The Color Purple on Arte: Steven Spielberg Regrets His Masterpiece

The story of two sisters, Celia and Nettie, set in the Deep South of the United States. They were separated as teenagers due to the cruelty of the farmer “Monsieur”, who bought more flax than he could marry. Long and difficult years pass, Celie endures the worst sadness and experiences the intolerance of her master…

Released in the US just over a year after Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom , it’s no stretch to say that Steven Spielberg’s The Color Purple has hit hard. Until then, the image of the filmmaker was primarily tied to the making of blockbusters and family films, Spielberg surprised his audience with this adult story, very heavy and exciting, which carried an emotional charge that split stones in two. A story written by the first African-American woman in history, Alice Walker, who won the prestigious Pulitzer Prize in 1983 for a book published a year earlier.

Starring Whoopi Goldberg, who also won a Golden Globe for Best Actress, the film grossed nearly $100 million at the worldwide box office. But the work also had a rather failed fate.

Made Oscar history, but not for the right reasons

It made Oscar history, but not for the right reasons. Collecting no less than 11 citations in the main categories at the 58th ceremony in 1986, he did not win a single statuette. Spielberg wasn’t even nominated for Best Director, which pissed him off. We had to go back to 1977 with Le Tournant de la vie, which was cited in 10 categories without winning a single award, to find such humiliation.

Alice Walker also had a difficult relationship with the film. If he signed the script of the film and appreciated Spielberg, even attended the shooting for many days, he was also worried about the future result, fearing a betrayal of his work.

The thing is, over time, he ended up enjoying the movie in a way he didn’t when it came out. In an interview he gave to NBC On the 30th anniversary of the film, he stated that he preferred the musical adaptation of his work, which was created in 2005.

Spielberg was also attacked. Some critics denied him the right to make a film about the subject, arguing that he was not African-American and therefore could not understand the deep drama of Alice Walker’s narrative.

“Most of the criticism came from directors who felt we had neglected them and it had to be a black director telling a black story. That was the main criticism.” said the film director in an interview Entertainment Weekly in 2011.

Another criticism—an artistic choice here—of his film was that it softened the lesbian relationship between the characters of Shug Avery (Margaret Avery) and Celie. “Another criticism was that I watered down the book. I made a movie that I wanted to make based on Alice Walker’s book. Alice was on set a lot, and she could always come out and say, “You know, it’s very Disney.” This is not how I imagined the development of the scene.

He was very helpful during filming, so I felt we were doing a good job adapting his novel. There were things about Shug Avery and Celie’s relationship that were detailed in Alice’s book, but I didn’t think I could leave them out if I wanted to get a PG-13 rating. And I was shy about it.

In that sense, maybe I was the wrong director to bring up the intimacy between Shug and Celie because I played it down. I took something extremely erotic and very intentional and reduced the sequence to just a kiss. I received a lot of criticism for that.”