself. Whoopi Goldberg portrays this with amazing realism, and it’s criminal that she has her sole Oscar for Ghost instead of for this. Later, when she has been pushed too far and has learned that Mister has been keeping her sister’s letters from her for years, she is prepared to kill him and, without the intervention of Shug, would have done so. When she finally does stand up to him and puts that table knife to his throat, it is believable because we have seen the years and what they have driven her to. Those years on screen make this moment all the more satisfying.
Mister’s redemption arc, however, is nowhere near as satisfying. He’s destroyed by Celie’s departure and at first lets everything around him fall apart. But he eventually cleans himself up and, learns that Nettie has been in Africa working with the family that adopted Celie’s children born of her stepfather. Nettie needs someone to sponsor their return home to America and he steps up, paying for their return and making it possible for her and Celie to be reunited. It’s a redemption moment for his character that feels unearned and somewhat dissatisfying. For his part, Danny Glover does a great job with this poorly written character, but that can only carry things so far. He has spent the entire film being despicable to the degree that this one act of kindness doesn’t come close to earning him our forgiveness.
This is a film that has greatness in it, but it also feels full of compromises and, hard as some of it is, doesn’t feel like it committed to the harshness enough. Still, many people look at it as progressive for the time, and there are many moments that stand out as great moments on their own. But the film as a whole is a shell of what Alice Walker wrote in her book and should serve as motivation to check out that novel for a real harrowing portrayal of this story. That book doesn’t make many compromises and will make you feel for these characters far more than this film does. The film does accomplish those things, too, to a degree, but it cuts corners and shies away from enough aspects of the story that it feels lesser. Would a Black director have helped that? Not necessarily. But maybe it would have. We can’t look to the new film for those answers, either, as it suffers from much of the same problems this version does, too. Ultimately, what I’m trying to say is, read the book. It’s by far the best representation of this material out there.
Academy Award Nominations:
Best Picture: Steven Spielberg, Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall, and Quincy Jones
Best Actress: Whoopi Goldberg
Best Supporting Actress: Margaret Avery
Best Supporting Actress: Oprah Winfrey
Best Screenplay - Based on Material from Another Medium: Menno Meyjes
Best Art Direction: J. Michael Riva, Bo Welch, and Linda DeScenna
Best Cinematography: Allen Daviau
Best Costume Design: Aggie Guerard Rodgers
Best Makeup: Ken Chase
Best Original Score: Chris Boardman, Jorge Calandrelli, Andraé Crouch, Jack Hayes, Jerry Hey, Quincy Jones, Randy Kerber, Jeremy Lubbock, Joel Rosenbaum, Caiphus Semenya, Fred Steiner, and Rod Temperton
Best Original Song: “Miss Celie’s Blues” Music by Quincy Jones and Rod Temperton; Lyrics by Quincy Jones, Rod Temperton, and Lionel Richie
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Release Date: December 18, 1985
Running Time: 154 minutes
Rated PG-13
Starring: Danny Glover, Adolph Caesar, Margaret Avery, Rae Dawn Chong, Whoopi Goldberg, and Oprah Winfrey
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
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