From Book to Film: The Color Purple (1985)
Director: Steven Spielberg Run Time: 154 min. Rating: PG-13 Release Year: 1985
Starring: Danny Glover, Margaret Avery, Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg, Willard E. Pugh
Country: United States
Language: English
From Book to Film at Gateway Film Center
The essential summer film series returns with a new theme each month. September features stories from unbanned books. Visit Ticket Center beginning at noon the day of the screening to reserve your spot!
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See more From Book to FilmAbout the film:
An epic tale spanning forty years in the life of Celie, an African-American woman living in the South who survives incredible abuse and bigotry. After Celie’s abusive father marries her off to the equally debasing ‘Mister’ Albert Johnson, things go from bad to worse, leaving Celie to find companionship anywhere she can. She perseveres, holding on to her dream of one day being reunited with her sister in Africa.
Based on Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1982 novel, one of the most banned books in America. The film was nominated for eleven Academy Awards – including Best Picture, Best Actress for Whoopi Goldberg, Best Supporting Actress for both Margaret Avery and Oprah Winfrey, and Best Adapted Screenplay – and Spielberg received a Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement.
About the filmmaker:
Steven Spielberg, often considered one of the most popular and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema, inspired audiences and future storytellers with his science-fiction and adventure blockbusters—like Jaws (1975), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Jurassic Park (1993) and the Indiana Jones films—as well as more serious films addressing the Holocaust, the Transatlantic slave trade, war, and terrorism. He won the Academy Award for Best Director for Schindler’s List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998), and has also been awarded a Kennedy Center honor, a Cecil B. DeMille Award, and an AFI Life Achievement Award.
Most recently, Spielberg has helmed the musical adaptation West Side Story (2021) and his semi-autobiographical The Fabelmans (2022), which won the People’s Choice Award at the 2022 Toronto International Film Festival and received seven nominations at the 95th Academy Awards.
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