The Color Purple

Alice Walker set two conditions when she sold the rights: she would consult on the project, and half the production team apart from the cast would be African American, female or, in her contract’s wording, people of the Third World. Steven Spielberg waived his own fee and worked for the Directors Guild minimum. Quincy Jones produced and scored it, the first Spielberg feature without John Williams. Shooting ran through Anson and Union counties in North Carolina, where Marshville had its tarmac covered with mud and clay. Spielberg described the softening of the Celie and Shug material himself: with the rating in mind he reduced to a single kiss something the novel had made explicit. The 58th Academy Awards brought 11 nominations and no wins, and Spielberg was not among the directing nominees; the Directors Guild gave him its feature award the same season. Whoopi Goldberg won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Motion Picture, Drama, though it was not her screen debut; she had appeared in an avant garde film in 1982. For Winfrey it was a first. A good fit if you hold the film beside the novel rather than in place of it, knowing which line the director admits he flattened. Not for anyone avoiding a story the BBFC certifies with references to child sexual abuse.