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The Color Purple (Special Edition)
Stars:
Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, Adolph Caesar, Margaret Avery, and Rae Dawn Chong
Writer:
Menno Meyjes
Based
Upon The Novel By: Alice Walker
Director:
Steven Spielberg
Feature
length: 153 minutes
Extras:
Awards Notes, Theatrical Trailers, Documentaries, and Still Galleries
Languages:
English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, and English and French Dolby Surround
Sound
Subtitles:
English Captions and Closed Captions and French and Spanish Language Subtitles
Packaging:
Digipack Gatefold Within A Cardboard Slipcase
Chapter
Stops: 39
Sound:
Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and Dolby Surround Sound
Year
of Theatrical Release: 1985/DVD Release: 2003
Theatrical
Distributor: Warner Brothers
Home
Video Distributor: Warner Home Video
MPAA
Rating: PG-13
Reviewer:
Mark A. Rivera
“The
Color Purple” was among the very first Steven Spielberg films to be released
on DVD-Video when the format first rolled out in seven test city markets in
1997. Fans and admirers of this film have been waiting more than five years now
for a “Special Edition” re-issue and soon it will finally arrive as a
two-disc set courtesy of Warner Home Video. I have heard “The Color Purple”
described as Steven Spielberg’s first serious film and I have to ask,
“What were the rest of the movies he made then?”
Now understandably people at the time associated Steven Spielberg with
“E.T: The Extra-Terrestrial” as well as his other blockbuster films, but to
phrase those films as being any less dramatic or serious because they use
conventions associated with genre films in general is in my opinion ludicrous.
It is far easier now in the year 2003 to look back at Spielberg’s body of work
and realize that he truly is one of his generation’s master filmmakers, but in
my opinion “The Color Purple” is another step on the ladder of his
development as both a visual storyteller and a human being because what else
defines a person better than their actions and how could anyone regardless of
race work on a film adaptation of Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-Winning Novel
and not grow from the experience?
The
plight of Celie (Whoopi Goldberg) as the center to a world rich in vivid
characters is in my opinion universal. Perhaps it is because I was in high
school when “The Color Purple” was released theatrically, but I found it
quite amazing to learn while watching the documentaries produced by Laurent
Bouzereau that the film was considered controversial because some felt it
portrayed men in a bad light and others were concerned about how certain
elements in the story would be carried out, but until I watched the extra
features on the second disc the idea of the film portraying men in a bad light
never crossed my mind. Walker is telling a story that she describes was like
channeling her ancestors through her words to create a vivid dramatization of a
time and place that has seldom been explored in film let alone literature. Yet
the key point she makes on one of the documentaries was her interest in
discovering what changes a person and how they find redemption so of course we
are going to see the ugly side of human nature in a story like “The Color
Purple,” but it is not just the men alone in the story who go through a
catharsis. The women go through their own trials with their own problems which
at times stem from the basic human faults we all share from time to time like
vanity, overblown pride, self pity, and abusive behavior that the film clearly
shows through the actions of the characters are “learned” behaviors and not
inherent. So as far as I am concerned the film starts off with everyone being a
victim of something as well as themselves and ends with everyone finding a
salvation through their own selflessness, which reveals perhaps the inner
divinity that unites us all as one under God and a part of God, regardless if
you are a spiritual person or more of scientific person. Personally I have
always found physics to share some startling similarities with many cultural
spiritual beliefs.
This
new DVD edition looks like a brand new movie complete with a brand new digital
transfer and remastered Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Soundtrack that makes viewing
“The Color Purple” a sublime experience. The image quality is excellent and
the soundtrack matches well with full and discrete use of all of the home
theater sound system channels. An
English and a French Language Dolby Surround Soundtrack are also provided along
with English Captions and Closed Captions for the hearing impaired and French
and Spanish Language Subtitles. Extra features on disc one include two
theatrical teasers running at (1:18) and (1:28) respectively and the theatrical
trailer (1:25) and all are presented in beautiful (1.85:1) widescreen aspect
ratios with English Dolby Pro Logic Surround Soundtracks. The quality of these
trailers is so nice that I am inclined to ask if they were digitally mastered to
match the feature presentation on this DVD? A cast and crew list as well as a
list of the Awards the film garnered wrap up the extra features on disc one.
The
second disc contains four excellent documentaries with brand new cast and crew
interviews and they begin with “Conversations With Ancestors: The Color Purple
From Book To Screen” (26:39), which features Alice Walker discussing how she
came to write the book through to what Steven Spielberg describes as
“auditioning” to direct the film for Ms. Walker. It even discusses
Walker’s draft of the screenplay, which went further into elements of the
story than the novel, but despite the mutually agreed opinion of the script is
being excellent, Ms. Walker chose to have another writer adapt her novel for
personal reasons.
“A
Collaboration Of Spirits: Casting And Acting The Color Purple” (28:39)
explores the casting of the film to include the then largely unknown Whoopi
Goldberg to Oprah Winfrey. “Cultivating A Classic: The Making Of The Color
Purple (23:33) covers the production of the film to include some of the
techniques used to being the novel’s landscape to life and the final
documentary entitled “The Color Purple: The Musical” (7:36), which explores
not only the score by Quincy Jones, but how the rhythms of the sound effects
were used to tie elements of the story together cinematically. A
“Behind-The-Scenes” (3:02) and a “Cast” (7:56) still gallery wraps up
the extra features on disc two. The menus on both discs are well rendered and
easy to navigate. The two discs come handsomely packaged in a two-disc Digipack
gatefold within a cardboard slipcase.
An
excellent film and an excellent DVD set, “The Color Purple: Two-Disc Special
Edition” will debut on DVD-Video on Tuesday, February 18, 2003 from Warner
Home Video.
©
Copyright 2003 By Mark A. Rivera
All Rights Reserved.