The Color Purple (1985 film)

1985 film by Steven Spielberg

The Color Purple is a 1985 American epic coming of age period drama film directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Menno Meyjes. It is based on the Pulitzer Prize–winning 1982 novel of the same name by Alice Walker and was Spielberg's eighth film as a director, marking a turning point in his career as it was a departure from the summer blockbusters for which he had become known. It was also the first feature film directed by Spielberg for which John Williams did not compose the music, instead featuring a score by Quincy Jones, who also produced. The film stars Whoopi Goldberg in her breakthrough role, with Danny Glover, Oprah Winfrey (in her film debut), Margaret Avery, and Adolph Caesar. Filmed in Anson and Union counties in North Carolina, the film tells the story of a young African American girl named Celie Harris and the brutal experiences she endured including domestic violence, incest, child sexual abuse, poverty, racism, and sexism. The film was a box office success, grossing $98.4 million against a budget of $15 million. The film received generally positive reviews from critics, with praise going to its acting (especially Goldberg's performance), direction, screenplay, musical score, and production values; criticism was directed by some for being "over sentimental" and "stereotypical". The film was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actress for Goldberg, Best Supporting Actress for both Avery and Winfrey, and Best Adapted Screenplay, but did not achieve a single win. It also received four Golden Globe Award nominations, with Goldberg winning Best Actress in a Drama. In 2006, the American Film Institute ranked the film 51st on its list of most inspiring movies.

The story revolves around the life of Celie Harris in early 20th century rural Hartwell, Georgia. Harris is a teenage African American girl who is brutally raped and abused by her father. She secretly gives birth to two of his children. After the births, the father quickly takes them from Celie and gives them away. Celie shares a strong bond with her youngest sister Nettie as they play and learn the alphabet together. Albert "Mister" Johnson, a widower, wants to marry Nettie, but her father refuses to give her away because of his own sexual attraction to her. Instead, Celie is forced to marry Mister, who abuses her. One day, Nettie runs away from home because she is tired of fighting off her father's sexual advances and seeks shelter with Celie, where the two promise to write if they are separated. One day walking to school Mister attempts to rape Nettie. She fights him off and he kicks her out of the house. As she leaves, Nettie promises to fulfill the promise she and Celie made. Years later, in 1916, Celie has grown meek from prolonged childhood abuse. Mister's son Harpo marries an assertive woman named Sofia. Celie envies Sofia's self confidence and advises Harpo to beat her, but she fights back and confronts Celie, revealing her long history of abuse. She threatens to kill Harpo if he beats her again and tells Celie to do likewise to Mister. After years of constant abuse by Harpo, Sofia leaves and takes their children. Mister and Harpo bring home the ailing Shug Avery, a blues singer and Mister's long time mistress. Celie, who has slowly developed a fondness for Shug through a photograph sent to Mister, is in awe of Shug's strong will. She nurses Shug back to health, and Shug, in turn, takes a liking to her, writing and performing a song about her at Harpo's newly opened juke joint that he operates with his girlfriend, Squeak. Shug tells Celie she is moving to Memphis, and Celie confides to Shug that Mister beats her. Shug tells Celie that she is beautiful and that she loves her, and they share a tender moment where they kiss each other. Celie packs her things to follow Shug to Memphis, but is caught by Mister. Celie and Johnson watch as Shug leaves and Celie passes out on the ground. In town the mayor's wife, Ms. Millie compliments Sofia on her raising her children and
repeatedly asks if she wants to work for her. Sofia says, "hell no," and when the mayor slaps her in the face she punches him. She is pistol whipped, arrested and later imprisoned. Eight years later she is released, a shell of her former self, and immediately ordered by the judge to become Ms. Millie's maid. Ms. Millie agrees to let Sofia spend Christmas with her children. As she drives out Ms. Millie has trouble putting her car in gear and gets startled by the Black men who try to assist her. Frightened she asks Sofia to drive her home. Shug returns to Celie and Mister's home with her new husband Grady, in town on business. Grady and Mister become intoxicated while Shug checks the mailbox. She finds a letter from Celie's sister in Africa. Shug gives Celie the letter from Nettie, who tells her that she is working for a couple who adopted Celie's children. Celie and Shug realize that Mister has been hiding Nettie's letters from Celie. While he and Grady are out drinking, Shug and Celie search the house, finding a hidden compartment under the floorboards containing bundles of Nettie's unread letters. Engrossed in reading, Celie does not hear Mister's calls to shave him, and he slaps her. Celie sets her mind to kill Mister with his straight razor, but Shug stops her. At a family gathering, Celie finally speaks up against Mister and his years of abuse, to the delight of Shug. This fighting spirit also brings back Sofia's old self, and prompts Squeak to insist on men using her real name, Mary Agnes. Celie responds to Mister's taunts with a curse on him. Shug and Grady drive away, taking Celie and Mary with them. Years later, Shug reunites with her father, who is a pastor, after years of estrangement because of his disapproval of the life path she chose. Mister has become a lonely drunk and let his home and farm fall into ruin. Harpo has made amends with Sofia; they now run the bar together, and Shug still performs there when she comes to town. Upon Celie's father's passing, she finally learns from her father's young, child bride widow that he was not their biological father after all. When their mother died, "his" property was legally inherited by Celie and Nettie, and the home and shop that had belonged to her biological father pass to Celie. Celie begins to operate a tailor shop. Mister receives a letter from the U. S. Immigration and Naturalization Service addressed to Celie, takes money from his secret stash, and arranges for Nettie and her family, including Celie's children to return to the U. S. from Africa. While Mister watches from a distance, Celie, Nettie, and the children reunite, and the two sisters bond over a hand clapping game from their childhood.

