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The Color Purple (1985 film)
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The Color Purple is a 1985 film about a young African-American girl that shows the problems faced by African-American women during the early 1900s; including poverty, racism, and sexual discrimination.
Directed by Steven Spielberg. Written by Menno Meyjes, based on the novel by Alice Walker
It's about life. It's about love. It's about us. Taglines
Celie
Shug like honey. And now I's just like a bee.
I'm poor, black; I may even be ugly. But dear God! I'm here! I'm here!
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
[to Albert] The jail you planned for me is the one you're gonna rot in.
Shug Avery
See Daddy, sinners have soul too.
I think it pisses God off when you walk by the color purple in a field and don't notice it.
[to Celie] You sho' is ugly!
Sofia
All my life I had to fight. I had to fight my daddy. I had to fight my uncles. I had to fight my brothers. A girl child ain't safe in a family of mens, but I ain't never thought I'd have to fight in my own house!! I loves Harpo, God knows I do. But I'll kill him dead 'fo I let him beat me...
I done had enough bad luck to keep me laughin' the rest of my life. Sat in that jail. I sat in that jail til I nearby done rot to death. I know what it like, Ms. Celie, to wanna go somewhere and cain't. I know what it like to wanna sing... and have it beat outch'ya. I want to thank you, Miss Celie, 'fo everything you done for me. I 'members that day I was in the store with Miss Millie - I's feelin' real down. I's feelin' mighty bad. And when I see'd you — I knowed there is a God. I knowed there is a God. And one day I was gonna get to come home.
Old Mister
[to Albert] Boy, you let this ol' nappy-headed girl cuss you out like that? You sittin' at the head of your own dinner table and actin' like a waiter.
Celie, you has my sympathy. Ain't many women allow they husband's ho to lay up in they house.
[Sofia begins to laugh after years of silence] My God, the dead has arisen.
Dialogue
Young Celie: Nettie. Write.
Young Nettie: What?
Young Celie: Write.
Young Nettie: Nothing but death can keep me from it.
Celie: He beat me when you ain't here.
Shug: Who do? Albert?
Celie: Mister.
Shug: Why he do that?
Celie: He beat me for not being you.
Shug: More than anything God loves admiration.
Celie: You saying God is vain?
Shug: No, not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off when you walk by the color purple in a field and don't notice it.
Celie: You saying it just wanna be loved like it say in the Bible?
Shug: Yeah, Celie. Everything wanna be loved. Us sing and dance and holla just wanting to be loved. Look at them trees. Notice how the trees do everything people do to get attention... except walk? [they laugh] Oh, yeah, this field feels like singing! Oh Miss Celie, I feels like singing!
Shug: Celie is coming with us.
Albert: What?
Shug: Celie is coming with us to Memphis.
Albert: Over my dead body.
Shug: You satisfied? That what you want?
Albert: [to Celie] NOW what's wrong with you?
Celie: You a low down dirty dog, that's what's wrong. Time for me to get away from you and enter into Creation. And your dead body'd be just the welcome mat I need.
Celie: [lunging towards Albert with a knife] I curse you. Until you do right by me, everything you think about is gonna crumble!
Sofia: Don't do it, Miss Celie. Don't trade places with what I been through.
Shug: Come on, Celie, let's go to the car.
Sofia: He ain't worth it, he ain't worth it.
Albert: Who you think you is? You can't curse nobody. Look at you. You're black, you're poor, you're ugly, you're a woman, you're nothing at all!
Celie: Until you do right by me, everything you even think about gonna fail!
Grady: It's been a pleasure meeting all of you. Goodbye.
Taglines
It's about life. It's about love. It's about us.
Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize Winning Story.
Quotes about
I loved [the book]The Color Purple. The movie disappointed me because so many people I do love were bowled over by it. I felt it was a romantic treatment that perhaps could have been dealt with more honestly.
1986 interview in Conversations with Maya Angelou (1989)
Cast
Danny Glover - Albert
Whoopi Goldberg - Celie
Margaret Avery - Shug Avery
Oprah Winfrey - Sofia
Willard E. Pugh - Harpo
Akosua Busia - Nettie
Desreta Jackson - Young Celie
Adolph Caesar - Old Mister
Rae Dawn Chong - Squeak
External links
0088939 The Color Purple
color_purple The Color Purple
Category:1985 American films
Category:1985 English-language films
Category:American drama films
Category:Period films
Category:Films based on American novels
Category:Films directed by Steven Spielberg
Category:Incest in film
Category:LGBT-related films
Category:Films set in Georgia (state)
Category:Films about child abuse
Category:Films about dysfunctional families
Category:Films set in the 1910s
Category:Films set in the 1920s
Category:Films set in the 1930s