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From: reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.women,net.movies
Subject: Re: _The Color Purple_ (The Movie)
Message-ID: <6445@ucla-cs.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 28-Jul-85 02:19:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucla-cs.6445
Posted: Sun Jul 28 02:19:27 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 2-Aug-85 01:29:35 EDT
References: <986@hou2h.UUCP>
Reply-To: reiher@ucla-cs.UUCP (Peter Reiher)
Organization: UCLA Computer Science Department
Lines: 37
Xref: watmath net.women:6749 net.movies:7262

Spielberg is indeed currently shooting a film version of "The Color Purple",
in North Carolina, I think.  The star is Whoopie Goldberg, a black comedienne
with no film experience.  No word on how faithful it will be to the book.

Why Spielberg?  Because he wanted to.  To a first order approximation,
Spielberg makes whatever he wants nowadays.  Would you want to be the film
executive who said "no" to Steven Spielberg?  If he got it into his head
to make a film version of the Domesday Book, I have no doubt someone would
finance it.  (I'll bet a lot of us would go see it, too.)  The deeper question,
of course, is why Spielberg wants to make it.  Undoubtedly the major reason
is that he liked the book, but a contributing factor is probably that he's
been getting a lot of heat for a number of things: making kiddie movies rather
than films for adults, not making films about women, patronizing attitudes
towards non-whites (or, in many cases, merely ignoring their existence).
"The Color Purple" is a project for people who think, has an almost entirely
black cast, is based on a book by a black woman, and has a woman for the
central character.  What better project could their be for Spielberg to show
the world that he isn't a childish, insensitive yahoo?

Those who think this an odd matchup might want to think back to Spielberg's
first feature film, "The Sugarland Express".  Spielberg did an excellent
job there with that film, which was not a children-of-all-ages rollercoaster
ride, and was centered around a female character.  Spielberg is, in my
opinion, quite talented enough to make a good film outside his self-defined
genre.  Whether "The Color Purple" is that film should be clear in about
six to nine months.  (I don't think even Hollywood executives are foolish
enough to try to pass it off as a big adventure/laugh riot extravaganza
for next summer's release.)

And once he's gotten adulthood out of his system, Spielberg will, according
to rumor, be back at his old tricks with a remake of "Peter Pan".  Live
action, boy not girl in the lead.  Any votes for John Lithgow as Captain
Hook?
-- 
        			Peter Reiher
				reiher@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU
        			{...ihnp4,ucbvax,sdcrdcf}!ucla-cs!reiher