I can understand why this movie wasn't successful at the box office. It is quite hard to sit through and deals with certain things that most people would rather not watch while shoving popcorn in their faces. I just don’t understand why people were so eager to hate this movie. And I still can't believe Oprah wasn't at least nominated for an Oscar. Anyways, it is a beautiful and wondrous film.
shareI agree 100% with everything you posted.
shareLook at the user comment at this page : a lot of people believe that a movie is good when 1) it goes the fasted as possible ; 2)it makes more noise than their pop-corn.
This was a very serious movie, and was not to be taken lightly. I think some of the people just can not take what the harsh reality of a slave woman, even after she escaped, the things that would happen to her were horrific, as bluntly depected in the movie. I personally loved the film, and the book ( The two were indetical.) I do wish it got more recognition, but I can understand why it did not, because of it's raw truth and power that some people can not handle.
shareThe two are most certainly not identical. Aside from the fact that certain things were left out for what must have been time constraints (it was already three hours), Oprah glossed over a lot of important themes/points.
The negative actions of the black community in Ohio were completely left out. There was no party when schoolteacher came back, there was no mention of people not offering Paul D a place to stay, it was not made clear why people had a problem with Sethe, etc, etc. I think that leaving these points out really cheapened the message. Morrison's great strength, and critical contribution, is that she illuminates racial discrepancies and portrays her subjects/situations extremely realistically. Not all white people were evil, but all black people were not good either.
There was definitely not enough made of Stamp Paid, they left the parts about him trying to knock on the door out of the movie, and didn't explain his importance enough.
It is a much better adaptation than most book-films you will see, but it is far from identical. I really wonder what Toni Morrison thought of the movie, and was hoping to find it here, but I guess I'll have to search further. Oprah made a lot about this being a labor of love, and yes, she definitely did want to faithfully, accurately bring it onto the screen, we all know she respects Morrison and many other fine authors, but that does not mean she did a perfect job.
Really, I was pretty disappointed. I thought Danny Glover and Kimberly Elise did fantastic jobs, they were just as I imagined, but Sethe and Beloved just didn't fit (due to screenplay, not lack of acting skill, I believe). A big component of the book was definitely relationships, how people relate, but that seemed to be the only focus of the movie. Yes, it noted slavery and its impact, but it did not dig nearly as deep as the book, exploring deeply rooted inequities and continuing themes. Plus, the book just has this great lyrical quality you can't really bring to the screen.
Valiant effort, but didn't quite work.
There was that scene where all the women are talking and someone says "You just don't up and kill your children" or something like that. You also had the dirty looks when she walks to the carnival and shops at the store.
I do believe that the party scene would have been more explanatory and made things more complicated but the movie works fine without it.
I agree with Evr1bugsme - the film really was a valiant attempt at transferring the novel to the screen, though it is a novel that cannot wholly be transferred. One of the main beauties of the novel is its lyrical feel, a rhythm of speech that links events not otherwise logically linked. Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover, Thandie Newton and Kimberly Elise are all wonderful actors who gave great performances - however, the screenplay had flaws that they could not made up for. Many parts of the narrative were not explained or hinted at - a viewer should see this film only as a companion piece to the novel. Hopwever, in terms of performance, the four leads were robbed at the Oscars - they were well-deserving of nominations. Finally, I read (or dreamt) that Toni Morrison wanted to write the screenplay herself, but that Oprah hired someone else. Is this true? And if so, why would she do so? I believed the two to be good friends.
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No that's not true. When Oprah told Morrison she wanted to make it a movie, Toni Morrison asked "how are you going to turn this into a movie?" And Oprah said "maybe you can help with the screen play?" Morrison replied "No, I don't write screenplays, that's not what I do."
sharethis is just another indication of how dumb people are in this country. But I also wnat to blame the marketing of this movie. I had never heard anything about the book and judging from the trailers i thought it was going to be another Color Purple. I don't understand why they would market it like that. it was a completely different story. But that still doesn't explain why people didn't go to see after opening week.
I personally thought it was the best movie of that year and it shows the general population's stupity when "The Bride of Chucky,", "Babe", and "Spice World" grossed more that year.
Regan: What an excellent day for an exorcism
I am sure this movie was not bad. Unfortunately,there are some movies that appeal to that big teen crowd,and some movies that do not. That is how the movie world goes.
Rosebud
It's a pitty Oprah didn't at least get nominated for an Oscar/Golden Globe. It's a beautiful movie! Complicated yes, in-your-face yes, but very good! You'd think Hollywood would change after The Color Purple, but after more than a decade it was still the same :(
shareYou are absolutely right.
shareIt is an unpleasant film that deals with subjects that a lot of people don't want to deal with. I liked the film and I understood its point of view. It dealt with its subject matter in very honest, yet brutal way. It didn't flinch from the brutality that slaves most likely endured. What made it a little different for me was that it was done from a black woman's perspective. Alex Haley's Queen did too, but Beloved did it from a very different perspective. This movie did not do well at the box office and I really wouldn't have expected it to. Its harsh, rough, and not glamorous.
shareIt makes perfect sense that this movie did not do well at the box office.
1) It dealt with slavery which is not a topic blacks or whites want to be reminded of
2) Generally speaking, films with all black casts tend not to do well, though there are exceptions
3) It dealt with a woman harming her baby which is not a topic people are comfortable with
4) Intellectually it was quite challenging because of its complex narrative structure and metaphores
5) It didn't clearly fit into any existing genre. It was part horror film, part dramma, part artsy film, part historical period piece. These are all very different genres with very different audiences who like very different things. Because it didn't fit any clearly defined genre, it had no clearly defined target audience to market to.
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