The Same River Twice (1996) recounts Alice Walker’s life and feelings from an unknown writer of The Color Purple (1982) to winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction (1983) and consultant during its adaptation to film (1985). In this time, and since, she has endured severe criticism, hostility, and public censure.
The Color Purple is a novel about Celie, a rural Southern American black woman who experiences tragedy in her youth and becomes victorious in love over time. It is written in the form of letters to God, and to her sister Nettie, a missionary in Africa.
When Walker agreed to the movie, directed by Steven Spielberg, she stipulated in the contract that “half the people involved in the production [apart from the cast] would be blacks, women, and/or people of the Third World.” While this was unusual, it was adhered to. Quincy Jones wrote the musical score. However, there was criticism from the public for Spielberg as director, and Menno Jones, a Dutchman, as script writer. Criticism, predominantly by African-Americans, was against white people telling a black story, the negative depiction of blacks (especially men), its perpetuation of racial stereotypes, and homosexuality being “projected to the masses as a solution to the problems black men and women face with each other.”
In its defense, the novel and movie were regarded as not about race, but about “the trials of the human spirit.” It was praised for bringing to light the pervasiveness of women’s oppression (of all nationalities), especially their feelings of worthlessness, but also for its sub-theme of national oppression. The character, Celie, eventually has her own home and land—her vision of liberation. In addition to its praise, there was also much criticism of the criticism.
When Walker first saw the film, with her partner, Robert, and their friend, Belvie, in “an otherwise empty theatre,” she noticed only its flaws: to her it looked “slick, sanitized and apolitical.” She liked the kissing scene between Celie and Shug, the parting scene between Celie and Nettie, the scene where Nettie defends herself against Mister, the letter-finding scenes, and the music. When she later saw the movie with friends, it was a more positive experience. Walker eventually let go of the scenes that “were not there” and accepted that the movie was “far more conventional than the novel” in terms of religion versus spirituality, and Celie’s and Shug’s lesbian relationship.
During the making of the movie, Walker requested two major changes: to “get God out of the Church and back into nature” and to include “the feeling of the people is circle, not hierarchy.” Generally, from the view of readers, movie goers and critics, the movie was faithful to the novel’s complexity and motif, except for the sub-theme of Shug’s longing for reconciliation with her father, and the muted female relationships.
This memoir incorporates explanations, letters, notes taken during the filming, excerpts from the movie script, and journal entries. Walker recounts explicitly her views of creativity, pressure, stress, and public criticism as she transitions from a creative recluse to a prize-winning author—and the pleasures and costs this has on her personal life.
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