The Color Purple
The musical adaptation of Alice Walker's landmark novel about love and sisterhood finally arrives on the big screen, starring Fantasia Barrino and Taraji P. Henson.
It's Complicated
Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel recounts the abuse and ascendancy of Celie, a poor Black woman living in the rural South in the early 1900s. This revered story was adapted into an Oscar-nominated film and a crowd-pleasing Broadway musical. Here, a bold new take delivers a movie musical with show-stopping set pieces, forays into fantasy and a powerhouse cast: Broadway alums as well as Colman Domingo, Taraji P. Henson and Halle Bailey.
Ghanaian filmmaker Blitz Bazawule (The Burial of Kojo) introduces magical realism as an instrument to explore Celie's imagination. Color Purple 2.0 deliberately escapes into sporadic joy with its musical numbers, which allow the viewer to track Celie's emotional journey without being overwhelmed by her horrific traumas. Bazawule explains, "They used humor, laughter, music, imagination and the beauty of the land. Everything we were pulling up to bring levity to this story was already there in Celie's world."
D: Blitz Bazawule, US, 2023, 2h20m CC
Academy Award Nominee for Best Supporting Actress
Programmed in conjunction with Black Legacy Month.
Part of the Dartmouth Film Society series "It's Complicated," about messy relationships, forbidden love and romance gone wrong.
“Alice Walker has essentially written a Black Shakespearean story, and Shakespeare has been interpreted a thousand different ways over the years,”
Scott Sanders, producer of the award-winning Broadway 2015 revival and the 2023 film
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