Alice Walker was initially reluctant to sell the film rights to her novel, due to Hollywood's portrayal of female and African American characters. She only agreed to executive producers Jon Peters and Peter Guber's offer after consulting with friends, who agreed the only way to improve representation of minorities was to work within the system. Walker's contract stipulated that 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."

Rather than cast established stars, Walker sought out lesser known actors to play the principal roles, since their rise from obscurity represented the experience of characters in her novels. After lobbying producers for the part, 29 year old Goldberg was personally selected by Walker after she saw her stand up. Other cast members, such as Danny Glover, Adolph Caesar, and Carl Anderson, were predominantly stage performers. Akosua Busia was a graduate of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, and the daughter of Ghanaian prime minister Kofi Abrefa Busia. Goldberg's real life daughter Alex Martin has a minor role as one of the children in the Easter sequence. Margaret Avery was a veteran actress who had previously won an NAACP Image Award for the made for television film Louis Armstrong – Chicago Style. Spielberg had pursued singers Chaka Khan and Tina Turner but both turned it down. Patti LaBelle and Sheryl Lee Ralph also auditioned, and Phyllis Hyman was considered. Though Avery had prior musical experience, her singing voice was dubbed by Táta Vega.

While the novel was based on Walker's childhood home of Eatonton, Georgia, the film was shot predominantly in James C. Bennett's house, located in Lilesville (Anson County), and Union County in North Carolina during the summer months.

The Color Purple's film score was written by Quincy Jones, the first feature film directed by Spielberg for which John Williams did not compose the music. The score combines elements of classical and period jazz, blues, and gospel, and features several popular songs of the era. The track Miss Celie's Blues (Sister), performed in the film by the character Shug (Avery; dubbed by Táta Vega), later gained popularity as a concert piece. Due to his dual responsibilities as both producer and composer, Jones delegated many of the tasks to a team of eleven other musicians and arrangers. This led to a dispute during the Academy Awards over the nominees for Best Original Score. While Jones is the sole credited composer of the film, the nomination lists all twelve musicians (Jones, Chris Boardman, Jorge Calandrelli, Andraé Crouch, Jack Hayes, Jerry Hey, Randy Kerber, Jeremy Lubbock, Joel Rosenbaum, Caiphus Semenya, Fred Steiner and Rod Temperton).

The Color Purple premiered on December 18, 1985, in Los Angeles. However, the premiere was picketed by members of the NAACP for its depiction of rape. The film went into general release in the United States on February 7, 1986.

The Color Purple was a success at the box office, staying in U. S. theaters for 21 weeks, In terms of box office income, it ranked as the number one rated PG 13 film released in 1985, and number four overall.

In addition, some critics alleged that the film stereotyped black people in general and black men in particular, In response, Spielberg said, "Most of the criticism came from directors [who] felt that we had overlooked them, and that it should have been a black director telling a black story. That was the main criticism. The other criticism was that I had softened the book. I have always copped to that. I made the movie I wanted to make from Alice Walker's book. There were certain things in the [lesbian] relationship between Shug Avery and Celie that were finely detailed in Alice's book, that I didn't feel could get a [PG 13] rating. And I was shy about it. In that sense, perhaps I was the wrong director to acquit some of the more sexually honest encounters between Shug and Celie, because I did soften those. I basically took something that was extremely erotic and very intentional, and I reduced it to a simple kiss. I got a lot of criticism for that." During the time and since then it has had an intense debate among civil rights activists, commentators, and film critics. The NAACP accused the film of "stereotypical portrayals of black males". Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune wrote, "It was a debate that divided much of the nation`s black intelligentsia against itself. Author James Baldwin accused the movie and its director, Steven Spielberg, of mangling the poetic vision of Alice Walker`s Pulitzer Prize winning novel. Black feminist Michele Wallace said the movie smothered Walker`s feminist message in syrupy Disney like sentimentality. Black author Ishmael Reed called the book a near criminal assault on black family life and heterosexual relationships." In 2022, writer Aisha Harris revisited the controversy on NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour saying, "when it first came out, there was a lot of tension and debate about how it depicted Black men and Black women and the Black family". Harris later detailed, "nearly all of the Black men in the movie are depicted as cold hearted, violent abusers. To some audiences, especially Black men, The Color Purple was the mainstream reinforcement of a deeply damaging and persistent perception". The film was fiercely defended by its stars including Oprah Winfrey who said, "It's one woman's story. It was not meant to be the history of every black man or woman in this country and I wish they'd just shut up about it". Whoopi Goldberg said "We got a lot of shit from a lot of people [and] the NAACP I was really pissed off. [Spielberg] made a damn fine film".

On November 2, 2018, it was announced that a film adaptation of the 2005 stage musical version was in development. Spielberg and Jones returned to co produce, alongside the stage production's producers Winfrey and Scott Sanders. On August 25, 2020, it was announced that Marcus Gardley would pen the screenplay and Black is King's Blitz Bazawule would direct. On December 23, 2020, it was announced that Alice Walker, Rebecca Walker, Kristie Macosko Krieger, Carla Gardini and Mara Jacobs would executive produce. H. E. R. and Corey Hawkins were cast in August 2021. The film was released on December 25, 2023.