First published as a controversial novel by Alice Walker in 1982, The Color Purple depicts the brutal life of Celie, a poor African-American girl who lived in rural Georgia in the early 1900s. It has been adapted into various forms over the years, including films, television and radio shows. Recently, the enduring story was adapted from the musical, that ran from 2005 through 2008, into an even more glorious musical by screenwriter Marcus Gardley and stars Fantasia Barrino as Celie, Taraji P. Henson as Shug, and Danielle Brooks as Sophia.
The current version of The Color Purple is notable in that it’s a true musical, not a narrative film interrupted with musical interludes.
Director Blitz Bazawule (Black is King, The Burial of Kojo) states, “One of the things I really loved about the movie is the way the musical numbers naturally flow out of the drama. It doesn’t feel like you’ve got the drama, it stops for your song, then the film starts back up again.”
The story is elevated by the glorious choreography of Fatima Robinson (Dreamgirls) and cinematographer Dan Loxin’s immersive camera work. Blitz began his creative discussions on the project early in the development process beyond Gardleys screenplay. “We started talking philosophically. How are we going to show this brilliant African American dance that has evolved from the spirituality that became gospel, gospel that became blues, blues that became jazz,” he continues.
Center: Sophia (Danielle Brooks) Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
Robinson also mentions her discovery of medleys from a video by hip-hop artist Aaliyah showing song and competitions in various girls’ boarding houses in Guyana. This video heavily influenced the choreography in The Color Purple.
Constructing The Film
Blitz Bazamuli storyboarded his film in a lengthy two-hour pencil sketch series. “I sketched the whole movie. It was about a thousand frames. It took three months to do. And then I cut it all together. I hired voice actors to come in and do the whole script. Then I went on YouTube and found some sound effects and temporary score.”
The story was built out as the sketches and reviewed and updated on a continual basis. “I saw people laugh. I saw people cry. I saw people go through all the emotions that you probably go through watching this movie. And I said to myself, ‘If pencil sketches can do that, then with this masterful crew, we’re in great territory.’ So that’s how I see it all coming together,” Blitz continues.
The naturalistic warm lighting, luscious costumes and authentic production design was designed to capture the spirit of the Deep South in the early 1900s and honor The Color Purple in a style of magical realism. It was also essential to replicate a typical Georgian town at the time with common elements like a barber store and a hardware store.
Sophia (Danielle Brooks) & Celie (Fantasia Barring) Photo courtesy Warner Bros. Pictures
Everything had to feel grounded rather than a performance on sound stage. More importantly, Blitz Bazamuli insisted the images his film felt “lived in.” It had to feel like a living, breathing world rather than a series of sets.
The new version of The Color Purple contains a few additional songs that weren’t in the musical and braided into the existing harmony of the existing musical songs. “When you inherit music from Broadway, it’s really Broadway. From day one, I knew that we’ll have to make some real augmentations to the music that we inherited. I didn’t think that all the story that we wanted to tell, was represented,” mentions Blitz.
We split the music into three worlds – gospel, blues, and jazz
Chief composer, Kris Bowers was meticulous and thorough in his choice of musical numbers. “Something that Blitz and I talked about was the necessity for the score to be the glue in the story. That really helps us come in and out of songs and come in and out of these emotional moments,” he continues.
“I arranged many songs, but for the most part, it was me just being there to witness their process and understand what is important about these songs and what are they changing in terms of the production and feel of them. It allowed me to get to know those songs on such an intimate level. I then started to find little things, whether it was a melody in this part of the song that has this shape to it, because maybe that shape might be interesting for a theme in the overall story.”
“The big, bold, and exciting instrumentation in songs like What About Love? was designed to represent the internal side of Celie’s experience. It was going to be representative of her internal world. You realize her sense of dread and loneliness after the joy.”
“Trying to figure out how to get to this big emotional place led me to start thinking about how musicals work and how those songs come out of height and emotion. We talked so much about imagination, the vastness of this movie, and the epicness of this version of this story.”
One of Paul Massey’s, the re-recording mixer, tasks was to “match the production dialogue with the ADR dialogue and into the vocal singing.”
“The aim is to try and make the match as seamlessly as possible. Then, as the song progresses, you can use a transition point of a chorus or whatever to then go into full quality vocals from the recording studio.”
“It’s also about tone. Can you understand the tone the director has? You’re in a world where you’re taking everything in. And all we were trying to do was to stay grounded, real, elegant, and natural.”
Editor Jon Poll comments, “One thing I like about this movie is that you always keep it tethered. We’re always drawn into the story from Celie’s point of view, and yet, you’re also federalizing all of these other points of view. It’s a sprawling story with a lot of characters and it takes place over a long period of time. So, it’s tricky balancing all that in the editorial process and keeping your eye on the ball in terms of where the point of view needs to be at any given point in time.”
Celie clearly dominates the story, since it’s mainly told from her perspective. “Yet we have these two other women, Shug and Sophia, who take the movie for a little bit. It’s unusual, but those two women play such a big role in Celie’s life. She would not be the person she is at the end of this movie were it not for them. And, as strong as they are in their presence in the film, and they take the baton from Celie for a bit, they support her.“
