It is not unusual for a novel to undergo several genre adaptations on a journey from book to play to film. Many will be familiar with the several media adaptations of Oliver Twist, while others will even more happily recall Christopher Isherwood’s Mr. Norris Changes Trains being transformed into the play and screen versions of I am a Camera, culminating in the stage and screen musicals, Cabaret.
However, each medium through which such works are expressed presents its own challenge. While something may be added, something will inevitably be lost. That certainly is the case with the latest film version of Alice Walker’s multi-layered novel The Color Purple.
While Steven Spielberg’s 1985 screen adaptation deservedly met with much acclaim, it did not, in fact, do total justice to the book, which is in essence a metaphor of black history told from a feminist viewpoint. As such, it shows the movement toward the liberation of women, not only from white supremacists and colonialists, but also their gradual freeing themselves from often brutal subjugation by black men and eventual assertion of their own independence.
While some of this was captured in the first film version, it failed the original in several ways. For example, not only did it inadequately portray the way in which the protagonist gained financial independence by use of her needle, but more importantly, it only sketchily dealt with the inhumane exploitation by white colonials, mainly British, Belgian and German, of black people in Africa – and not merely in the horrors of the slave trade. In reality this aspect of white racism is a major concern of the final third of the novel.
Now along comes a musical version of the story, adapted from the successful stage version. Of course, often rather condescendingly, there has long been acknowledgement of the black contribution to music, especially in jazz and the blues, so it is easy to understand why the idea of The Color Purple should be given musical treatment. And, in fact, the film does this quite effectively in songs derived from work songs, Gospel music, and the blues. Thanks to a talented cast, the result is entertaining, while a skeleton of the novel’s plot lends it a strong emotional resonance, but the novel is far more than this.
This is not to deny the merits of this film musical adaptation, but merely to point out that Walker’s novel aims at far more than this version achieves. In fact, the novel clearly arose from the times in which it was published, including as it does themes of racism, colonialism, misogyny, and lesbianism – themes which are perhaps even more resonant today than they were in 1982 and which are given inadequate treatment in the new film musical.
Walker explores these themes in order to show that all black people, and black women in particular, were subjected to cruel and barbaric treatment, not only by whites on both sides of the Atlantic, but often by black men, especially in America. Her novel is not only about the fight for racial equality, but also by black women for sexual and social equality in the eyes of all. This is most tellingly expressed when the main character, rejecting the man who has enslaved and victimized her, says, “Everything you done to me already been done to you.”
Her journey, tragically complex, involves being abused sexually, forcibly separated from her beloved sister I(whose narrative fills much of the final third of the novel), having her children ripped from her, and ultimately finding strength to assert herself. On the way, through her sister’s experience, she later learns of the horrors inflicted on black Africans.
Furthermore, in the example of a far more liberated woman, Shug, a singer and a woman who is defiantly independent, discovers her own strengths and self-respect. She becomes a reminder of the many talented women who achieved fame and fortune even in a period of racial discrimination – a reminder of the glorious talent of Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Bilie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Lena Horne, Eartha Kitt and others – though it is well to remember that that fame was achieved despite the sort of discrimination that resulted in even widely applauded black entertainers up to the 1950s being barred from some of Vancouver’s major hotels.
Of course, all of this history is incredibly complex and difficult to include in one movie. Part of the lessened impact of the new film version is that it is a musical, which ultimately has a softening impact on the horrible events that form even this reduced version of the novel’s plot. We may be impressed and entertained by Leadbelly singing “Take this hammer,” without, at the same time, recognizing the brutal work imposed on the men who gave birth to the song.
So it is that, while the musical The Color Purple cannot do justice to the novel and all its concerns, it does succeed in being entertaining, while to a large extent minimizing the harsh realities that gave birth to the novel. Despite, and perhaps even because of this softening of the book’s narrative, it is certainly a film which may well get more than mention at the upcoming Oscars. While we can applaud the performances, and perhaps because we can, it is also to be hoped that this film musical will prompt readers to return to the source, Alice Walker’s acclaimed, but brutally shocking book, The Color Purple. It is not an easy read, but it is certainly a salutary one.
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