moriarty@fluke.UUCP (Jeff Meyer) (02/10/86)
It's been a bleak several months for movie watching. Ever since
the summer of '85 has been over (and with it, the Seattle Film
Festival), I've been fairly dissatisfied with many of the pictures
that have come out. There were a few good ones over the fall and
winter months, but not one of them was a a real pleaser; I might
be enthused about many of the films' points, but none gave me the
rush of delight that a _The_Sure_Thing_ or _McArthur's_Children_
or _Restless_Natives_ (why the *HELL* hasn't this been
released?) or _Cocoon_ or _Tender_Mercies_ or even _Silverado_
-- no film came out and wildly surpassed my expectations. The
ones I was really hoping for a good time with -- _Enemy_Mine_
and _Young_Sherlock_Holmes_ were not only flawed, but
lackluster; good movies, but not something to come away from
feeling enthusiastic about films in general and optimistic about
the coming film schedule.
Well, two things have happened over the last couple of weeks. I
saw _The_Color_Purple_, which broke the long dry spell, and there
seems to be a flood of good-to-excellent films to fill the void
(_The_Trip_to_Bountiful_, _Down_&_Out_In_Beverly_Hills_,
_Hannah_and_Her_Sisters_, and _Murphy's_Romance_). I'll
concentrate on the former, and try to avoid the emotional diatribes
that previous reviewers have gotten into around here (i.e. I am a
white male reluctant-yuppie and think I was able to get much out
of the film despite my race and sex; just put it down to equal
rights for imagination). I haven't read the book, so I didn't have
any expectations, and thus faithfulness to the text will not be an
issue here.
Drama, in films of late, tends to be dark and somewhat sparse.
The excellent _Ordinary_People_ started this trend, I think, and
thus the scenes that stay with you the longest from
_Terms_of_Endearment_ or _Twice_In_A_Lifetime_ are those
gloomy, grainy close-ups of tense and pain-filled faces and
tattered lives. You wouldn't expect Stephen Spielburg to shoot
this way (he doesn't here); the point is, you're not quite sure
*what* way he's going to shoot it. This is not the type of subject
he's handled before, and the possibilities for cinematic mutations
are incredible. Happily for all involved, Spielburg and Company
(many of the Amazing Stories people appear in executive duties
credits) are talented (at least Spielburg is), and he has come out
with a very pleasing and beautiful creature indeed. The film
reminds me of a cross between _To_Kill_A_Mockingbird_ and
_Gone_With_the_Wind_ without the Epic Movie touches. Instead of
tight shots in dark interiors, the majority of the scenes have the
wide Southern landscape to shoot from, and there is a sense of
freedom that belies the condition of many of the characters.
Spielburg is not afraid to do a up-in-the-air boom shot now and
then, something we've seen dozens of times in the fabulous space
operas; here, I was surprised to find that it works well also. Even
the interior shots have texture and light (although often smokey),
and you have the feeling that you're watching an adaptation of an
old family classics, except old family classics usually don't
discuss prejudice and lesbianism much.
But while the cinematography keeps the train on track and running
smoothly and more pleasantly than would be expected, it is the
actors which power the engine. And power is the right word here,
as I have seen few performances more powerful than Whoopie
Goldberg's in the last year; this is especially surprising after
seeing several of her comedy specials beforehand, for there is
never even a hint to me that she could do this. She plays a woman
so oppressed and abused and tortured that the audience probably
dismisses any real will under the sympathetic but pitiful shell;
but when she does bloom, she does it with a force of character
which both blossums and explodes, literally. If the id is forged in an
oven of misfortunes, than Ceilly's persona must therefore be the
texture of diamonds, and Goldberg makes you believe it is. Very,
very few people can place physical force in a stare or a hand held
forward; but Ceilly, towards the end of the film gives the
impression that Christopher Reeve in his blue-n-red jammies
couldn't do better. The other characters do exactly what good
characters do -- they fill in and expand the events surrounding the
main character with style; the people here do this.
When looking at the script, though, the thing which made this film
work for me (besides Goldberg) was the way that the conflict and
drama and pain were balanced with comic character elements in
each actor. It gives the film a flavor of Twain or Dickens (the
latter in particular), in that the modern bleakness is not
permeating every frame of the movie. This is a very tricky move,
both on the part of the actor and the scriptwriter; if the
buffoonery is too blatant or unrealistic, you loose realism and your
dramatic edge; too little, and it looks sarcastic and cynical.
And most emphatically, _The_Color_Purple_ is *not* a downbeat
or cynical movie. It has a character who (with some help from her
friend) draws herself out of a hell NOT of her own making, against
incredible (but quite common) ignorance and savagery. A lot of
people are crying and cheering at this films end. Made sense to
me; I joined right in.
This review deserves longer, but I unhappily don't have the time.
If you haven't read the book, I think you'll enjoy this film very
much; if you have read the book, it'll depend how much of a stickler
for details you are.
"It's ten o'clock... Do you know where your
AI programs are?
-- Peter Oakley
Moriarty, aka Jeff Meyer
ARPA: fluke!moriarty@uw-beaver.ARPA
UUCP: {uw-beaver, sun, allegra, sb6, lbl-csam}!fluke!moriarty
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