Indomitable spirit’s triumph

Press, 9 June 1986, Page 18

Indomitable spirit’s triumph

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THE COLOUR PURPLE Directed by Steven Spielberg Screenplay by Menno Meyjes There is no doubt that Steven Spielberg is a magical film-maker. The trouble is that he cannot resist laying on the stardust and tinsel, even when tackling a serious subject, such as “The Colour Purple” (Regent). He has taken Alice Walker’s Pulitzer prizewinning novel about the trials and tribulations faced by a black girl growing up in the Deep South during the first half of this century and turned it into a treacly Black Pollyanna. A story that should have taken an unblinking look at the powerless frustration of the American black people only a generation after the abolition of slavery, is turned instead into a sugar-candied series of vignettes in which the audience can rest assured that every scene of degradation will be over-compensated for with triumphant regeneration — and lashings of Southern Soul.

The story begins in a small Georgia town in 1906, where our heroine, Celie, gives birth, at the tender age of 14, to the second of her children. They were fathered by a man she calls Pa, who takes the infant out into the snow, never revealing to her what its fate will be.

Already mistreated by her own Pa, she is then “given” as a wife to a man whom she knows only as Mr (Danny Glover), a widower with four children who continues to use and abuse her for most of her adult life. Celie (Whoopi Goldberg) is sustained through the early years by the close bond to her younger sister, Nettie (Akousua Busia). But the mean-spir-ited Mr forces a separation between the two after a failed attempt at raping the sister. From then on, Mr manages to conceal from Celie the endless string of letters written to her by her sister.

It is not until 1921, when the blues singer, Shug Avery (Margaret Avery), the preacher’s daughter adored by Mr, comes into Celie’s life, that she begins to develop an awareness of her own worth, and gradually learns to assert herself.

It is at this stage that Celie, with the help of Shug (short for Sugar), discovers the dozens of letters from Nettie, who is now a missionary in Africa. Interwoven with this are about four other characters whose varying fortunes help fill out the rich tapestry of life in the Deep South.

Noteworthy among these are Mr’s good-na-tured but weak son, Harpo (Willard Pugh), and his buxom bride, the domineering Sofia (Oprah Winfrey).

The focus of the story, however, always returns to Celie, and it is the emergence of her identity which finally makes possible the reconvergence of all her loved ones, with soaring poetic justice and the inspiring triumph of the redeeming, healing power of love. If the above words seem a little overstated, it is only because the film is just that.

Celie’s miserable life and final triumph, helped by the surprise inheritance of a house and small fortune, has a definite Dickensian ring to it. And if the viewer fails to pick this, copies of “David Copperfield” are liberally strewn through the first part of the film to help him along. Celie, meek and mild, her eyes always downcast, and afraid to assert herself, is unmistakeably a

heroine who could have walked out of a Dickens novel.

Poor Celie is told, “You’re black, you’re poor, you’re ugly, you’re a woman — you’re nothing at all.” Another time, she can only reply, “I don’t know how to fight. All I know is how to stay alive.” It is here where the wonderful performance of Whoopi Goldberg shines through as the indomitable spirit of Celie. She may have a funny face, but you cannot doubt that she is beautiful inside. The rest of the likeable cast also give fine performances, especially Oprah Winfrey as the fighting Sofia, whose spirit is finally crushed when she is jailed for eight years for slugging the town’s white mayor. Margaret Avery’s Shug, however, is a fascinating, complex character that is never fully realised; and the film’s tendency to gloss over is most apparent when the developing lesbian relationship between Celie and Shug is presented only as some kind of children’s kiss-and-touch game, somewhat like Celie used to play with her younger sister.

If anything is shown in bad light, it is the men: there is hardly a sensitive, gentle soul among them. Mr is as mean and illtempered as can be, a trait he has obviously in-

herited from his father (Adolph Caesar). Even the preacher (John Patton, jun.) turns his back on his fallen angel of a

daughter, Shug. In the end, however, some miraculous changes are seen even in these men. As he has already shown in many other films, Spielberg is best when he is working miracles, and he has a field day in “The Colour Purple.” He also has an eye for beautifully composed scenes, whether they be big sunsets, fields of purple flowers, or even the surprising interpolation of herds of giraffes or elephants on the African plains. Besides handling the people so well in his story-book fashion, Spielberg also includes many memorable atmospheric scenes, such as the party at Harpo’s Juke Joint, Sofia’s Christmas reunion with her family after she is released from jail, or the joyous procession of the sinners from the Juke Joint to the church for a stirring, gospel-singing reunion.

Spielberg gives us many such moments, which alone make “The Colour Purple” worth while seeing.

He has already proven in almost all his films that nothing succeeds like excess. The trouble is that you can get too much of a good thing.